I don't know if the I.A. is still active in Syracuse, but back in the early 80s they were a going concern. The business manager at the time was a real bulldog named Chuck Nelson, a helluva guy who wasn't buying the "You guys are dinosaurs" line from any of the local owners. The district manager for CinemaNational, the big chain in town, used to go at it hammer and tongs with him. Chuck would beat him up over some picayune issue and he'd walk away screaming. "Yeah, freakin' I.A.T.S.E. . .", he'd mumble. ". . .stands for I Aim To Steal Everything".

Anyway, in the winter of '80 I heard that the local had lost a few members due to retirement and a fellow passing away, and that they were looking to recruit. I went to see Chuck to introduce myself, and he agreed to put me on right away without an apprentice card, we worked out a check-off deal instead. So I started going around to local theaters to introduce myself and to learn the booths.

Now, rumors about the mob being tied up with the New York area Operator's locals had been going on for years. I didn't know much about it, but when a local branch of the family decided to go into the porn business, there was no question who was going to be in the booth. They went right to Chuck, and he went right to me, as I was low man on the totem pole. I and another fellow named Gary went over to get things going.

The boys had leased an old abandoned theater on South Salina Street, and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of this place. It wasn't the Loews State, and it wasn't the Franklin. It's a parking lot now. Anyway, we were both pretty nervous about the whole thing, but they seemed happy to see two guys from the union and they pretty much put us at ease right away. They wanted to get set up for 16mm, and for the opening night they had made a deal with a porn star named Carol Connor (the blond nurse in 'Deep Throat") to come up and do a live strip act and introduce her latest epic, "Candy Goes to Hollywood".

So Gary and I djined up an Eastman 25 with a small xenon, and hauled it up to the booth and got it set up. There was also a battered Arc Trouper, the idea being that the projectionist would run the spot for the woman to do her act, then go over and start the movie. Everything gets set up fine, and everybody's happy, and opening night comes. I was hanging around the lobby talking to one of the teenaged flunkys that were hanging around, and watching people come in. I noticed three farmer types walk in, big guys, they must have been 350 lbs. apiece, probably brothers. They were dressed in identical blue denim overalls. I'll come back to these guys later.

So the lights go down, and the spotlight comes on, and Ms. Connor comes out to juice up her public, and she dances around and takes her clothes off, fine. She finishes, and I dowse the spot and go over and send the Eastman flying with the movie. Smiles all around. The flunky comes up to the booth and asks me if I knew where the breaker box was, the concession stand had lost power, so I grab a flashlight and go down to the lobby to noodle around.

I'm out of the booth about 15 minutes, and when I head back up the flunky comes running down the stairs. Very nervous, he is.

"You got any money?" he says. "Any at all?"

"Few bucks. Why?"

"Shit!"

He tells me that in order to get Ms. Connor to haul her assets up to Syracuse, the owners had to promise her a considerable sum in advance, and they hadn't come across. I walked up to the booth, and it resembled a scene from High Noon inside. On one side, the owners of the theater, on the other side, Ms. Connor and her two very large and formidable assistants. They were displeased. The conversation went exactly like this:

"You mean you f*****s don't m**********n' have the f****n' front money!?!? You miserable f****n' f***s!!

"Hey a*****e, you'll get your f****n' money, just give us a m**********n' chance!

And so on. At one point, I noticed that one of the goons had a .38 in his belt under his jacket, and I had the feeling he had read the instructions.

I just walked to the front of the booth and stood very stiffly, and put my forehead against the front wall above the port. I said to myself, "Self, you're 24 years old and you're about to get shot to death in the booth of a porn theater. Clearly, this is the lowest you can go."

I was wrong. Note to the ladies of the group: PLEASE skip over the next two paragraphs. Thank You!

I looked out the port onto the audience below, and I spied the three humongous farmers I mentioned above. They were gazing raptly at the screen, where Ms. Connor was busy putting a spit shine on Doctor Schlong. The light from the screen was dim, but I could make out that the farmers all had their overalls undone and around their knees, and they had their hands in each others laps . . . and they were . . . well, they were kinda. . .

I can't say it. Let's just say I felt like grabbing the guy's gun and blowing my own head off. I think I promised God that if he got me out of there intact, I would enroll in seminary school.

Well, I lived to tell the tale, because the flunky came zooming back to the booth with every dollar he could get his hands on, all the box office and all the concession money. It must have been enough to mollify everyone, because they all filed out, with Ms. Connor winking at me reassuringly as she passed. So she did her number again, and we ran the movie again, and I hightailed my ass outta there.

The next afternoon I went to see Business Manager Chuck to tell him that I didn't think I had the right stuff to be a projectionist in Syracuse. He had somehow gotten wind of what had happened and was very sorry about the whole affair and promised that I didn't have to go back. He meant it, because next weekend I was at the Cinema East, which at the time was the big premiere theater in town.

End of story, except for Ogden's First Law of Projection: Before heading to the booth, make sure the stripper got paid.

------------------
Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

 |  IP: Logged

Since I don't know if you and he are friendly or not, I'll tread lightly here. Let's just say that from where I sit, Bob not only wrote the book on breaking balls, he issued annual updates. If I ever run into you I'll tell you the story of the first time I met him. Anything else I post here would be potentially libelous.

Bob Rodman passed away back in 1998. He is no longer with us.

I don't want to get pegged as someone who would speak ill of the dead, but Bob was one of the great 'characters' of the industry. So I'll tell a little bit about him to give y'all a feel for who he was.

CinemaNational was a circuit that was based in upstate New York, it was a division of the old Carrol's restaurant chain. Both companies are long gone now. Bob Rodman was the guy who ran the theater division for Carrol's, and he was an ex-naval officer, so you can imagine that he had some strong feelings about the way things should be run. He had this thing for showing up at theaters unannounced and doing a sort of white glove inspection, then ripping into the manager if anything was amiss. The whole thing used to put me in mind of the old Tasmanian Devil cartoons: you'd be standing in the lobby fat dumb and happy when all of a sudden this tornado would come flying thru the door, and then bang, there'd be Bob, ready to kick some butt.

Now, two other things to know about him: A. He had this real Disneyesque problem with facial hair (and I had a beard at the time), and B. Everywhere he went, he was accompanied by one of the most vicious animals I'd ever met, a small white toy poodle.

The night I met him, I was working at the old North Drive In, in suburban Syracuse. The booth was a coupla Brenkarts with Ashcraft lamps (God love 'em). As usual with drive ins, the lamphouses were doing enough amps for the carbon jaws to be water cooled, there was a pump for each projector. So I go in one night and thread up the first couple of reels and get things warmed up, and I notice there was water on the floor near the pump for the B machine. The water line to the lamp had split, about a 10 minute fix, tops. I hit the intercom and told the manager that the show would be a little late.

Now the manager was a new kid, and nervous, and he panicked and called Bob at home. And he must have beamed there ala Star Trek, because I don't think I even have the old hose off when I hear:

"WHAT IN HELL IS GOING ONE HERE ARF ARF ARF ARF?"

And there was Bob at the door, with the dog at his feet. The dog was absolutely livid.

"I'm just trying to fix this. . ."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU ARF ARF ARF ARF?"

"Er. . .Mark. Chuck from the I.A. sent me. . . "

"I DIDN'T HEAR ABOUT ANY NEW OPERATORS ARF ARF ARF!!"

Bob was plenty upset, but the dog was clearly ready to tear me a second asshole.

"Well. . .I, um. . .that is. . ."

"WELL, HURRY UP AND GET IT FIXED ARF ARF!!!"

They both watch me repair the hose, and hung around the booth until I got the show started. Whereupon they both headed off to rip into the manager, and to call the union to get me canned. Chuck Nelson (the business manager) recounted the conversation to me:

Bob: "WHO THE HELL IS THAT IN MY BOOTH?"

Chuck: "New guy. Why?"

Bob: "HE'S GOT A FULL BEARD!!" (this is what he was pissed off about, not the late start). "I WON'T HAVE IT!!"

Chuck: "Look, are you on the screen or not?"

Bob: "YEAH, BUT . . ."

Chuck: "Fine. F**k off click."

Such was the level of discourse between them.

A memo came out shortly after, to the effect that Chuck had to personally introduce all new operators to Bob before they could work a CinemaNational booth. I wondered if the dog was there to sign off on the new guys.

To be honest, eventully I came to have a grudging respect for him, but he never really warmed up to me. Every once in a while I would be doing a shift and I would see him peering at me from the booth door. I would wave and yell out "Hi, Bob!!", and he would just turn around and walk away shaking his head.

But now that he's gone, I will say this for him: he ran a helluva ship. Mind you, he was a deluxe model ass-kicker, but CinemaNational was a great chain. The theaters were spotless, and the presentation was always dead nuts on (of course, we had a great team of projectionists as well). I was just at a theater here in New Jersey today, and it was just a mess, everything. I felt like holding a séance in the lobby, to try and channel him thru.

Cheers, Bob, wherever you are.

Over to you, Bob Maar.

One day Bob stopped by my theatre, and told me that I would not make my opening date as he thought we looked behind schedule. We were both scheduled to open the same day. So we argued a bit out in the parking lot and made a gentlemans bet.

We exchanged business cards and we both went back to work.

Once back in my office, I took his card out of my wallet to put the information on my roll-a-dex. On the back of the card was the safe combination for the DeWitt Theatre in Syracuse.

I called him to tell him and he told me he didn't give me that card, so I told him to look in his wallet and call me back.

Two weeks later Trumbull opened. He opened a week later.

Bob ran a tight ship. We remained friendly thoughtout his career.