Lobo

Chapter 1
The Lobo

Lobo lobby. Image pulled from Cinema Treasures.
The Lobo opened on Friday, 19 August 1938.
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry ran at the Lobo on Wednesday and Thursday, 27 and 28 February 1946.
The Spanish Main ran at the Lobo from Sunday through Tuesday, 3 through 5 March 1946.
So this photo was taken most likely on the 25th or 26th of February 1946, certainly no earlier than the 22nd.

I shall open at great length with my usual temper tantrum about the horrible presentations at nearly all cinemas everywhere in the world. Once I have vented, I shall switch to personal reminiscences and the bare beginnings of a history of theatre and especially cinema in Albuquerque. I shall vent via opening remarks about cropping.

The Lobo and The Screening Room Twin (later renamed Galería Twin, yes, only one l, literally underground in the First Plaza Galería), were the only two cinemas in Albuquerque that had a partial set of apertures and lenses at hand (not a complete set; I think each was set up only for 1:1.375, 1:1.66, 1:1.85 and 1:2.35), and yet both those cinemas ran all films at 1:1.85 or 1:2.35, because the projectionists didn’t know any better. The short-lived Encore allegedly had all the formats, but who knows?

You haven’t got the foggiest idea what that means, do you? Okay, allow me to explain by means of an illustrated story.

Click here to see the handout that the Lobo handed out.

My memory distinctly tells me that I saw this in September 1974. My memory is distinctly wrong. On Saturday, 23 June 1973, I attended the Lobo to see a trio from Janus Films: The Immigrant (full-frame Silent print), The Fatal Glass of Beer (1:1.375 hard matte), and Room Service (1:1.375 hard matte). (Janus had promised The Vagabond, which was on the poster, but for some reason sent out The Immigrant instead.) The Lobo cropped them all to 1:1.85. The projectionist was entirely confused by The Immigrant and ran it with the sound on, causing an almost deafening rumble that sounded like a war zone. He faded the sound out and then occasionally faded it back in again, hoping that the dialogue had returned. Even at age 13, even before I knew anything about the technical side of movies, I was not at all surprised that a projectionist would be such a dunce as not to know what a silent print was.

The Immigrant Proper presentation: full-frame Silent 1:1.33 projector aperture .6796"×.90625"	The Immigrant As cropped at modern American cinemas: US widescreen 1:1.85 projector aperture .446"×.825"
The Fatal Glass of Beer Proper presentation: Academy 1:1.375 projector aperture .600"×.825"	The Fatal Glass of Beer As cropped at modern American cinemas US widescreen 1:1.85 projector aperture .446"×.825"
Room Service Proper presentation: Academy 1:1.375 projector aperture .600"×.825"	Room Service As cropped at modern American cinemas: US widescreen 1:1.85 projector aperture .446"×.825"

Then, in late November 1974, the Lobo showed Animal Crackers (1:1.18) and, of course, cropped it to 1:1.85. That print of Animal Crackers had the notorious line, “I think I’ll try and make her!” which was deleted from all other prints. Other than that, it was the usual censored reissue from 1936, which was all anybody could find at the time. Clearly the studio techs, way back in the 1930’s, had neglected to chop that line out before making a print, but caught that error immediately afterwards. When this movie was reissued in 1974, different copy negs were made by copying from several release prints dating from 1936, and in Albuquerque, we lucked out. Four years later I ran that very same print at another cinema and, yes, that line was still there. Fortunately, better and somewhat more complete material has been found. I saw the DCP of this longer version on the big screen in 2016 and I was thrilled that it was correctly scanned at 1:1.18. I have yet to look at the Blu-ray, but the clip I saw on YouTube (since taken down) was cropped to 1:1.375. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Animal Crackers
Proper presentation:
MovieTone 1:1.18
projector aperture .6796"×.825"
This was shot in full-frame 1:1.33 (camera aperture .723"×.970"; projector aperture .6796"×.90625"), and released that way for cinemas that were using Vitaphone sound-on-disc, but the left side was cropped off of the prints sent to cinemas that were using MovieTone/Photophone sound-on-film. The original full-frame edition is considered lost.

Animal Crackers
As cropped at modern American cinemas:
US widescreen 1:1.85
projector aperture .446"×.825"

NOTE: Yes, I know my elementary arithmetic and I know that .6796"×.825" is actually 1:1.21, but there is a historical reason for calling this format 1:1.18; namely, MovieTone/Photophone apertures in the 1920’s and early 1930’s were usually not filed out to the full .825" width, but only to between .796" and .800".

The Lobo was also known for exhibiting European films, to cater to the students at the nearby university. Hollywood films and Italian films at the time were mostly 1:1.85, but other parts of Western Europe were 1:1.66 at the time (usually), while the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were 1:1.375 at the time (usually). The Lobo cropped them all to 1:1.85.

Continue to the next chapter.