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Author
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Topic: Small town cinema in Powell, Wyoming
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-20-2005 01:40 PM
(NOTE: This story is from the latest edition of my wife's hometown newspaper. I have a feeling this link will only lead to this particular story for one week.)
( http://www.powelltribune.com/News1.html )
LIGHTS ... CAMERA ... ACTION
Through more than eight decades of change, Vali
Cinema continues to carve place in Powell history
By JUSTIN R. LESSMAN
Tribune News Editor
The town of Powell, as small towns tend to do, has changed over the past 85 years.
It has grown; it has shrunk. It has seen new businesses open and old ones close.
Teachers, lawyers, store clerks, city leaders and ordinary citizens have come and gone, some having left their permanent mark, others vanishing from history without a trace.
A witness to this all, standing tall and proud at 204 N. Bent St., is the town's theater building. A home to vaudeville, silent movies and talkies, the red bricks of the building have seen tears, heard laughter and embraced emotion over the past eight decades, all in the name of entertainment.
For the past 30 years, the man entrusted with those tears and that laughter has been Alan Mercer, owner and operator of Powell's Vali Twin Cinema.
"I came to Powell in the summer of 1975," Mercer said. "On Jan. 1, 1976, I started operating the Vali Theater and the drive-in on the south edge of town. The drive-in was really where the business was back then."
By the time Mercer purchased both Powell theaters in 1979, he was a seasoned cinema pro.
"I started in the movie business when I was just 20 years old," he said. "I leased the Wigwam Theater in Basin, and in 1961, bought the Basin drive-in."
But fate led him northwest to Powell and the thrill of the motion picture kept him here.
"I've always been fascinated by movies," he said, calling to mind as a favorite the epic flick "Ben-Hur," starring Charlton Heston. "Plus, this business lets me be my own boss and that sure beats working for other people all my life."
At the time, the magic of the movies appealed to Mercer just as much as the historic downtown Powell building where they were shown. Built in 1919, the theater was originally intended as a home for vaudeville acts.
"It was built just before silent movies came out," Mercer said. "Just think, when this thing was built, they were still doing vaudeville - right here."
Mercer says he has spoken with longtime locals who remember the under-stage dressing rooms located in the rear of the building where the traveling actors would get into costume prior to shows in the then Lyric Theatre. The eerie little rooms remained in the building until its first major remodeling in the 1940s.
The change from live productions to silent movies to talkies fueled the flames of a remodel, Mercer said, and in 1948, Powell's 600-seat theater reopened to the public with a classy new 1940s deco look, a purely American style that is still largely visible in the Vali Cinema today.
"It was an extensive remodel," Mercer said. "They took it out to the alley and got rid of the little coal house out back that provided heat."
The theater's second major remodel came in the mid-1990s at the hands of Mercer.
"The theater was only single-screened when I bought it," he said. "To compete, I figured I had to at least twin it."
And twin it he did, halving the massive viewing room into two smaller theaters. Though the move made the business more economically viable, Mercer said, it did require him to sacrifice around 200 seats and sink more than a pretty penny into the job.
"It was spendy," he admitted. "It was just like buying it all over again. But it was worth it. And two theaters are more fun than one."
Fun though it may be, the movie theater business isn't all play, Mercer said.
The nights are late and the days often begin early, he said, especially Monday mornings, when films need to be booked for their Friday openings. Mercer books through an agency near Chicago.
"Every Monday morning, if we're changing that week, I check to see what's doing the business," he said. "I look at a lot of previews and reviews of a lot of movies. If it screened well, we're interested; if it bombed, we're not."
Though figures and reviews and a dash of gut feeling are important factors in choosing a flick, what's even more important to Mercer is his clientele.
"I talk with people," he said. "I ask them what they want to see, what's looked good to them. That's really important to me."
A night at the movies starts early for Mercer. At 4:15 p.m., the popcorn oil and nacho cheese start warming. Vali's famous buttery popcorn pops fresh around 6 p.m., ensuring that it's piping hot for the first show around 7. Most Thursday nights after the shows begin find Mercer out changing the marquee and the "Now Showing" movie posters.
"I make sure to get those switched Thursday nights, so on Friday morning when people are driving to work, they can see what's opening that night," he said.
Simple logic, but a vital task for Mercer, who does everything he does with one thing on his mind - his clients, the people of Powell.
Late Thursday night, after the last laugh is heard, the last tear cried, the last kernel of popcorn eaten and the last entertained movie-goer tucked away warm in bed, Mercer climbs a narrow staircase up to the projection booth.
"Movie-changin' night," he says.
He unloads the film off the large silver platters, rewinds it and boxes it up, only to painstakingly reload the platters with the weekend's new movie the next morning. The process requires a steady hand, fine finger work and time.
"Movies come on a 2,000-foot reel," he said. "There'll be a number of those reels for one movie."
Longer movies come on so many reels that it often takes three huge steel boxes to hold all of them, Mercer said.
Though the hours are long and the work trying at times, Mercer said he wouldn't rather be doing anything else. The source of his constantly refreshed motivation is simple: seeing people entertained.
"That's what it's all about," he said. "Seeing those tears and hearing that laughter. It's so rewarding to get a good one in and hear people talking about it afterwards as they walk out of the theater and having them come up to me the next day and say, 'Al, that was a good one.' That's what makes it special. That's why I keep doing it."
And as long as Mercer keeps doing what he's doing, with every coming attraction poster he hangs, with every film reel he loads, with every kernel of hot buttery popcorn he pops, he carves his place - and his beloved theater's place - deeper and deeper into the history of Powell.
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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster
Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-20-2005 06:41 PM
We cover these states.....
North Dakota, South dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and a couple of customers in New Mexico. In addition I still get orders from quite a few customers back in the Midwest area. We have a full time tech that works out of Souix City, and five techs that work out of Salt Lake City. When I do that route mentioned it takes me about 2 weeks unless there are large upgrades going in... then I allow extra time for that. I sometimes take my girlfriend since she can go check out all the antique shops for neato stuff while I work on the theatres! Nevada normally takes about 8 or 9 days. I love the desert so I don't mind going out there chasing tumble weeds or rattlers!Arizona doesn't take long but the drive to get there is through Monument Valley...... Moab is also one of my favorite places to do service and then have fun.....
I also find myself spending ALOT of time on the first visits to new customers, normally at least double the usual time. I'm pretty fussy and generally find alot wrong. Last time I was in Jackson for instance it took over two weeks there! We not only did normal maintainance on 8 screens but I cimnpletely overhauled an X-L head and 4 Christie 35GP's. We also converted the 35GP's to single blade. That took a while because these were first generation GP's that had an odd belt setup necessitating extra belt orders from suppliers other than Christie since they no longer stock these belts. Typically I start at 6 a.m. or at what ever time my customer desires which sometimes is later in the morning. I'm there at my customers bequest and work in his time frame convenience and sometimes this takes an extra day or two. Next trip to Jackson I will convert those 4 GP's to the latest belt path and type. That will probably take a week since I have to send the motor mounts back down to the shop for machining one at a time.... We only have one mount in stock.....
Who's to complain about the time frame... they start running films at 2PM in the summer so I get to hike the Tetons after that time till dusk.
Mark @ CLACO
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![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
and a service route I really enjoy.![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
. Time will tell and he ran it so long that folks will undoubtedly still come there. Interestingly, down the street is a restaurant that is owned by the brother of a Miami Florida theatre supply dealer, Bill Younger I believe ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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