The Hollywood Legion Theater: How military veterans are fighting to preserve 70mm

“If you can’t have five channels it’s not even worth doing 70mm,” Jess said. “I wouldn’t do it.”

Of course, he was right. What was I thinking? I began to question my commitment to the format. The costs steadily mounted as the invoices kept coming in: custom-machined shafts, rollers, spacers, adapters, custom-made projector bases. At one point our finance officer, Terrence Pallend, a former marine and Iraq veteran, began to question all the money being spent up in the booth. “What is all this stuff for 70mm?” he pointedly asked. Seeing an opportunity, I asked him if he’d ever watched a film in 70mm before. No, he said, what’s the big deal?
 

“Dude, I had no idea what you guys were doing,” he said. “Now I get it.” It was the validation I needed at the time.

We were far from out of the woods, however. Jess and I were still on a search and destroy mission to find a decent pair of Norelco AAII machines and all the necessary parts. This was getting harder and harder by the day. A small pool of eccentric and unreliable equipment hoarders had cornered the market on nearly everything. One infamous projectionist had collected nearly 20 AAIIs in Illinois, with lots of spare parts, but became impossible to negotiate with. Then there was Charles Massa, who possessed a motherlode of 70mm film equipment in Sun Valley. A sweet, elfin fellow with a crinkly smile, Charles sizes up his customers like a shady art dealer, and prices accordingly. Our search continued.

Jess eventually located a pair of AAIIs at the LA Center Studios downtown, which we purchased in August 2018. We disassembled the machines and had them shipped across town. I made sure that each projector head—weighing more than 300 pounds—was coddled like a baby. The equipment was craned into the booth as a small crowd of members and film devotees watched. (See video) One onlooker observed, “It’s rare to see film projectors going into a building--usually it’s just the opposite!” Jess and I were elated and relieved to reach this milestone, but we had inherited a total mess.

The Norelcos were not operational after we reassembled them. The electrical system was a rat’s nest of wires that had to be stripped of modifications made by previous owners. The motor drive clutches on both projectors were frozen. Parts were missing that had to be found or manufactured. We desperately needed someone who knew how to rebuild the machines.

Problem was, finding someone who had the specialized knowledge and availability was like trying to find a black cat in a coal mine. But as it turned out, the cat dragged in just who we were looking for.

Cut to Roger “Norelco” Addams rolling into our parking lot early one morning in a hulking, bug-smeared RV straight out of Breaking Bad central casting. A former AMC projection engineer and stock market short-seller, Roger lived out of his nicotine-stained mobile home and had contacted us after hearing rumors we planned to do 70mm. If ever I had my doubts that this would work, this was the moment that might have topped them all. I wondered, have I gone too far? Have I completely lost my mind? To my amazement, however, within an hour of arriving at the post Roger had the Norelcos up and running. Nevertheless, an extensive amount of work lay ahead to perfect them. Both the 35mm and 70mm gates, for example, were not the original matching gates for the projectors. One of them had to be re-machined to fit properly and be correctly aligned. The projectors had the wrong size lamphouse base, requiring an expensive trip to Massa’s warehouse. Furthermore, the Kinoton lamphouses—a donation from Deluxe-Technicolor—needed numerous modifications and were a nightmare to mount and align. All of this required time and money, which was increasingly in short supply and was to soon run out.
 

“I quit,” he announced. “I can’t take it anymore.”

I was stunned. The person I relied on most to develop an archive-quality film projection operation was gone. Making matters worse, I was scheduled to interview one of Jess’s recommended projectionist candidates—our first crucial hire—twenty minutes after he quit. I wondered if the candidate would even show up. I thought, this is it. Game over.

To my astonishment, the projectionist, Taylor Umphenour, arrived as scheduled despite receiving a text message from Jess that he had just quit the Legion job. A 34-year-old former IMAX projectionist and Rhode Island School of Design grad, Taylor was a union projectionist working part-time at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theater in Santa Monica. He was fast-talking, quick-witted, and direct. We instantly hit it off. Like me, he saw a rare opportunity with the Legion Theater to build something extraordinary and relished the seemingly insurmountable challenge that lay ahead. I hired him on the spot. In a sudden turn of events, what felt like the end was merely the beginning of a remarkable turnaround where all the pieces started to fit together like Tetris blocks. If one piece had been different, the entire affair might have collapsed under its own weight.

Do-or-die

By late fall of 2018 our penchant for creeping sophistication and red ink had finally caught up to us. Overall expenditures had ballooned to nearly $5 million. We had exhausted our borrowed funds and employees were furloughed for two months. I was devastated; as project manager I felt largely responsible for the cost overruns and construction delays. I pondered the selfishness of my decisions, which had put a 100-year-old organization in financial jeopardy. Meanwhile, I had broken promises to my wife and strained our marriage to the breaking point. Although the thought of quitting entered my mind, I decided to double down on my commitment and pay it forward with the organization. Taylor and Roger also shared the same commitment and were willing to work temporarily without pay to keep going. Never let a crisis go to waste.
 

“I’ve got some bad news for you, Bill,” Chapin barked as I sat in the middle of the theater. I let out a sigh and braced for a technical take-down. Wearing his trademark corduroy jacket and jeans, Chapin made his way over to me, hands in his pockets. “Congratulations,” he said softly, extending his hands for a handshake. “That was fantastic.”

The Christening

A few weeks later, after it was announced that the Legion Theater would be added to the TCM Film Festival, we got our show schedule: 15 titles, half of them on 35mm, and a 70mm screening of "The Sound of Music". We were ecstatic, but we also knew we were about to get hit by a freight train. We still had unfinished work to do on the film system, we were woefully understaffed, and the only person who could save us from doom was the projectionist. I asked Taylor if we were expecting too much from him.
 

“Bill, when I’ve reached my limit I’ll let you know,” he said.

In the days leading up to our 70mm debut, that limit would be tested. With multiple formats to project, our problems were magnified--literally. Our attempts to cut aperture plates for 1.33, 1.37, 1.85 and 2.20 were a maddening exercise in frustration, and at the same time we were having issues with "The Sound of Music" print. The 70mm reels we received from the Fox archive looked dim on our 1.0 gain screen, leading us to think there was something wrong with our equipment or setup. Roger, Taylor, Boston Light & Sound’s Diana Caldwell, and Fox archivists spent days trying to resolve the problem. Alas, a mix-up had occurred, and the wrong print was sent. We got the replacement—a pristine show print straight from the vault--just in time for the show.

Before the Friday evening screening, the mood in the booth was tense. Roger was busy making final adjustments to our Frankensteined projectors, and Taylor was feeling besieged with a torrent of people coming in and out of the room. At this point, we were just hoping to avert a show-stopping disaster. Earlier in the week, we had been beset by all manner of happenings: wispy smoke emanating from a lamphouse; a small fire outside the projection booth; an oil leak coming from Projector #2. On top of this, somehow a moth got into the theater and was flickering around the port glass, interrupting the light path and casting shadows on the picture. This went on for a number of days. We could not exterminate this unwelcome guest and lived in constant dread of his reappearance. Typical festival chaos, but in the context of us being a new venue with high aspirations in a make-or-break moment, highly unnerving.

The moment had finally arrived. As I stood in the back of the theater and watched the opening scene, I kept my fingers crossed and prayed… and my prayers were answered. The show went perfectly from beginning to end, presenting "The Sound of Music" as close as practically possible to the filmmakers’ original intent given today’s technology and the sheer passage of time. The original 6-channel Todd-AO mix rendered via DTS sounded fantastic. Audience members cheered and clapped between musical numbers. The 70mm print was cut from the original camera negative and possessed that breath of life that only traditional photochemical processing can truly convey. It looked absolutely stunning. Up to this point, my reference for 70mm had been Robert Harris’ pristine, albeit dupe, print of "Lawrence of Arabia", which I was fortunate to see projected by the great James Bond (his real name) at Roger Ebert’s annual film festival, Ebertfest, in 2004. It was the screening that changed my life and ultimately led me to move to Los Angeles.