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Fox Wilshire/Saban Theatre: the projection booth

8440 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211 | map |

Pages about the Fox Wilshire/Saban Theatre: history + exterior views | lobby areas | recent auditorium views | vintage auditorium views | stage | booth |  
 

1930 views:


A 1930 Mott Studios look at the booth from the California State Library collection. It appears in their set #001443784 with seven other photos.

The riginal booth equipment included 3 Super Simplex projectors with Western Electric soundheads and WE Universal bases. The lamphouses were by Hall & Connolly. That's a Brenograph at the far end of the booth. 
 
Projection angle: 13 degrees, according to F.H. Richardson. He visited the newly opened theatre in 1930. His report about several L.A. area theatres was in the November 8 issue of Exhibitors Herald-World. It's on Internet Archive.  
 
Throw: about 165'. 



The house left end of the booth showing the houselight dimmers and generator controls. The 1930 Mott Studios photo is one of eleven photos in the California State Library set #001443449. The two photos here on this page are the Library's only booth views.



A detail of the Westinghouse board from the previous photo.
 
 
CinemaScope in 1953: 

The Fox Wilshire was the third house in the Los Angeles area to play CinemaScope. "The Robe" had opened at the Chinese on September 24, 1953. Installation #2 was the Los Angeles Theatre. It got "The Robe" on October 30, 1953. The Fox Wilshire was the third house to play the process. It hosted the premiere of "How To Marry a Millionaire" on November 4, 1953. Installation #4 was the Warner Downtown, known by then as the Stanley-Warner Downtown. It ran "How To Marry a Millionaire" beginning November 11, 1953.
 
 
Getting Simplex 35/70s in 1959:  
 
The theatre got a major renovation and 35/70 Simplex XLs were installed along with a Simplex 6-4-1 sound system. The project was discussed in "Fox West Coast Does It Again!," a three page spread in the April 11, 1960 issue of Boxoffice. See the full article on the history page. The screen, with a shallow curve, was out in front of the proscenium. Boxoffice reported the screen size to be about 28' x 60'. The first 70mm film for the house was the exclusive premiere run of Disney's "Sleeping Beauty," opening January 29, 1959.

At the time of the Fox Wilshire installation the only other 70mm equipped houses in L.A. were the Egyptian (1955, with Norelcos for "Oklahoma!") and the Carthay Circle (1956, with Norelcos for "Around the World in 80 Days"). The downtown United Artists also had Norelcos for "Oklahoma!" but the equipment was removed after the end of that run. Later in 1959 Fox West Coast put Simplex 35/70s in the Vogue Theatre and RKO put Norelcos in the Pantages. In 1960 the Ritz on Wilshire got a Norelco installation by Mike Todd, Jr. In 1961 Stanley-Warner installed Norelcos in the Warner Hollywood and Fox put a set of Simplex 35/70s in Grauman's Chinese. Another Fox house, the 5th Avenue in Seattle, got Simplex 35/70s in 1962.  
 
The Fox Wilshire had a run of "Solomon and Sheba" in 70mm in 1959. The theatre played a number of long-running reserved seat 70mm engagements including "Exodus" (1960), "Sound of Music" (1965), "Sand Pebbles" (1966), "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1967), "Star!" (1968), "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1969), "Fiddler on the Roof" (1970) and "Man of La Mancha" (1972).
 
Simplex 35/70s were available as early as 1957. The first ones were "hand-built" conversions of regular XLs by Howard Straight. He had done a 65mm XL conversion in 1956 to run dailies for "Raintree County." Later Panavision set up an assembly line to produce them with 65/70mm kits that they manufactured. These prototype machines that went to theatres had mag penthouses by Magnasync. 
 
It was a project that evolved out of Panavision's work on "Raintree County." That film was shot in MGM's Camera 65 process, later rebranded as Ultra Panavision. It never got exhibited in 70mm, partially because at the time all theatres that had the necessary equipment were booked with TODD-AO product.

 

A shot of one of Howard Straight's XL conversions with a Magnasync mag head in an unidentified booth. Thanks to Gordon McLeod for spotting this on page three in the Ultra Panavision Wing of Martin Hart's Widescreen Museum site. The lens in the photo is a Panavision Ultra Panatar anamorphic. Also see the site's Camera 65 page. This photo had appeared in the November 1957 issue of International Projectionist. A November 1, 1957 Film Daily story detailing the XL conversion process: 

"The New Panavision-Simplex 35 and 70 Conversion - PANAVISION INC. has successfully converted the Simplex XL projector to a 35-65-70 mm machine. Originally engineered by the Projection Department of the M-G-M Studios, the XL conversions have been put on a production line basis by Panavision, according to George S. Case, projection supervisor for Panavision. Stock Simplex XL projectors are put into the Panavision precision machine shop where they undergo over 75 machining operations and have nearly 200 specially designed parts put into them. Items such as an enlarged three-wing shutter, double duty drive and intermittent sprockets, and 65mm or 70mm film gates are included in the conversions. 

"Case stressed the fact that changing the projector from 35mm to 65 or 70mm takes only 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the dexterity of the projectionist. The operation consists of exchanging the film gate, shifting the position of the film idlers and, of course, replacing the lens. The projector is threaded and operated in the conventional manner, whether it is set up for 35mm or 70mm. The film gate is reported to incorporate several unique features to insure absolute steadiness of the projected image. The film trap is water cooled to minimize focus drift; a curved shoe is included to prevent film buckling; tension on the film while passing through the gate is adjustable in order to eliminate vertical jiggle; and two sets of guide rollers are provided to stop side weave. 

"The Panavision XL conversion is equipped with an entirely new 'penthouse' magnetic sound reproducer which was designed by Magnasync of Burbank, California. The penthouse will reproduce 6 channel magnetic sound on 70mm prints and four-channel or single-channel magnetic sound on 35mm. Magnasync engineers worked closely with Panavision in the development of this first combination penthouse ever manufactured. 
 
"The unit bolts onto the XL conversion between the upper magazine and projector head. 'Thousands of hours of both 35mm and 70mm projection have been logged on the XL conversions at both M-G-M Studios and Panavision and the performance of the machines has been outstanding,' according to Case. It is understood that the total cost of new XLs plus the conversion will be within the reach of most exhibitors interested in roadshow operations. Conversion cost is approximately $6,000." 
 
Later the 35/70 Simplexes were produced by General Precision Laboratories, the company that owned Simplex/International Projector Corp. at the time. See a 1960s brochure for a production model of the Simplex 35/70 down at the bottom of the page.  
 
In 2024, shortly before his death, longtime theatre equipment dealer and service tech John Eickhof discussed the Simplex 35/70s and Howard Straight: 
 
"I knew him, from early 1980s until his death. He was well known in the industry and had Straight Industries from the late 1940 into the 70s. He made custom studio projection and process projectors, etc. He was close to people at Simplex and General Precision Laboratories. When 70mm hit the scene Howard had experience in the initial design of the XL 35mm and naturally took grasp of making a 65mm studio machine. What I was told by him was that he made approximately two dozen hand-made 35/70s to test with in the mid-to-late 1950s. After a year or two of field testing in theatres, the finished models went into production at GPL (by that time General Precision Laboratories had bought out International Projector Corporation from National Theatre Supply and Singer). 
 
"Anyway, after his prototypes were put through their paces, he went to New York and supervised production for a few months. Then the GPL people went on from there. I believe the prototypes were made in 1957-58 but can't pinpoint that. I have had two in my possession through the years and the last one I worked on and installed was at the Wilma Theatre in Missoula, MT. It has been, since digital, removed and unfortunately destroyed. Only a handful survived, mostly back east and a couple in LA area. I was lucky to be given Howard's personal machine shop tools when he passed. I still have his personal lathe, mill and the tools plus a lot of rough castings of parts for the XL."
 
 
Norelcos replace the Simplexes: It's unknown when this happened or what the reasons were. The Simplex sound system installed in 1959 was later replaced with an Ampex system.
 
A similar changeout of projectors happened at the Chinese in 1961, in that case only months after the Simplex 35/70s had been installed. They had run the 70mm version of "The King and I" on the Simplexes for five weeks beginning May 9 and then had Norelcos installed prior to the December 13, 1961 opening of "West Side Story." 
 
The Norelcos that were in the Fox Wilshire came out when Mann closed the theatre in 1978. Bill Gabel notes that in the 1990s they ended up at the Four Star. That house had been 70 equipped earlier but United Artists had pulled the machines out in 1973 when they sub-leased the theatre to the Mitchell Bros. The second "Fox Wilshire pair" at the Four Star ended up at the Warner Grand in San Pedro.   


Current booth equipment: The current equipment was installed in 2014.

Film Projection: There are 2 Simplex 35/70s and a Christie Autowind platter system. There's Dolby Digital, analog Dolby optical, 4 track mag and 6 track mag capability. Processing is via Dolby 650 and 750 units. Three Crown DS 1000 amps are in the booth for balcony surrounds, the other amps are backstage.

Screen: The current 20' x 46' screen hangs about 3' upstage of the asbestos.
 
Digital Projection: A Christie Solaria Series 4K CP4220 (22K lumens) is on the balcony rail. The throw to the screen is approximately 70'. 

Followspots: 2 strong Xenon Super Troupers



Booth access is via doors at the top of the balcony leading to stairs to either end of the booth. Here we're peeking in from the top of the house left stairs. At the left it's a switchboard section that replaced the dimmerboard. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018
 
 

Looking back down the house left stairs to the auditorium. On the screen it was a test pattern as they were getting set up for a film night. Photo: Bill Counter - March 2024



A Brenograph in a storage room on the east side of the stairs. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018. By the time of a 2024 visit the room had been cleared out with the Brenograph gone and the two carbon arc Super Troupers repositioned along the booth back wall. 



Looking across at the 2 Strong Super Troupers and, in the middle, the 2 Simplex 35/70s. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018 



A better view of the rear of Simplex machine #1. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



 Looking across the platter to the amp racks in the corner. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



The rack in the center of the image is from a Simplex optical system from the 40s that replaced the original Western Electric equipment. In 1953 there would have been a 4-channel mag update before the November premiere of "How To Marry a Millionaire." Beyond is one of the Ampex racks installed when the 1959 vintage Simplex 6-4-1 system of 1959 was replaced. The rack for the power amps has been removed. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



In the Ampex rack are preamps for 4 and 6 channel mag, a Dolby 650 processor, a THX unit used as a monitor amp, a Dolby 750 Digital processor, 4 Crown amps used for balcony surrounds and, at the bottom, an Ampex exciter supply. On the gray panels in the middle are the old Ampex Ledex switches for changeover and format selection. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



Looking back across the booth to where the dimmerboard for house lights used to be. To the right of that switchboard is an inverter for backup power for the house lights. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



Machine #2 with a Dolby Digital head on top of the mag head. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



The Simplex 6 track/4 track mag head. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



The 35/70 projector head, here set up for 35mm. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018



The optical soundhead. Note the bypass rollers to thread 70mm around to the right. Photo: Bill Counter - 2018

Pages about the Fox Wilshire/Saban Theatre: history + exterior views | lobby areas | recent auditorium views | vintage auditorium views | stage | back to top - booth |  
 
More information: Other Simplex 35/70 installations in the area include the Writers Guild Theatre in Beverly Hills, installed when the house opened in 1970. There's a set in the Steven Ross Theatre on the Warner Bros. lot. For several years there was also a set used at the drive-in behind the Hollywood Legion Theatre. Those two are now in storage. The AMC Universal had 6 of them in its four 70mm equipped houses when it opened as a Cineplex-Odeon venue in 1987. The one remaining 5-perf 70 house there now has a Century. 
 
A 1960s brochure for Simplex 35/70 projectors, a model after it had become a production item for Simplex/General Precision: 
 


 
Thanks to the site Film-Tech for sharing this. See several discussions about the machines in the forum pages on the site: thread 1 - Simplex vs. other 35/70s | thread 2 - more discussion | thread 3 - trap rollers | thread 4 - loop sizes, etc. | 1985 35/70 instruction manual pdf | pdf of the brochure above |

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