By Joe Rinaudo
Chapter 11
So now the year is 1977 and work on my Fotoplayer is going well. Fine-tuning the sound effects was quite a project. The American Photoplayer company used a slider mechanism that made the snare drum, thunder, castanet, and tambourine sound effects repeat (shake quickly). The trick is to make the effects repeat in such a way that when the button on the piano console is pushed down, to activate the effect, the person operating the Fotoplayer can give a little “English” to the performance. What I mean by English is that by just tapping the control button you can get one click or strike. Or by holding the button down you get a repeating sound from the effect. This gives the operator more control of how the sound effect can be used. Dave said that this simple adjustment was very important for musical as well as screen action purposes. This was very hard to set up. Because the valve, slider, return spring, and striker pneumatic all have to be in exact adjustment with each other to get the desired control of the sound effect. Speaking of English, the American-style 20 Photoplayer, in addition to the foot pedals and trap buttons, has eight pull cords. Each has its own unique pull to properly play the sound effect. The tom-tom drum, cymbal, chime, and crash cymbal have stops to prevent the over-pulling of the pull cord. Not only does this save the effect from damage but allows the beater at the end of the pull cord to properly “whip” the effect without blocking or resting against the effect which would mute the sound of the effect. These are what I call controlled pulls. Each has its own spring tension to allow the operator to give English to the performance but not allow the beater to block the sound of the effect by traveling too far. The other four are what I call “wild” pulls, these are used on the locomotive whistle, wind siren, bass drum, and gunshot. The gunshot should be the hardest pull possible to create the right loud “pop” sound but the other three allow, with the correct return spring tension, the operator the opportunity to pull hard or lightly depending on the mood/sound that is required. This has to be set up properly and the operator has to remember how to pull each cord to achieve the correct effect. Since the bass drum has no stop, care must be taken to properly play it.
When I was working at Glendale Memorial Hospital, in the food service department, I started dating a nurse. On a few occasions, she would accompany me on trips to Dave’s house. I had confided to her that Dave was lonely since his wife had passed away. My girlfriend said that one of her friends, also a nurse at the hospital, was in need of a boyfriend! So, we started double dating and had some fun times. On one such occasion, we decided to go to the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, California. This was a very wonderful place that shows silent movies with live pipe organ accompaniment. Since Dave’s new girlfriend had never seen or heard a real silent movie pipe organ, Dave thought that this would be a great way to expose her to something that he liked. This was to see just how compatible to his tastes that she might be. While standing in line, at the Music Hall, Dave spotted an old customer from the Carty Piano days. Dave took us over and introduced us to Mr. Cecil Dover. I found out that Dave had built/restored an O roll mortuary organ into an orchestrion that played the original pipes and piano with added xylophone, drums, and other traps like a triangle, castanets, etc. An O is the type of paper roll that makes the instrument play. Little did I know that this introduction would prove to be a very important one in the future direction that my life’s path would take!
Dave had a few other girlfriends since, due to the fact that she was not very enamored with pipe organs or silent movies. Dave moved on to meet other potential partners. In October Dave kept talking about a new lady that he had met at a Halloween party. He called her Joanie and she had met and loved his kids. After several dates with her Dave kept bragging how much he liked her. I asked when I might be able to meet her. Dave also wanted Joanie to see my Fotoplayer and then go out to dinner. I finally got to meet Joanie and demonstrate the Fotoplayer for her! She was quite amazed and delighted. I then realized that Dave had found a prize. We went to dinner at (where else) Mike’s Pizza which she also liked. I found Joanie to be kind, funny, and most of all, seemed to love Dave and his children very much. Joanie was of Irish, Polish, German, and Scottish ancestry, most of which were warring nations, and she was from New York! Because of this combination, Dave didn’t stand a chance! She had the amazing ability to keep Dave under control with humor and her ancestry’s determination. When Dave seemed to be acting up a little too much, all Joanie had to say, with her New York accent, was: “Alright, Hartman that’s enough!” It seemed to always work. Why didn’t I think of that?
It was now January 1978. After several dates and quality time spent with the new couple, I confided in Dave that I thought this new lady in his life was a “keeper”. Not only did Dave agree but said that Joanie had asked Dave: “Why don’t we get married?” Dave was reluctant to ask Joanie because of the age difference. Dave was several years older than Joanie. Dave thought what would she want with an old man like me? Well, as far as I was concerned age is only a number and since Dave never acted his age this was a match made in heaven.
In July of 1978, Dave told me that he and Joanie were going to Las Vegas to get married! After I had congratulated him, he asked me if I would like to go with them. I asked Dave “Why would you want me to go?” He said, “Because we need another witness and I need a best man!” Of course, I agreed as this was a big honor for Dave and Joanie to bestow on me! I found out that the second witness was Joanie’s sister Annie. A few days later all four of us piled into Dave’s old Chevy truck and off we went.
Photo by Z7 Arts
When we arrived in Las Vegas it was very hot. I noticed that when Joanie got out of the truck, her rear end was multicolored! Apparently, Dave’s kids had left some crayon shavings on the seat of the truck just in the position of Joanie’s rear end. Add some very hot weather, a long ride, and voila! Joanie’s introduction to motherhood! After meeting up with Annie we went to the courthouse where a justice of the peace performed the marriage ceremony. Later we went out for dinner at an inexpensive diner where we were met by one of Dave’s clients, Lennie Marvin. Lennie bought dinner for all of us. Lucky for Lennie it was inexpensive or maybe that is why he offered to pay! After dinner Lennie asked Dave when he was planning to pick up the gambling machines and deliver them to Lennie’s garage where he kept items that he rented out as movie props. Now, this was the first time that Joanie or I had heard of this! By the surprised look on her face, I don’t think that Joanie was very happy with this situation. I guess this is going to be a working honeymoon.
Dave and Joanie tie the knot in Las Vegas
The next day we went over to a warehouse owned by Mr. Roy Arrington. Lennie had purchased two upright gambling machines from the Arrington Auction house. The machines were destined to be used in a film shoot in California. Mr. Arrington cautioned Dave that these gambling machines are working. While they are legal to own in Nevada, this was not the case in California. If we got caught crossing the border with working gambling machines they would be seized by the authorities and destroyed! Anyone caught with one could be fined or spend time in jail. Waiting for us in Mr. Arrington’s air conditioned office, Joanie was not privy to this conversation about crossing the border. Dave told me that we should not say anything about this to Joanie. As Dave put it, “This is her special day and we don’t want to do anything that might upset her”. I told Dave that she would be more than upset if we got stopped! Dave told me that he had a plan. So, we put part one of Dave’s plan into action by covering the machines with a large tarp. Part two of his plan was to place a paper sign on the dashboard. This sign read, “Bud and Lou”. I said, “What the hell is that supposed to do?” Dave told me that this was the title of a film about the lives of Abbott and Costello that was in production. If we get stopped, he would tell the border guards that these are nonworking props for the film. Actually, the machines were to be used in another film. What a way to spend a honeymoon!
If I said that the ride back was uneventful, I would be right. Except for the fact that as we got closer to the border the more nervous, I became. So here we are approaching the California border and Dave seemed calm as a cucumber! Joanie, the oblivious bride, was happy and laughing at something that she was reading, and I, hoped that this was all a bad dream! Well, we are now in line and I can see up ahead that the border guards are stopping some vehicles and searching them! After I have spent some very tense moments we get stopped by a guard. He looks at the back of the truck then looks at Dave and asks if we have any fruit in the truck that we need to declare. Dave says no and he waives us on! After a few minutes, to collect my thoughts, I shouted: “Oh my God the sign worked?!” I looked over at Dave who just smiled. Then Joanie asked: “What sign?” Dave said: “The Bud and Lou sign on the dash. You remember the things in the back of the truck are for Lennie Marvin. He is renting them out for the film shoot.” Once again, Dave had pulled his fat out of the fire. Talk about dodging the bullet twice!
Being an avid film collector myself, I found out that Dave shared my passion for silent and early sound comedies. He would come over to my house to watch Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Mack Sennett, and many other old, silent, and sound, comedies that I had collected in 16mm. Dave had expressed an interest in having a theater at his house to show 16mm film as well. I was using a 1950s RCA 400 junior projector as they are very gentle on the older films.
RCA 400 Projector
So, I gave him an old RCA model 200 that I had gotten from an old RCA technician by the name of Mr. Nobel Hickie. Nobel was one of the original RCA Photophone technicians at the MGM Studios when sound first came to the movies. Nobel had worked there in the 1930s and he knew Stan Laurel! Stan had given Nobel an original derby that Stan had worn in the Laurel and Hardy films! This was always an item that I had to look at when I would go over to Nobel’s house.
Nobel had set up a small shop in his home and would fix RCA projectors and their amplifiers for 16mm film collectors. Dave and I would go over there to get our projectors worked on when there was something wrong that we couldn’t fix ourselves. Nobel was an invaluable source of knowledge and had a huge supply of new and old stock parts for the RCA 16mm projectors. He was also very inexpensive. This was something very important to a young film collector. I will always remember that when Nobel would test an amplifier that he had just finished, being a man of 80 years plus, he would remove his teeth then grab a microphone and make a loud raspberry spitting sound to prove that the amplifier was now in working order. He told me that without teeth he could make the raspberry sound to test his amplifier repair with better results! Once the raspberry sound boomed from the projector’s speaker then he knew that all was right with his repair.
RCA 201 Projector
Noble had worked for some famous people including actors. He said that in the 1940’s the best 16mm projector made was the RCA 201. This was a very heavy projector with a cast iron frame. The projector weighed about 65 pounds. It had a separate 20-pound speaker cabinet with a handle. They both had wooden skids attached to the bottom of both units so they could be thrown into a truck for transport. They were designed for military and industrial uses. These were very well-built projectors. They had a two-blade shutter which allowed more light to hit the screen. They had two large slow-turning sprocket wheels to control the film’s travel. This made them easier on film as opposed to other projectors that had several small fast-turning sprocket wheels (which can damage older film). They also had a 20-watt amplifier (as opposed to my RCA 400 which only had a 5-watt amplifier). Nobel had a few of the 201 projectors around his house and I asked if I could purchase one. He showed me two that had Otto K. Olesen brass plates on them. He told me that the Otto K. Olesen Company sold motion picture equipment to people in the film industry. Nobel was the RCA repairman for Otto K. Olesen. The two projectors were brought back to him a few years back because they were now too heavy for their owners to carry. One was owned by the actor Robert Young and the other was owned by cameraman James Wong Howe! Both of these men were friends of Nobel and wanted him to have them so he could fix them and sell them. I purchased both of them that day. After using them for a few weeks I was in love with them. So, I went back to see if I could purchase a few more! When I asked Nobel If he might have one or two more that I might buy he looked at me with a sly look and said, “Say boy you had better go easy on them!”. At twenty-seven years of age, I thought that this was a silly comment because they are easy for me to carry! Now, some 45 years later, I know what he meant! Those damn things are getting heavier with every passing year!
Otto K. Olesen Co. brass plate on a RCA 201 Projector
Since I knew a lot of places to purchase 16mm films, one being Blackhawk Films in Davenport, Iowa, Dave purchased some for his home theater. Dave’s theater was just the living room with the projector situated behind the couch. The living room was very small so with the projector, Dave, Joanie, me, and his two small children in the same room there was hardly any room for anybody else to sit and watch films. In no time at all, Dave had solved this space problem by punching a hole in the wall between the living room and the garage. By parking Joanie’s car in the driveway, the garage was now the projection booth and film storage area. Not to say that Joanie had any say in the matter but being good-natured she apparently went along with the plan for the new Hartman Theater. Now the couch could be placed tightly against the wall, that the projector was behind, giving more room for guests.
There were many happy times spent at Dave’s house watching films. It became a Friday night tradition at British Car Service (where I was working) to chug down some Micky’s Big Mouth beers and drive over to Dave’s house with Dick and Sallye Van Hoose (my boss and his wife) for an evening of fun with Dave and Joanie. The evening would start with Dick challenging me to another beer-chugging contest. Since I was already half in the bag from chugging a few at work on an empty stomach, I never realized that I was winning the contest every time because Dick would chug slower just to let me get loaded before dinner. Then we would all go to Mike’s Pizza and have dinner.
Mike’s Pizza in Van Nuys
I would usually eat a basket or two of the best garlic rolls on the planet. Followed by an Italian dinner salad and a medium pizza. All of this was washed down by one (or two) schooners of beer. The “schooner” was Budweiser on tap kept near freezing served in a pre-frozen 24-ounce goblet! By the time we got back to Dave and Joanie’s house, I was definitely feeling no pain! The evening would continue with us watching films into the wee hours. Dick and Sallye, yes, that’s how she spelled her name, would drive me home where I would collapse into bed and wake up the next morning feeling like, to quote W.C. Fields, “The next morning I felt like the entire Russian army had marched over my tongue with muddy feet!” Ah, to be 27 again! This is one of the reasons that in my later years, I gave up the art of drink!
To be continued…
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— EXPERTISE in NON-PROFITS? —
Joe Rinaudo, founder of Silent Cinema Society, is currently forming a non-profit which he calls SCAT —Silent Cinema Art and Technology — to fund the restoration and preservation of the actual machines and media of the silent era.
Advice and suggestions in the area of non-profits are most welcome. Contact Joe Rinaudo here.
Through Silent Cinema Society, which is comprised of you, the fans and supporters of silent cinema, Joe will continue to enlighten and entertain with The Newsreel newsletter; this Silent Cinema Society website; and hopefully soon, live shows where audiences are once again able to wear big hats that block the screen. SCAT, the non-profit, will also support Silent Cinema Society so that information and entertainment will continue to be presented to you, silent cinema fans. Lady, will you please take off that big hat!
