The Million Dollar Theatre pages: history | vintage exterior views | recent exterior views | ticket lobbies | lobbies and lounges | vintage auditorium views | recent auditorium views | booth | stage | orchestra pit | basement areas |
A construction view showing the booth front after the balcony concrete pour. It's a photo from the September 1919 issue of Popular Mechanics. The caption:
"...the Fireproof Projecting Room, Built in the Concrete Arch Which Forms the Theater Balcony. Steel and Asbestos Doors Protect the Audience from Fires or Explosions in This Room. It is Placed So that It does Not Obstruct the View of Those Sitting Behind It. The Room is Ventilated by a Flue, Which Also Serves to Carry Away the Fumes Which Result from Heating the Film in the Projecting Machines."
That opening above the booth ceiling is the vomitory
down to the center of the domed balcony lobby. When you come out into
the balcony crossaisle you're standing on the top of the booth. Thanks to theatre historian Ed Kelsey for sharing the Popular Mechanics article from his collection.
This
balcony location has the advantage of eliminating the keystoning you'd get from a booth at the top of the balcony. The downside to a position this close to the screen would have been
shallower depth of focus. For a picture of a given size, the closer you
are to the screen, the shorter the lens focal length. The difficulty of
keeping a picture in focus would have been more critical in the days
before water cooled heads and dichroic lamp reflectors.
The oft
mentioned "advantage" of getting a brighter picture with a shorter throw
is fallacious. The brightness is determined by aperture size,
illumination from the lamp, speed of the lens and size of the screen. This booth location wasn't duplicated at Grauman's Metropolitan in 1923. There the booth ended up at the top of the balcony with a very steep angle and an exceptionally long throw. However, the layouts at the Egyptian and Chinese were similar to the Million Dollar in providing an optimum angle.
The operators in the booth. The photo is from an article in the December 10, 1921 issue of Exhibitors Trade Review. It's on Internet Archive. The article discusses the fact that Sid Grauman didn't lose sight of the booth in planning his theatre. It mentions a high ceiling (!) and ample dimensions but omits any discussion of the unique location inside the balcony.
Original equipment included Powers 6B Cameragraph projectors and with type E lamps with Enterprise Arc Controllers attached. Also provided was a Powers dissolving stereopticon and a Powers spotlight. Arc power was from a 90 amp Westinghouse motor-generator set. The booth switchboard had double throw switches enabling operation from either the generator or city DC power.
A lovely 2008 shot of the front of the booth taken from the house left organ chamber. Thanks to Rafael Takano for his photo on Flickr.
A peek in one of the ports. Thanks to Leticia Galvez Aranda for her 2016 photo, one appearing in her Million Dollar photo set on the LAHTF Facebook page, most of them views she took during the 2016 "Night On Broadway."
It appears that this riser had to be chopped off to make room for the current port configuration. The current projection angle is a bit steeper than it was in 1918 due to the screen being farther downstage. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012
Getting inside:
Here we're looking up the center vomitory toward the lower level of the balcony. Both of those white framed doors you see at the sides of the vomitory lead to corridors down to the booth. The left one, in addition, gets you into the area that's the booth's ballast resistor room behind the display area on the house left side of the lobby. The grille at right goes to a space that was once a snack bar. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012
If you continue into on into the auditorium you end up at the lower balcony crossaisle. At center, you're standing on top of the booth. The aisle slopes up a bit at center to give more headroom in the booth below.
From the center balcony vomitory, if you go through the right door, you're looking down this corridor to the booth. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012
To the left of the left hallway we get this look into an electric room. In addition to storage there are rectifiers and an old ballast resister setup. We're inside the balcony structure looking to house left. Photo: Bill Counter - 2019
Looking back toward the hallway. Through the left doorway and a bit to the right is the door out to the center balcony vomitory. The booth is down the corridor to the left. The cabinet holds switches once used to regulate the amount of ballast resistance for the arc lamps. A couple resistors can be seen above the cabinet.
Off to the right via the added doorway and temporary steps is a display area visible from the balcony lobby. A temporary wall has been added cutting the area's depth. The theory is that the space was once an lounge alcove off the lobby. Note the old motor-generator set beneath the stairs. Photo: Bill Counter - 2019
Projectors: 2 Simplex XL
Soundheads: Simplex 5 star with red LED conversion, Dolby Digital
Processing: Dolby CP-65, CP-650 processors
Lamps: Xenon, LP Associates - 4200 watt lamps
Bases: EPRAD SWORD transports. They're designed for 40" reels, feed on the left side, takeup on right. 2,000 foot reels are generally used for screenings.
Stage speakers: The three stage channels use JBL 2306T horns with 2446H drivers. The LF cabinet on the center channel is a JBL 2548 with 2 15" speakers. LF for left and right channels are two JBL 4507 cabinets per channel, each with a 15" speaker.
Throw to screen: Charles Beardsley in his Grauman book "Hollywood's Master Showman" lists the throw at 67.'
The somewhat stripped-out booth in 2006. Those are the same EPRAD bases in use currently but here the heads are Supers instead of XLs. Thanks to Rafael Takano for his photo on Flickr.
A view of the booth in 2009 after a bit of an equipment upgrade. Projectionist Mark Wojan, at the left, is working a screening of "Buck Privates." The photo by Larry Underhill appears in a 23rd Annual Last Remaining Seats album on the L.A. Conservancy Facebook page.
A January 2012 look at the booth with projectionist Tom Ruff running "Paths of Glory." It's a photo by Iris Schneider with a post on the L.A. Observed Night Visions series.
A look toward the front wall of the booth with veteran projectionist Tom Ruff in action at a UCLA/LAHTF film screening of "Taxi Driver." Photo: Stephen Russo - LAHTF Facebook page - 2012
The right Simplex XL projector with a Simplex 5 Star soundhead. Photo: Bill Counter - 2012
The view out a porthole with Marilyn on the screen. The film was "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," screened along with "Bus Stop" on March 12, 2012 as part of the UCLA Film Archives / LAHTF series March 14, 2012. Thanks to Michelle Gerdes for her photo.
A look in from the left hallway. Thanks to Star Foreman for her photo, one of 54 that once appeared with "Million Dollar Theatre Tour," her 2013 L.A. Weekly article publicizing a LAHTF "all-about" tour of the building.
Looking over at the south side of the booth. Thanks to Sandi Hemmerlein for the photo. Her Million Dollar Theatre photo essay on the blog Avoiding Regret details her adventures at the 2013 LAHTF "all-about" tour where she explored interesting corners of the theatre.
The view toward the screen during the March 2013 LAHTF/Cinespia screening of "Blade Runner" as a benefit for marquee improvements at the theatre. It's a Kelly Lee Barrett photo, one in an album of 65 shots detailing the event on the Cinespia website.
A view from the booth's left entrance. Photo: Michelle Gerdes - July 17, 2021
| Downtown: theatre district overview | Hill St. and farther west | Broadway theatres | Spring St. theatres | Main St. and farther east | downtown theatres by address | downtown theatres alphabetical list |
| Westside | Hollywood | Westwood and Brentwood | Along the Coast | [more] Los Angeles movie palaces | the main alphabetical list | theatre history resources | film and theatre tech resources | theatres in movies | LA Theatres on facebook | contact info | welcome and site navigation guide |
No comments:
Post a Comment