By Joe Rinaudo

CHAPTER 1  CHAPTER 2  CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4    CHAPTER 5

Chapter 6

The next several months working at Dave’s shop was my trial-by-fire learning experience on how to restore an American Fotoplayer. Dave’s knowledge of pneumatic (bellows) design and restoration was vast and it was hard to wrap my brain around this unique technology. I had so many questions on the basic mechanics of the Fotoplayer that the task of restoration was (in my mind) to say the least, daunting!

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Every day (when I was not working at my job) was spent traveling the 11 miles to Dave’s house with a new restoration project for my Fotoplayer. Sometimes I would stay as late as 11:00 p.m. (as my passion to finish the project was very high). On several occasions Dave would invite me into his house for dinner or bring me a hamburger while I was working in his shop. Dave’s wife, Jennifer, was a great cook and made the best spaghetti and meatballs! After dinner Dave would show me how to restore the tracking devices (the things that made the piano roll line up evenly with the holes on the piano’s tracker bar). The tracker bar is the brass bar on the piano that has holes in it that must line up correctly with the holes in the paper piano roll.  We also restored the wind motors (which drive the piano roll over the tracker bar). In a Fotoplayer there are two trackers and two wind motors as a Fotoplayer has to have one for the top and bottom tracker bars. Several more weeks were spent restoring all of the related pneumatics that regulated the speed and volume of the piano as well as the expression pneumatics and control linkage which gave the operator full control of the piano’s performance.

This shows the double roll playing mechanism, used on all American Fotoplayers. The tracker bars are the horizontal brass items in the center. All the pneumatics were rebuilt at Dave’s shop. Wine-colored motorcloth was used to restore the bellows.
But electric blue pullcords? Read on…

During a recent show I had pulled on the original leather cord and it snapped, somersaulting me back over the seat and onto the floor. Then it happened again with another cord (this time there were no acrobatics). Replacement leather pullcords were not to be found, so I asked around what material to use so the cords wouldn’t break, and the solution was mountain-climbing rope, and the only color available was vibrant blue. (I could pull with a force of 2500 pounds and it would not snap.) That remained on the Fotoplayer until I finally found the same rope in black, which has been crashing symbols and activating other sound effects to this day. Leather cord (strong enough for the purpose, anyway) simply doesn’t exist anymore.

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Working at Dave’s shop was usually an interesting experience. His work bench, which sat in the middle of his shop, was always piled high with so many projects and tools that it was almost impossible to find any place (on it) to work. When I would arrive with my next project and ask Dave “Where might I work?”  he would always say (with a sly smile), “On the bench of course.” This meant my time would be spent excavating a small clearing in the mountain so I would have a small cavity to work in. This also meant that I would have to ask Dave where this tool, wood, cloth or glue bottle should go. Pretty soon I knew where items should live and would automatically perform this daily duty. Of course, when I would return the next day, my clearing would be gone! Like the shifting sands of the Sahara my work space would be only a memory.  Sometimes I think that Dave liked having me at his shop for two reasons. Reason one: to make a “clearing” for him to work in when I was not there. Reason two: To put his tools away!

This is Dave’s workbench today. Nothing’s changed in over 45 years, except it was piled even higher back then.

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I remember that one day while I was working in the shop with Dave, the phone rang. I watched as Dave answered the call and listened for a short time then put the phone receiver down on a table and went back to work. After a few minutes he would go back to the phone pick it up off the table listen for a while and say “uh- ha” and put the receiver back on the table. I could hear someone talking very loudly on the phone while Dave was elsewhere in the shop working on something. After a few more minutes Dave would pick up the receiver and listen for a while then say “uh- ha, uh- ha, oh!” then put the receiver back down and make a pot of coffee (Dave always had a pot of coffee brewing in his shop).   This process with the receiver would be repeated a few more times. Then Dave would pick up the receiver and say, ”I gotta go! The shops on fire!” With that he would say a few more uh-ha’s and hang up the phone!  I said, “What in the hell was that all about?”  Dave told me that it was a customer who could talk nonstop forever and a day without taking a breath! Dave told me that the caller was a good customer and Dave didn’t want to insult him by trying to get off the phone too quickly. I asked Dave how did he know how long to make the intervals before he came back to listen? Dave said that this guy always asks the same question three times in three slightly different ways. “So, I listen in every 4 minutes or so to get the idea of how much longer the ordeal will last.” I then asked, “Have you ever been caught by not getting back quickly enough?” Dave said no, that he always positioned the work that he would do (while he was away) near enough to hear if the talking ever stopped. If it ever did, he said that he would rush back and wing it!

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Dave and Jennifer had a little Pekinese dog named Tinker. Of course, Dave called her Stinker, my peek-and-sneeze! Sometimes in the wintertime, when I would be working late in the shop, Tinker would come in silently and lay on my feet. She kept my feet warm. I guess Tinker thought my feet seemed better than her dog house. This was mutually beneficial for both of us.

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One time while I was working in Dave’s shop alone while he ran an errand. An older man walks into the shop, and without saying a word begins wiping saw dust off the table saw and then starts quietly sweeping the entire shop! Since the man never introduced himself, I thought it would be only fitting to inquire as to the purpose of his efforts. The man said that his name was Jim Sloan. Jim was Dave’s neighbor who was retired from the movie industry. So, when he was bored he would come over to the shop to clean and organize. Jim said that he knew that he always had a job at Dave’s shop. Jim said that the general confusion of this place guarantees him a lifetime of work! Jim had a funny accent. I asked him where he was from. Jim said that he was born in Minnesota. He said that his father had a general store and Jim always had chores to do like stocking shelves or chopping several cords of wood during winter for the store’s potbellied stove which was located in the middle of the store. He said that he had this work ethic which kept him always wanting to do something with his time.

I asked Jim what part of the movie industry he was in. He said that he was an assistant cameraman at M.G.M. Studios. I asked how did he get his start. Jim said that in the 1930’s he was the register boy at the sign in shack at the M.G.M. studio main gate. I said “You must have some interesting stories about your work.” Jim said that he got to meet some very famous actors at the sign in shack. I said that I love Laurel & Hardy and that I knew that the Hal Roach studios (which was next door to M.G.M.) used some of the sound stages at M.G.M. to film some of the Laurel & Hardy films. Jim said that one day he was at his sign-in station and here comes Laurel & Hardy in full costume! He said that they were in line with everybody else and when it came to their time to sign-in they caused quite a funny commotion. First Ollie comes up to the register, takes off his hat, twiddles his tie and smiles at the young Jim. With the other hand he takes the pen and with a great swirling of it in the air begins to sign with great flourish while Stan is dumbly looking on! Now everybody in the shack is laughing! When it is Stan’s time to sign, Stan looks puzzled at the prospect and begins to grab the log-in register and stares intently at it. Ollie slaps him on the shoulder and motions Stan to remove his hat. More laughing from the crowd. Stan removes his hat and begins a struggle with his body to get into just the right position to sign. The gyrations and contortions keep up so Stan can obtain just the right position to make what seems will be the signature of the century! With that he turns to a new page and drops a huge ink blot on it from the fountain pen. Rips out the damaged page placing it in his pocket and looks around sheepishly (hoping that no one is looking). Then proceeds to make a giant “X” on the new page. By this time Jim and everyone was laughing so hard that Laurel and & Hardy knew it was now time to make their exit. So, they tip their hats and slowly back out the exit door and then run away! Jim said “They were funny bastards! The funniest bastards that I had ever known!”  

By this time Dave had returned and the mood was what did get done in his absence? I was beginning to learn that being at Dave’s shop is teaching me more than just how to restore a Fotoplayer.

To be continued…

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Do You Have
— 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!