Desperately Seeking Projectionists, Part 1
A “Vitally Responsible Position” — Then and Now?
C. Francis Jenkins and Oscar B. Depue, Handbook for Motion Picture and Stereopticon Operators, Washington, D.C., 1908.
Moving Picture World, March 26, 1927, p.129. “The projector of early days was . . . a rather tiny affair.” The article points out that considerable change occurred for projectionists from 1908 to 1927 — but if that was a “far cry,” in the next century even more stark changes were yet to come.
“As a matter of fact, broadly speaking, we may say that the whole motion picture industry rests to a large extent on projection.” — F.H. Richardson, Motion Picture Handbook: A Guide for Managers and Operators of Motion Picture Theatres, 1916.
“The capable projectionist is not a mechanical worker whose duties are limited to loading the projector, and later placing the film back into the can. He is constantly improving his knowledge, interested in principles of electricity, heat, optics, lenses, light-and-shadow effects, photography, and light mediums. He is familiar with the almost countless parts of the very delicate mechanism, and he is using inflammable material, which, when carelessly handled can do untold damage and cause needless expense.” – Barry and Sargent, Building Theatre Patronage, 1927, p.397.
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“After making your way into the darkened movie house and having groped for and found your seat you sit back and relax and watch the silver screen. Have you ever thought of the man ‘up top’ in the projection booth who is making your enjoyment possible?” — “ ‘We’re a Dying Breed’ Says Movie Projectionist,” Examiner, July 31, 1963, p.23.
From the beginning, long before there were popcorn machines, there were projectionists.
New York Clipper, Sept. 1, 1906, p.748. Man needed, when motion picture theatres were just beginning to exist. Apparently it would help to be able to do sign painting.
Originally they were called “operators,” but by 1916 the motion picture industry was also using the term “projectionist,” though less frequently. The annual Peterborough directory listings provide a good example of the usage. The entries for names provide occupation, when known. The men doing this particular job in the commercial sphere (and the jobs were typically held by men) were cited as “opr” until 1924, when “projectionist” first appeared. After that, although the short term for operator continued to pop up (with a sighting as late as 1963), the designation of projectionist eventually won out.
Vernon’s City of Peterborough Directory for the Year 1909: the first sighting of a Peterborough theatre “operator.” Ernest Hannah, operator at the Royal, had previously been a theatre manager.
Vernon’s City of Peterborough Directory for the Year 1914, with Wm J Allen, “opr moving pictures.”
Vernon’s City of Peterborough Directory for the Year 1924, with Chas Tucker, “projectionist Grand Opera House.”
The operators worked in cramped quarters, at first in tiny, unventilated cabinets that might have been placed above the ground floor box office, and later high up at the back of theatre auditoriums. From their position they sent a steady stream of light out to the screen below — but there was so much more to it than that.
With the shift to digital projection in the twenty-first century, the role of projectionist is now mostly a matter of pushing the “Play” button — although digital technology is not without its own challenges and glitches. Movies are usually no longer the chemically based celluloid film per se and not so much projected as streamed using a hard drive of data and a computer system. Microchips are everything these days, along with microscopic hinges, countless pixels, and banks of lasers.
From “Floor Coverd [sic] with Sawdust Planks,” Examiner, Feb. 28, 1939, p.10. “ . . . a gurgle or two from the machine.” A reporter looks back at one of the city’s earliest cinema viewing experiences, this one involving the Wonderland theatre, c1907. The projector had “an annoying habit of breaking down at the most thrilling moment.”
Nowadays, in effect, films are projected by a computer, not a person. Much of the projectionist’s daily grind – and possibly boredom mixed with intense busyness – has disappeared. Indeed, projectionists themselves have tended to disappear: one study showed that in Britain between 2010 and 2012, with cinemas moving from film to digital projection systems, about 90 per cent of film projectionists became redundant. In the 1940s the United States offered jobs to more than 30,000 projectionists; by 2015 there were fewer than 5,000 across the country.
For over a century, though, the work was not just plentiful but also thoroughly mechanical, complicated, and varied — and often performed in the midst of unpleasant, often dangerous, conditions. As time passed, for those who managed to turn it into a career, the position could provide hard, steady, and perhaps even fascinating work for decades.
“Engineer Guy: Mechanics of a Projector,” YouTube video.
Long-time downtown projectionist Tom Vyse carefully checks out the film for the Canadian Images Festival, March 1978. Thomas G. Vyse worked as projectionist at theatres in Peterborough from 1970 to around 1988, including a stint at the Peterborough Drive-in. By 1979 he was at the Paramount and Odeon, where the Canadian Images festival screened some of its films. Canadian Images, F340_B37.
The varied tasks and concerns of the early projectionist. Richardson, Motion Picture Handbook, 1916, p.169.
Proprietors and projectionists and silver screens
Cherished Queen Mary Public School badge, c.1957. Author’s collection. In the 1950s Queen Mary Public School had one of the city’s best (and newest) auditoriums (used annually for the Peterborough Summer Theatre, among other events). Many a film was screened there, educational and otherwise. It had a projection booth high up at the back, with a separate entrance up some stairs from the lobby area; and students (like myself) could be trained as projectionists – and earn a badge.
In the beginning were the theatre proprietors — and sometimes, in the earliest days, they did everything themselves – including promotion, encouraging passersby to move in from the sidewalks, selling the tickets, and operating the projection equipment. Soon enough, though, they hired “operators,” who did a multitude of jobs.
From that time, despite war and pandemic, movie theatres have never quite gone away.
Moving Picture World, Oct. 22, 1910, p.949.
From the sawdust-covered floors of Wonderland to the multiplex stadium seating (and digital projection) of the Galaxy, projectionists have been a constant. They start the movies flowing, watch over them carefully as they run (we hope), and turn off the lights when screenings are over for the day.
Examiner, Jan. 16, 1908, p.6. The fire hazards of the new industry were widely known. Fortunately, this kind of event did not occur in Peterborough.
In the 115-plus years since motion picture theatres arrived in Peterborough, countless projectionists or operators have shone a strong if seemingly fuzzy beam of light on the initially blank screens of town – whether “thrown on” a large white board supported by stilts (outdoors in Jackson Park, 1905), a canvas or white linen bedsheet (Wonderland, 1907) — or, as the Royal advertised in summer 1909 for Sherlock Holmes, “It is one of the best detective stories so far shown on a moving picture curtain.” Later on it was a “gold fibre screen” (Royal Theatre, 1918), the up to date “Walker silver sheet screen, fashioned from a plastic moulded material” (installed at the Regent in March 1942), “the Plastic Moulded Screen to ease eye-strain” at the new Paramount in 1948, or the towering outdoor screens of drive-ins and the huge new cinemascope screens of the 1950s and 60s.
Projectionists often moonlighted at the theatres while holding down day jobs. Sometimes in the early years an operator doubled as a musician or the singer of illustrated songs. Operators would, at least in the early days, project stereopticon slides and manage a spotlight when required. In the nickelodeon era, an operator had to show illustrated songs while rewinding the film that had been just screened. The proprietors might have them taking tickets, serving as ushers, setting up promotional displays, or cleaning up after the show.
As historian Eileen Bowser points out for the early years: “The operator had to crank the machine by hand all day long, keeping an eye on the varying speed, the focus, and the amount of light, and nurse the worn and torn perforations through the sprockets.”
It was, especially at the beginning, not just a complicated but a dangerous job. The furnace-like heat generated by the machinery in the small booth, carbon dust from the arc lamps, and the then-unknown dangers of the asbestos that lined booths (for supposedly safety reasons) were all extreme hazards. Many a projectionist got hands or face burnt, or worse, as a result of the highly combustible inflammable nitrocellulose film – although there is no report of this happening in Peterborough.
Early on the conditions in small, cramped “machine cabinets” or “operator’s box” could be almost unbearable, and the operators had to contend with widely circulating film stock that had experienced wear and tear on its travels. They were in charge of ensuring that the individual frames of film could travel safely past the sprockets on the machine – in the earlier days making hasty splices with whatever they had at hand: straight pins or safety pins, wire, or even gum.
Daily Review, Aug. 17, 1912, p.1.
The danger associated with movie houses meant that projectionists had to be highly skilled laborers, with a bent for things electrical, an eye for detail, and a quick mind; and strong unions rose along with movies’ popularity. Back copies of International Projectionist, which started publishing in 1931, provide a glimpse into the guild mentality of the era. “Where several men are employed on a sound projection shift,” said an issue in October 1931, “it is necessary that there be a complete understanding between the men as to the work which each is to perform.” The phrase “several men” is key here, too: skilled trades, unionized or not, have tended not to be welcoming places for women. (In 2021 women still made up less than 4 per cent of skilled tradespeople in Canada.)
The multiple tasks of the operator/projectionist
Variety, Feb. 23, 1907, p.5. U.S. operators begin to unionize. Canadian operators soon followed.
Before sound movies came into theatres in 1929, the operator cranked the films by hand, setting the pace for the viewing – perhaps keeping a semblance of time with the music being played off to the side. The celluloid film arrived at the train station on reels in large, heavy, metal canisters (weighing 40 to 60 pounds), and the operator might have to go pick them up – and take them back after the shows. The job started out paying a low wage, but moving up to perhaps $15 to $25 a week in the early years (a singer and musician got $10 a week). Often a theatre employed youngsters who could be paid lower wages. Operators were the first segment of the new theatre industry to organize into unions.
By 1913 the culture of the motion picture as a mass entertainment outing – with its novel and sometimes suspect sensations – had been established. The province of Ontario had something like 323 moving picture theatres (with 4 of them in Peterborough, and over 80 of them in Toronto alone) — which meant that there were lots of jobs for operators. From around July 1912, partly to ensure safety, projectionists had to go through an examination in Toronto before getting an operator’s license. At first the license cost $1, but was soon increased to $5. The proprietor of a theatre had to pay a license fee for each projection machine used.
Daily Review, May 31, 1912, p.7. Apprentices can also work in the “machine cabinet” — with a July 10 Review editorial estimating that there were now about 260 men in Ontario qualified to operate the province’s 262 licensed moving picture projectors.
Examiner, Jan. 10, 1908, p.8. The Crystal required a new piano player to replace “the young lady pianist” who was leaving to go back home to Nebraska. The man who answered the ad, Herbert Birchall, would also take on work as an operator.
Examiner, Jan. 14, 1908, p.5. Herbert Birchall comes to the Crystal.
Examiner, March 7, 1914, p.1. Manager Herbert Clayton makes sure that the local organized labour movement (a good size of his potential audience) knows that he is doing his best to employ “union operators.”
At the small Princess Theatre (est. 1909), for example, the projector operator’s room was directly above the street-front box office. Lined with tin and asbestos (a standard fire-protection material with severe dangers that were not yet generally recognized), it was said to be “absolutely fireproof.” The picture machine was a new “Type B Edison,” which had the “unqualified approval” of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters. Even so, owner Stanley Coon had arranged to procure a “superior service of anti-inflammable film made by the leading producers of picture plays.”
Sometimes, at the request of management the projectionist would speed up his machine, or even cut reels from the feature, so that the “continuous” program could keep the largest possible number of people moving in and out of the theatre.
Union men — movie projectionists
Examiner, March 7, 1914, p.13.
In Theatres and Picture Houses, a book published in 1916 (when a moving picture was still often called a “play”), architect Arthur S. Meloy said of the projection booth:
Examiner, May 22, 1916, p.9. In wartime, a rare female manager, Mrs. S. Jones, reassures her patrons that she has a union operator, the best around.
“It is here that the operator holds sway, and the operator is the man on whose ability depends largely the proper rendering of the play; therefore the theatre owner should provide everything requisite to facilitate the work of the operator.”
Over the years in Peterborough hundreds of people – almost always men, at least at the mainstream cinemas – plugged away at these jobs, some for many long years. Over the decades the position was considered a “man’s job,” and as such tightly controlled by the projectionists’ union.
Kinematograph Weekly, June 24, 1915, p.18. A vintage cartoon exemplifying the male prejudice against women replacing men in cinema jobs — even amidst the shortage of male labour in the First World World. It is a section of a larger cartoon that shows women not doing particularly well in other cinema roles: bill stickers, ushers, “lady film agent,” and producer. Thanks to the Cinema Projectionist website for drawing this to my attention.
The few women who entered the projection booths would not surprisingly prove to be just as adept at the job as were men. With the male shortage prevailing in Britain during the Second World War, many women were able to get into “the box” — and became known (of course) as “projectionettes.” After that, in peacetime, at least a few women in Britain remained or found their way into the work. Still, women in the booth remained uncommon for decades. This image is a frame from the short film 24 Frames Per Century, dir. Athina Rachel Tsangar, 2013, a homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), in which “A pair of film projectors discuss their impending obsolescence.” From the montage film “Do Pay Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain,” Film School Rejects, De Filmkrant, YouTube.
Examiner, Sept. 1, 1917, p.17. The film stars are women — Norma Talmadge and Marian Sais — but the ad also emphasizes “union operators” and the “first-class Machinists.” Within a decade or so operators or projectionists would disappear from the publicity, becoming a kind of invisible presence in the booths high above the back of the new theatres.
Projectionists at work
In 1905 (according to local memory decades later), “the first operator of the projection machine” at outdoor screenings in Jackson Park – before there were motion picture theatoriums – was vaguely said to be a man named “Herb Fife.”
Herbert Fife and his wife Eliza in 1916. PMA Bio 17719 (Mr H Fife - 1916 Dec 23).
This would have been Herbert A. Fife, who worked at the Peterborough Light and Power Co., which organized the Jackson Park screenings under the auspices of the Peterborough Radial Railway Company.
Fife was born in March 1870, the son of Otonabee farmer John S. Fife and his wife Angelenia – and Herb had a more famous uncle: David Fife (1805–77), responsible for introducing the Red Fife strain of wheat to Canada, lived on a nearby farm.
By his twenties Herb was a sawmill employee in Peterborough. By 1897 he had secured a job as a lineman for the light and power company, where he stayed for years as a foreman and then electrical foreman. His work as projectionist in Jackson Park would have been a sideline to that job.
Herb Fife had transferred to Quaker Oats by 1920, remaining there as an electrical engineer until the end of that decade. Fife died in 1952 and was buried in Little Lake Cemetery.
He was, then, no doubt among the first of the highly skilled projectionists who also had day jobs.
Motion Picture News, Oct. 26, 1918, p.2718.
J.E.C. (Ernest) Hannah was a co-proprietor of one of the city’s earliest nickelodeons, Wonderland (est. 1907), and undoubtedly operated the projection equipment. He sold out his interest by January 1908, and in 1909 he was an “operator” at the Royal Theatre; he went to the Princess in 1910 (and sold it to Mike Pappas that same year). Hannah had experience working in picture shows in Toronto and elsewhere, and was described as a “first-class operator.”
At the Crystal (est. 1907, just after Wonderland), “the projecting operator” was Stanley S. Coon, who went on to help set up the Princess Theatre in 1909, with his father-in-law Wallace Edwards.
Coon retained proprietorship of the Princess for only a short while, and it quickly changed hands a couple of times (including being taken over by Ernest Hannah).
Other operators in the early years included a somewhat illustrious Herbert N. Birchall. In January 1908 the Crystal announced that it was engaging Birchall, a “celebrated English pianist,” at a large salary. Birchall had apparently “captured the gold medal offered by one of the leading Conservatories in England.” Born in England in 1882, he had sailed for Canada, final destination Peterborough, in 1907, giving his occupation as “joiner.” While it appears that music was his main driving force, by September 1909 he was also taking on the role of chief operator at the Royal. A man known for his friendly smile, Birchall did not stay long in Peterborough. By 1911 he was back in Toronto with his wife and young daughter and working full-time at a music hall; the family soon returned to England.
Review, Sept. 25, 1909, p.4. The operator Bartleman revealing the possibilities of the early motion pictures.
Another notable of that time was Milton Bartleman, head operator, Crystal, 1909–10. Born into a farming family in Bruce Township in 1882, he became, according to a perhaps somewhat hyperbolic September 1909 news report, “one of the most experienced operators and electricians in all Canada.” In early 1909 he was apparently “installing and operating moving picture places in Nova Scotia.” He came from Hamilton to arrive in Peterborough in September 1912, staying for only a short while – and also did more than simply operate a projector. He “installed the complicated and perfect electric system” at the Crystal; and in May 1910 he went on a mission to Toronto to find a new “moving picture machine” that could be used in the Grand Opera House. According to one glowing report, he proved to the Peterborough public just how good moving pictures could be.
G. Edward Hill also arrived from Toronto to take charge of the “operating room” at the Royal in June 1909. Things were now getting serious: Hill had a diploma (so the report said) from the Detroit Film Exchange Operating School, thereby “entitling him to operate a moving picture machine anywhere in the U.S. or Canada.” The Royal was now promising “good, steady pictures and no half-hour intermission” (presumably necessary before that for a change of reels).
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A scattering of others in the first decade: Russell Hannah (Princess, 1910); John N. Watson (Crystal, 1910); Jack Leonard (Red Mill and Royal, 1911–12); Henry Hudon (Royal, 1912); William Bailey (Royal, 1915, Empire, 1916); Lewis Thompson (Royal, 1909, 1910), Harold Warmington (Royal, 1909); and Hubert Spring (The Crystal, 1910, Princess, 1914).
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William J. Allen and Michael (Mike) Freeman were two of the most prominent operators in the 1910s. Allen worked regularly from 1912 to 1918, including stints at the Princess, Red Mill, Tiz-It, and, finally, the Strand in 1917–18. After that Allen appears to have retired and suffered from health problems; he spent his last year in the House of Providence and died on Dec. 30, 1921.
Freeman was born in Yardiki, Greece, in 1904 – there’s no record I’ve seen so far of his original Greek name – and he showed up in Peterborough around 1912–13. Not surprisingly, his Greek compatriot Mike Pappas hired him, and he worked steadily as a projectionist from 1914 to 1925 – the first six years at the Royal, then at the Allen when it briefly supplanted the Royal, and going back to the Royal when it returned for its final years from 1922 to December 1925.
In 1919, when he married Shirley Emily Cockerill, born in Northampton, England, Freeman gave his occupation as “cinema operator” (she gave hers as “house maid”).
After the Royal closed it appears Freeman was out of work as an operator in Peterborough, but he joined his fellow countrymen, the Yeotes Brothers, to work in their cigar and billiards shop on George St. He seems to have briefly set up on his own in 1930–31 with a hat cleaning and shoeshine shop on Charlotte St. – in a way harkening back to the earliest endeavours of the Greek newcomers to Peterborough in the first decade of the century.
Bottom, right column: the Peterborough operators labour contingent, 1956-57 Yearbook Canadian Motion Picture Industry, p.157.
Soon after that Freeman left Peterborough for a projectionist job in Port Hope at the new Capitol Theatre, which opened in August 1930 – and was one of the first theatres in Canada built expressly for the new talking pictures. A later account said Freeman was there from the first, and he remained at that job for years. In 1955 he was inducted into the Famous Players 25 Year Club – although still identified as a member of Peterboro Local 432 (serving on the executive with fellow projectionist Ernest Young). Mike Freeman died in Port Hope in September 1977; his wife Shirley had predeceased him, in 1959.
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In the second decade of motion picture theatres, operators included: Stanley Marshall (Empire, 1917, Strand, 1919); Clarence H. Perry (Empire, 1920–22); William H. Watson (Grand Opera House, 1920–21); Leonard Lush (Regent, 1924); Chas Tucker (Grand Opera House, 1924); and John Adamson (1922). Harry Ristow began working at the Capitol when it opened in 1921.
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The delegates to a convention of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Machine Operators of the U.S.A. and Canada in 1922 include John Adamson of Local 432 in Peterborough — though he was never listed in the city directories as an “operator.”
John Adamson, front row, centre.
To support his family, William (Bill) H. Taylor, born July 24, 1891, in Lennoxville, Quebec, got a job at the age of 13 at Canadian General Electric in Peterborough. About two years later he lost both legs in a railway accident. Some Peterborough men raised money to help him get artificial limbs. Bill didn’t take to the devices and instead began to wheel himself around on a little wagon propelled by hand, which he continued to do over the following years. Still at a young age, he began to hang around motion picture theatres and picked up some knowledge of projection. He apprenticed in Cobourg and worked as a projectionist for a short time in both Toronto and Peterborough in the 1910s. From about 1921 until days before his death in 1945 he worked in Cobourg, first for the Allen Theatre and soon for Famous Players Canadian when they took over the theatre and later established the new Capitol. As a sign of appreciation for his work and abilities, the company’s projection supervisor installed special equipment “to suit his requirements.” The image is from “Short on Legs, Long on Ability,” Motion Picture Herald, Nov. 14, 1936, p.36.See also “Famous Players Appreciate Services of Cobourg Operator,” Examiner, July 2, 1931, p.11.
Thomas James Stenton also projected films at the Capitol Theatre. Born in Peterborough in 1873, he lived in the city all his life and was employed for many years as a moulder at the William Hamilton Manufacturing plant. By the 1930s, nearing retirement, he was identified as a “relief projectionist” at the Capitol Theatre and by 1942 was doing the job full-time as assistant projectionist. But he must have been projecting films for years before that because a news item on his death in 1946 noted that for thirty years he had been secretary-treasurer of the local branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Motion Picture Machine Operators of the U.S.A. and Canada. He is listed in International Projectionist, June 1932, as a representative for Peterborough’s Local 432 at the recent convention in Columbus, Ohio. Well known as an expert in theatre lighting and equipment, Stenton had attended many conventions in U.S. and Canadian cities and had “a wide circle of friends in that industry on both sides of the border.” In Peterborough he was a member of the Royal Arthur Lodge, A.F. & A.M., and worshipped at Murray St. Baptist Church. He died on Jan. 14, 1946, at the age of seventy-three.
Philip T. Gallagher began projecting films at the Regent in 1930, at age twenty-six or so. After the Regent closed he moved over to the Paramount, remaining there until his death in 1972, at age 67—68 – which adds up to forty-two years as a Peterborough projectionist. He was at the Regent in 1930 when the Exhibitors Herald-World presented the theatre with a special plaque in honor of its “perfect reproduction of sound films.” In 1942 he was called into the army, but later returned to the theatre. His death came just a few months before the Paramount screened The Godfather. At the Regent Gallagher would have worked with John M. Herd, who was in the booth in 1931 and 1932.
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Among a second or third generation of projectionist/operators were: John M. Brady (Capitol, from around 1932 to 1957); Harry Ranco (Capitol, 1933); Frank Grainger, 1934–35; Edward Crowe (Capitol, 1936–37); Lloyd C. Newton (Centre from its opening in 1939 and then the Odeon, 1947–60); Donald Pollock (1936, Regent, 1938–39, Centre); and Fred A. Wedgewood, 1942.
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Examiner, June 21, 1951, p.4.
George E. Blackshaw was another projectionist with an especially long career but a relatively short life. Blackshaw was born in Congleton, Chesire, England in 1912. When he came to Canada with his mother in 1930, they cited their destination as Kingston, Ont. – and even then, at the age of seventeen, he identified himself as a “cinema operator” on the passenger list. He must have been disappointed at first. In June 1934, in Kingston, when he married Winnifred Wiggins of Toronto, he was working as an usher or “doorman” – perhaps the best he could do given the conditions of the Great Depression. By 1942, now with two children, he had happily made the move to Peterborough to take a position as a projectionist at the Capitol Theatre. He moved over to the new Paramount after it opened in 1948 and worked there until about 1969, when he retired. George died June 22, 1975; his wife Winifred died Nov. 29, 1990.
By 1948 John J. (Paddy) Cooke had been operating as a projectionist in both Port Hope and Peterborough (so it was said) for more than 22,000 shows over 18 years. In the summer of 1948 Examiner reporter Nick Nickels wrote about a visit with Cooke — known as “Paddy” — in his place of work:
“We stumbled through the darkened theatre house the other afternoon to the third story projection booth with visions of seeing Paddy wilted from the heat of his mammoth machines, seated on a stool watching the film from the projection slot. Nothing could have been more incorrect for Paddy was busy, setting ammeters[,] selecting sound tones, threading new reels into one machine and ready with a watch to stop another reel that had all but run out.”
Examiner, July 10, 1948, p.5.
The booth, with the theatre’s air-conditioning on, was cool enough. You could hear the loud sound effects of the movie – in this case gun blasts and sharp pings of bullets as some bad man was shooting it out with a what passed for law in the wild west. Paddy had been attending to this business at the Centre for four shows a day, six days a week, fifty weeks a year, since the theatre opened in 1939.
Born in Fenelon Falls on June 2, 1892, Paddy came to Peterborough around 1910 – at age eighteen – to get a factory job. He worked at first at Canadian General Electric and for a short spell at the International Harvester Company. In the late 1910s he became a “postman” or letter carrier, continuing at that job until around 1927. But, according to his own account, in his spare time in the evenings his passion for theatre took him to the Grand Opera House, where he filled in as a “grip,” or electrician. He went down to the railway station with other workmen and drays to help haul trunks and stage properties up to the Grand. During performances “he worked the coloured spot lights and later ‘took the show away’ when it was over.”
Meanwhile, he had begun raising a family. The 1921 census record indicates that he had married Keitha, born in 1896, and they had two boys, Rayburn and Jack, age six and four respectively. They were living in a house at 555 Albert St. Around 1927–28 the family went south to Trenton, where Paddy got a job with Capt. Bruce Bairnsfather, who was making films for the Canadian International Films company. Paddy worked as a grip, arranging studio lighting. He “remembers sorrowfully that the last production they made was rather good but died a sudden death when it was launched on the eve of the talkie era.” That would have been Carry On, Sergeant (1927), which according to historian Peter Morris was “the Canadian cinema’s most expensive flop.”
The Cookes came back to Peterborough in 1929 and Paddy worked as a driver at the Canadian Aladdin Company, which made “ready-cut houses.” But again his interest in motion pictures – and knowledge of electricity – came to the fore. He travelled south a short distance in the early 1930s to apprentice as a projectionist in a Port Hope theatre, where he got his license and stayed for seven years. He returned to Peterborough in 1939 with the opening of the Centre Theatre. Later on he worked as projectionist at the Capitol, the Peterborough Drive-in (in 1952), and eventually, late in his career, at the Odeon (1959 and 1960).
In looking back at his life, Paddy Cooke said he never had time to get tired of watching the shows. “He was so busy,” the 1948 article said, “that the snatches of film he saw from time to time took him about two days to piece the complete story together.” He liked historical films, and did try to make a point of watching the news reels. He had his favourite silent movies from a time long past, and both of them featured Rudolph Valentino: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (U.S., released March 1921; played at the Grand Opera House in December 1921) and The Sheik (released November 1921; played at the Capitol the same month).
John J. (Paddy) Cooke died c.1961–62. Shortly after that his wife, Keitha, had a stint as “matron” at the Odeon Theatre (in 1962), and she lived on in Peterborough until her death in 1975.
Gordon C. Miller, who co-owned and managed the Regent, was also listed as a projectionist in 1948.
In the mid-1980s John O’Leary was running four projectors, two at the Paramount and two at the Odeon; this was just before the Paramount closed, in November 1986. O’Leary was at the Regent as early as 1946, and worked steadily in the years after that, including at the Centre in 1950–52, the Odeon 1963–73, and the Mustang Drive-in 1974–79. He was back at the Odeon in 1980 and still there (and at the Paramount) in 1986.
Burrett (Bert) Morgan moved around from place to place as projectionist from the late 1940s to at least 1980. He began at the Capitol in 1949 and was at the Mustang Drive-in in 1973–77 and the Paramount in 1980.
Examiner, Dec. 7, 1946, p.13. The city’s motion picture operators join with the rest of the local labour movement to push for much needed change in city politics.
After serving his apprenticeship at the Odeon Theatre in the early 1970s, Bob Micks was a projectionist at Peterborough Drive-in during the mid-1970s – and both his father and grandfather were also projectionists; Robert J. Micks was at the Centre in 1955-56, around the time it closed, and later, in 1960, at the Peterborough Drive-in from around 1960 to 1964.
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Projectionists in the later years also included: Steven R. Doherty (Paramount, 1970, Peterborough Drive in, 1971–72); David Vyse (also assistant manager, Paramount, 1970); Thomas G. Vyse (1970–74, listed as a projectionist, but with no theatre cited; Peterborough Drive-in, 1973–74, Odeon and Paramount, 1975–88; Fred Cranham (Capitol, 1959–61; Odeon, 1962-73); Richard L. Long (Odeon, Paramount, and Peterborough Drive-in, 1966–73).
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And along came Joy
Women have been largely absent in the world of commercial cinema projection, long considered a male domain. Bucking the trend, as a student at Trent University in the late 1970s Joy Simmonds (originally from Toronto, now living in Peterborough) got a job as a projectionist in the university’s Audio-Visual Department. After some training she went on to project films in classrooms and lecture halls, including Wenjack Theatre. She was there making sure the films got a good showing in the first year of the Canadian Images Film Festival in March 1978. Later she became a teacher, and nowadays she is a therapist/musician/grandparent. Courtesy of John Wadland.
Local therapist and writer Mark Strong was a volunteer projectionist at the Festival Screening Room in the late 1970s – he met his wife, Priya Harding, at the theatre (she was working the snack bar).
These names, though plentiful, are certainly just the tip of the iceberg. Given the nature of the job, operators came and went almost as quickly as the motion pictures. Often their names — like that of Henry Hudon or John Adamson, for instance — were not recorded in the city directories as “operators” or “projectionists.”
Inside the projection booth at the Peterborough Drive-in, 1967
Photo by Jay Callaghan of the old projector room at the Mustang Drive-in, about two years after its closing in 2012. From “Stunning Images of the Old Mustang Drive-in,” PtboCanada.com, May 25, 2014.
“My friend Glenn McKee knew the guy that ran the projector at the Peterborough Drive-in, so one night in the late 60’s we watched For a Few Dollars More (Clint Eastwood) [1965] from the projector booth. It was a carbon arc projector. Periodically, the projectionist would look through a dark tinted glass (like welding goggles) in the side of the projector to check the electric arc (the high intensity light source), and turn a small crank to adjust the length of the arc. This was necessary because the pencil-shaped piece of carbon would burn down as the projector ran. The electric arc couldn’t jump the gap if the gap became too large, and the movie screen would then go dark – so no nap time for the projectionist when a movie was showing.
“I add that there were two projectors at the drive-in. They were massive things – as big as refrigerators. Two projectors were necessary because a movie took up two or more film reels. When the first reel was coming to an end, the projectionist would fire up the second projector, which was loaded with the second film reel. There was a mechanism, like a swinging metronome on each projector, and when their rhythms matched, it indicated that the first and second reels were in sync. The projectionist would then throw a lever to transfer the movie over to the second projector. A mark of a skilled projectionist was to have a seamless transition from one reel to the next, undetectable on the screen by the viewing public.
“While the second projector was running, he would rewind the film on the first projector, remove the reel, and if the movie ran to three reels, load the third reel on the first projector, and prepare for another reel to reel synchronisation, and so on. I learned that there was more to the projectionist’s job than I had thought. — Robert Edmonson
Robert Edmonson, who grew up in Peterborough – and still lives here – has worked with local community theatre groups doing set design and providing mechanical design support. This visit to the Peterborough Drive-in occurred in 1967 when he was in Grade 13.
Continued . . . Part 2: Now Appearing: Baumer, Ristow, Young, and Corrin.