Big-Screen Video for $1,600 Homemade Theatre TV Goes Into Iowa Quonset By RUSS SCHOCH MEDIAPOLIS, IOWA—A small, quonsethut theatre in this southeastern Iowa town of 900 is the first film house in the state— and perhaps the midwest—to screen television broadcasts. Through an elaborate receiving and relay setup, owners of the 450- seat Swan Theatre can throw a 6x8-foot television image on the theatre screen. Projection of television programs admittedly is not yet perfect, but it does work. "There are plenty of bugs in it," explains I. R. Glesne, co-owner of the theatre. "But it certainly is a start." Glesne and his partner Mrs. Lillie Johnson were determined to show the people of the Des Moines county community "what television is—whether it came in good or bad." And they have attained that goal. The next step, said Glesne, is to improve the image and sound to the point where theatre patrons can view broadcasts as easily as they do a film. Glesne and Mrs. Johnson are the first to admit it will take time and work. "For some reason, about 50 per cent of the image and sound signal are lost in relaying the broadcast to the television projector and putting it on the screen," Glesne said. Most of the television broadcasts received here come from station WOC-TV in Davenport, 55 airline miles away. Occasionally, said Glesne, images are picked up from St. about 200 air miles away. Louis, •HOME SET' RECEIVER The theatre's basic receiving unit—similar to the ordinary home set— is located in the Swan hotel, also owned by Glesne and Mrs. Johnson, about 50 feet away from the steelsided quonset theatre building. Images and sound are received on the 36-tube basic unit just as they are on any set. But it's a long, complicated path from the set's screen to the big theatre screen. The original image is relayed to a special television projector in the theatre by about 150 feet of cables, which carry image and sound through conduits. The cables are piped in to the basement of the theatre, through the length of the building in under-the-floor tunnels, then up to control boxes in the projection booth. From the booth, the operator turns the television unit on and off, and controls the sound. But the television projector itself is not in the regular projection booth. When being used, it is placed on a stand 14 feet in front of the screen, just ahead of the front row of seats, and attached to cables. Glesne focuses and regulates the size of the image to be cast directly from the special projector. That's done simply by adjusting its five-inch television lens. Inside the specially built projector is a maze of tubes and wires—and one giant television tube which costs about $500 commercially. "The projector itself cannot receive the original image direct from the television station," Glesne emphasized. "It doesn't even carry the sound. It just picks up the image through relays." The complex setup is the idea and long, painstaking work of a prisoner in the Iowa state penitentiary at Fort Madison. Fred Threikeld, a 28-year-old inmate, built the outfit for the theatre as part of Warden P. A. Lainson's rehabilitation program. Permission for the special work was obtained last May from the state board of control, Glesne said, and the unit was installed recently. It was Threikeld, described by Warden Lainson as one of the best radio mechanics in the state, who brought television to the penitentiary's inmates long before it was seen by other lowans. "Our present goal is to provide our patrons with plus entertainment through television," said Glesne, a naval veteran of World War II and a relative newcomer to exhibition. FLEXIBLE SCHEDULES Since the Swan is a small town theatre which presents only two shows a night, its schedules are more flexible than those of big theatres, Glesne said. 'Whenever there is a good evening television program that everyone wants to see, the schedules can be adjusted to allow for broadcasts, Glesne explained. Although it has not been definitely shown that television has yet hurt theatre business, theatre owners are thinking ahead to the competition it will provide, Glesne said. And he believes the setup he is developing is an answer. It is, of course, an expensive answer—especially for the small theatre operator. Glesne's total cost so far has been no more than $1,600—but would have been at least twice that much if the equipment had been purchased on the commercial market, he said. Some radio companies have built projection units which cost up to $25,- 000, but they still are in the experimental stage and not on the general market, Glesne said. Because a clear, and at times near-perfect, image is received on the basic set in the hotel, Glesne believes most of the "bugs" are in the relay setup. "There is nothing wrong with the projector itself," he said. "Our trouble apparently is in wiring, or perhaps in installation. It's also quite possible that the steel sides of the theatre building are giving us trouble." Charles Skouros to Tour LOS ANGELES—To launch National Theatres' new 21 -week, eighth annual Charles Skouras Showmanship campaign, Charles P. Skouras, circuit president, Thornton Sargent, public relations director, and other NT executives, will plane out March 7. Skouras will speak first before the Fox Wisconsin division in Milwaukee March 10. The itinerary includes Fox Midwest, Kansas City, March 13; Fox Intermountain, Denver. March 15; Evergreen, Portland, March 17; Fox West Coast's southern California division, Los Angeles, March 21; and FWC's northern California division, San Francisco, March 22. Blames Columnists For Bad Publicity MILWAUKEE—The press with its colunrmists who place unnecessary emphasis on escapades of errant film players was taken to task editorially by the weekly Milwaukee Times in its current issue. The editorial directly accuses the gossip columnists and the practices of the press and radio of making these so-called escapades important. "We do not condone nor condemn the activities of persons, be they movie stars or ditchdiggers, when they overstep the bounds of propriety," the Times comments. No one would care what a ditchdigger does and nobody should care to much what a movie star does. The folks of the stage are not especially anointed." THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE "Just why, when people of the amusement world, public office or the underworld commit a moral offense, does the entire nation stand agog? The answer is simple. The very people who throw the rocks when they overstep the limits of propriety are the ones who made them important." The editorial says there is "nothing more obnoxious than the 'key hole peeper' of which we have a bumper crop. Newspapers and the radio chains have shoved into our homes 'syndicate experts.' They comprise the little army of mudslingers which has has fastened itself onto Broadway, Hollywood and bigtime centers." The Times contends that the very newspapers which now cry for the "chastisement" of stars "who have sinned" are the ones which, "day after day run these gossip colums detailing the private lives of actors and actresses. Usually the gossips aren't reporters but hacks. Most generally their own backgrounds aren't too sanctified. They thrive on smut and pass it into the homes via the newspaper column and the radio wave. They themselves bicker, battle and fume to get an 'exclusive' or a 'scoop' that doesn't amount to a hill of beans." ORIGIN.AL AND HALF-TRUTHS The Times says further that the public wouldn't be one whit the worse for it were they spared "this drivel, for most of it is conjecture, half-truth or out and out planted publicity. It is digested, mainly, by adolescents and morons or read for amusement by a few others." Were is not for these gossips, the Times further says, the public would never be apprised of "the moral decadence, if any" of the actors and actresses and the newspapers would ignore the "hot stuff " of the amusement world. "The columnists and commentators are not one whit better than the bad actors. He who writes dirt, revels in it," the Times said. MPAA Safety Record NEW YORK—None of the 400 film exchanges of the Motion Picture Ass'n of America member companies had any fire loss in 1949 for the fourth successive year, according to an MPAA conservation department report to Eric Johnston, president. It was the tenth in the 24 years since the department was set up that there was a fireless record. The average annual fire loss from 1926 to the end of 1949 is $202, a record probably not matched by any other industry of similar scope. 22 BOXOFFICE :: March 4, 1950
OAlL^A'i^ I nflA j^' uuuAR M^1« RE0ORD HOUHIP
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Two Actors Offer Help To Senate Can
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manager in YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'R
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as Increased Efficiency With Added
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A TEN-STRIKE IN CONVERSION Soufh-Si
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increasem Boxoffice Receipts^ WITH
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Putting the Parsley on Screen Prese
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! RECTIFIERS Fnr EvTT Siz9 Thcatrm
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NEW APPROACHES IN SALT LAKE CITY TH
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WHAT MAKES NAMA Makes Awards And Ap
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RCA Dealers to Market Typhoon Air C
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DO BUSINESS ALL SUMMER! New Detroit
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Iklmrncatii Girpiti lial OJi-!IMlEI
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Promoting Profits With Playgrounds
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A CHILDREN'S FAIRYLAND COME TRUE Th
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— Cleaners Who Work 'for Peanuts'
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High-Speed 16mm Lens P-381 In Produ
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— Fine — ATES: 10c per worcL mi