The year was 1946. My brother Bud was in the U.S. Navy in the Far East, and I took over his job at Kuser Farm working for Edna and Fritz Kuser. Every Sunday night, my buddy Don Slabicki and I went to the Sunday night movies at Kuser Farm mansion to see the movie of the week which was projected on the screen with Fritz Kuser's 35 millimeter twin SIMPLEX ACME portable motion picture projectors. It was then that Don and I became movie buffs, with an idea that it would be a great profession if we could become movie projectionists. At the time, the profession required that a candidate serve an apprenticeship before becoming a card carrying union projectionist. At the age of 13, we were a bit premature, but we felt that a head start would hold us in good stead when we came of age. Thus entered my 16 millimeter "Excel" movie projector. It was merely a toy, but what fun we had with that now antique treasure! Saturday mornings we would walk over to Lou's Home Movies on Chambers Street in Franklin Park, and Lou Kozak would let us have the many scraps of old 16 millimeter film that were on the "cutting room" floor. We had nips and snips of the old "Castle Film" world war II news reels, bits and pieces of old silent westerns, travel films, and many other exciting movie clips that were otherwise destined for the trash bin. Lou was a wonderful man. He even gave us a really good discount on what were known as "one hundred reelers;" very condensed versions of feature films. One of my favorites was an old Christmas reel complete with a very real looking Santa Claus. Even though we no longer believed in that fabled man in red, we spent many hours running "A Visit from Santa" over and over. Ahh.....the memories of innocent youth!
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
1946: AT THE TOP OF MY CHRISTMAS LIST
The year was 1946. My brother Bud was in the U.S. Navy in the Far East, and I took over his job at Kuser Farm working for Edna and Fritz Kuser. Every Sunday night, my buddy Don Slabicki and I went to the Sunday night movies at Kuser Farm mansion to see the movie of the week which was projected on the screen with Fritz Kuser's 35 millimeter twin SIMPLEX ACME portable motion picture projectors. It was then that Don and I became movie buffs, with an idea that it would be a great profession if we could become movie projectionists. At the time, the profession required that a candidate serve an apprenticeship before becoming a card carrying union projectionist. At the age of 13, we were a bit premature, but we felt that a head start would hold us in good stead when we came of age. Thus entered my 16 millimeter "Excel" movie projector. It was merely a toy, but what fun we had with that now antique treasure! Saturday mornings we would walk over to Lou's Home Movies on Chambers Street in Franklin Park, and Lou Kozak would let us have the many scraps of old 16 millimeter film that were on the "cutting room" floor. We had nips and snips of the old "Castle Film" world war II news reels, bits and pieces of old silent westerns, travel films, and many other exciting movie clips that were otherwise destined for the trash bin. Lou was a wonderful man. He even gave us a really good discount on what were known as "one hundred reelers;" very condensed versions of feature films. One of my favorites was an old Christmas reel complete with a very real looking Santa Claus. Even though we no longer believed in that fabled man in red, we spent many hours running "A Visit from Santa" over and over. Ahh.....the memories of innocent youth!
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My mother used to rent movies from Lou's for fundraisers at the Robbinsville Elementary School. A bulldog used to sit just outside the store - the only dog I was ever afraid of! He wasn't bad, just ferocious-looking!
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