Sweat drips off Landon Wilson’s brow as he winds the shiny black roll of film from one spool to the next.
It’s plenty warm inside the projection room at North Bend Theatre, and Wilson’s exertion, using a handcrank that looks as old as the 1941-built theater, makes it more so.
In an era when moviehouses like North Bend’s historic theater are going through a lot of changes, Wilson remains a fan of the old school.
“I love having something you can hold in your hand,” the 21-year-old projectionist said.
As coming attractions for “The Help” streamed out a glass window in his booth and onto the screen, Wilson spent an hour or so of that muggy night putting a half-dozen reels of 35-millimeter film together by hand to create the next show in the lineup, “Dolphin Tale.”
“This is the interesting part, the part no one gets to see,” Wilson said. “There’s not a lot of secrets. Just a complicated process to learn.”
Wilson must splice all these reels together with no mistakes. A fraction of an error here or there, and the movie onscreen will be only partly visible. It takes delicate handling.
Change is coming to this booth, and Wilson knows it. North Bend Theatre, which opened 70 years ago this year, will soon enter an era of digital films and premium serves. He’ll miss the nostalgia, but is also excited about the new qualities.
“It’s an exhilarating prospect,” Wilson says. “We’re going to be a whole different theater.”
Recent makeover
In a taste of things to come, North Bend Theatre reopened on September 15 after a makeover and cleaning. Owners Cindy and Jim Walker received a $7,000 grant from the county heritage funder, 4Culture, to give the theater a good cleaning, fix the roof and plan ahead.
Inside, the theater lobby got new crown moulding, clerestory lighting and a fresh coat of soft gray paint. In the auditorium, the floor and seats got a scrubdown, and the floor was freshly painted.
Outside, the grant paid for a fix in a nagging roof leak, and for a preservation architect to assess the building. The architect confirmed that a roof-to-foundation crack in the long concrete wall of the theater was simply cosmetic, rather than worrisome. The architect also confirmed that the auditorium can handle an extension of a balcony, allowing the Walkers to one day realize some big plans: To not only go digital, but to build a new balcony where adult moviegoers can enjoy food and beer.
Local fit
North Bend Theatre is one of perhaps fewer than a dozen pre-1950s screens still operating in this state.
The reason it’s still alive is because it’s the right fit for the community, Cindy Walker says.
When the Walkers bought the theater in 2006, the industry was already going digital. Today, they know they need to transition away from film soon.
“We viewed ourselves as stewards,” Cindy said.
Taking over, they wanted to expand movie times, bring in a greater variety of movies and special family offerings. The Walkers have continued their Wednesday morning “Mommy Matinees,” lightly attended but still appreciated by families, as well as their special-needs family matinees. A free summer program offered children’s matinees, free of charge, all summer long. Hundreds of children attended.
“It was packed every time,” Walker said.
North Bend Theatre “doesn’t make a ton of money,” she said. She said it’s hard to compete as a small independent. Service and technology is part of the reason.
The 290-seat theater still sells out during big events like the Mountain Film Festival, which starts Sunday, Oct. 9, or the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Halloween, but typical good nights are about 70 people.
Walker keeps the place going as a labor of love. She enjoys planning the theater’s alternative offerings, such as the mountain films, and is proud of her role in what’s always been a gathering place for youth and families.
“There’s a lot I get back out of it for keeping it alive,” she said. “We can tell if there’s a middle school dance based on the number of kids in here on a Friday night.”
“Families are the bread and butter here,” Walker added.
Long memory
That fateful day in the theater is seared into Harley Brumbaugh’s mind.
One day in 1948, Brumbaugh, as an eighth grader, joined a group of friends from the Riverside neighborhood for a show at the North Bend Theater.
The boys sat in the back. A group of girls from their class were in the middle. One girl invited young Harley to sit with her.
“She’s a nice girl,” he thought. “I will.”
He took his seat, and was tormented over the thought that kept occurring to him during the coming attractions: Should I put my arm around her. Eventually, he worked up the nerve. That was as far as the cuddling went.
“There was nothing impassioned or anything like that,” he said.
But the next day, Harley and the girl were both called on the carpet by their teacher. They both had to apologize to their class for their forward behavior. As a student athlete and musician, Harley was a role model and example for the rest of the school.
“Harley, we wouldn’t expect that kind of conduct from you,” he was told.
His classmates helped him live it down, but Harley was shamefaced, and his would-be date was in tears. Needless to say, Harley never tried that move on her in the theater again.
The morés of the time were very different 60 years ago. But the local theater claimed a big presence in young people’s lives. The original North Bend theater was located inside the McClellan Hotel, today’s McGuire Hill building. In 1941, today’s purpose-built theater opened in a poured-concrete, Art-Deco style building. For a time, it did business as the North Bend Cinema.
Most children went to movies at least once a week. Tickets started at a dime.
“You let the word out you were going to the movies,” Brumbaugh remembered. “Some of the girls would let the word out. You just happened to meet at the movies.”
Compared to the old Meadowbrook theater, which was showing its age, North Bend Theatre was considered the swanky place to see a show in those days before television. To Brumbaugh, it brought the glamour of Hollywood to the Valley, and drew moviegoers from as far as Duvall.
Things are different today, when an independent theater competes not only with the big chains, but also television, DVDs by mail and streaming shows. But it’s not all that different.
“We’ve come a long way,” Walker said, laughing. “But when I’m in there on a Friday night, there’s still some 13-year-old kid doing that,” stretching out her arm, “for the first time. That piece of Americana is still there.”
Walker said parents feel comfortable dropping their children off at a hometown theater. The children feel independent. That same feel isn’t always there at the big megaplexes, she added.
Premium attractions
Donations of time and resources played a big role in the theater’s just-completed face lift. Lowe’s Hardware and Valspar Paint donated moulding and paint, and volunteers with LifePointe Church’s youth program provided the muscle.
A crew of 10 youth group members and parents got down on their hands and knees to paint around the auditorium chair legs, then broke out the rollers to coat the whole floor.
When the painting was done, the local EcoClean service donated a full carpet cleaning to North Bend Theatre.
All the help touches Cindy Walker’s heart.
“We recognize as owners what a benefit the theater is to the community,” she said. “The community answers back that they cherish it, too, and want to see it continue.”
The ability to keep the theater alive in the 21st century may depend on a grown-up crowd. Walker wants the ability to serve beer and wine to an adult crowd in her planned balcony, meant to be built in similar fixtures and style and extend from the back wall to the nearest wall pillar.
Right now, alcohol can’t be served due to the theater’s one-auditorium-for-everybody layout.
Walker estimates the balcony fix and the digital fix each would cost about $100,000.
“By the end of 2013, I have to make the change to digital,” Walker said.
Thirty-five millimeter film tech hasn’t changed much from the 1950s. Projectionists like Wilson still splice and wind films onto huge platters for projectors that are decades-old.
“If you watch a film, you’ll see the splices, the scratches,” she said. Real films, she said, are like “a good pair of denim jeans.” Walker likes the authentic feel.
But replacing the film system with a new digital project will save time and money. Under a new system, films will come on DVDs or as direct downloads to a hard drive. Walker can say goodbye to the expense of shipping and transporting the boxes of reels, and the time to put them together.
The changes to the building, too, will mean a better experience for adult customers, who, up in the balcony, won’t have to listen to teenage chatter. Walker said she’ll get a better financial return from concessions at her specialty events, such as the mountain festivals.
“Places like mine that are able to stay in business are providing premium service,” she said.
Walker sees the changes as vital to keeping the hometown theater alive.
“It can be managed so that it’s here for this generation of kids to be telling the same stories that Harley was telling when they’re 75,” she said. “I think it’s positioned to do that.”
• North Bend Theatre’s showtimes and special events can be followed at www.northbendtheatre.com/
