Comments from Romanipat

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Romanipat
Romanipat commented about Bayne Theatre on Jul 14, 2015 at 4:34 pm

I may have something to add to the conversation. I was the last movie projectionist at the Bayne before it closed as a movie theatre in October of 1981. When I came aboard in May of that year, the house was incapable of keeping a show on the screen. The manager at the time interviewed me by taking me to the booth, where I noticed that the regular guy had set up the 1930’s vintage Peerless projectors to hold 60 minute reels,which are designed for flat,not vertical, operation. We lost the matinee performance of “Cannonball Run” that day, but between that show and the 6:00 showing I respliced the reels onto the vintage 20 minute reels that I found in the storage room, with leaders and tails,naturally, and we didn’t lose a viewing after that. With the house no longer having to refund the gate at every show, we actually started turning a profit, but it was too late. Plitt Southern decided to sell the building to the wax museum, and the employees were offered positions at the multiplex at Hampton Roads. I joined the Navy instead. Those xenon machines have no soul;the monkey just has to flip a switch. There was a balcony, but when I was there it wasn’t open to the public for structural reasons. In my snooping, I found an envelope with photos from the'30s of the building at its opening. I gave them to the manager, who framed them and hung them in the lobby that last summer. We really thought we could save the place, since it was a palace, but as it turns out that dream was Quixotic. Those photos were still in the lobby the evening of our farewell costume party. The theme was Movie characters. I went as Sam Spade, sporting my preemptive Navy haircut, and the concession girl I was crushing on was dressed as Marilyn. Man, what a night!