Check us out on social media!
Starts Wednesday: A Year in the Life of a Movie Palace
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

A Palace in a Basement

11/1/2017

2 Comments

 
PictureConsole of the Fred Hermes 5/34 Wurlitzer.
Running a movie palace isn’t easy, even (or especially?) if it’s in the basement of your own home. As a former movie palace operator myself, I’m not thinking about those screening rooms with surround sound that people put in their man-caves.The one I’m focused on, in Racine, Wisconsin, Fred Hermes’ Basement Bijou, has  a surprisingly high ceiling, a balcony, approximately 150 theater seats, and a real live theater organ. I only recently learned about it, while researching the fate of the Michigan Theatre in Detroit to which Fred’s home theater is narratively connected.

The Basement Bijou happens to be built around the rescued Wurlitzer organ that used to grace the Michigan. Fred, now in his nineties, was a young man in 1955, when he purchased the organ for three thousand dollars.He and several friends got it out in multiple truckloads. It has come to rest in the basement of his home, where, in addition to organ recitals, Fred shows the occasional silent flick and a yearly staging of Phantom of the Opera. Referring, perhaps, to his age, he quips, “I’m the Phantom of the Opera now!” The Basement Bijou really does look like a miniature palace built to showcase the the 3000-pipe Wurlitzer, one of the largest ever built. Former patrons of Racine’s no-longer-extant Venetian Theatre will recognize many of the decorative artifacts Fred has assembled there, but the Bijou's interior is a curious blend of many palaces. Because so many were being torn down in the late fifties, the assortment is eclectic: a mustard-yellow curtain from the Crown Theatre in Racine; the motor mechanism that opens and closes it from the Palace Theatre in Dallas; stage lights from Kenosha's Lake Theater; crystal chandeliers from the Piccadilly Theatre in Chicago and  more than 100 theater seats from the Uptown Theatre in Racine keep each other company in the basement. "I got ahold of building records, and they would tell me when they were tearing a theater down..." Fred recalls.

“Mystery” bus tours have been stopping at Fred’s for many years, to tour the theater and listen to Fred, a member of the Dairyland Theatre Organ Society, play. That is, until a retired fireman from out of town who happened to be part of a tour, observed that Fred’s makeshift theater wasn’t exactly up to snuff, fire safety-wise and turned the poor guy in to the local fire department.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I once ran a real movie palace, the 2,672-seat St. George Theatre in Staten Island, New York. So when I read about the fire inspection that closed Fred down this March, I couldn’t help but think I’d been there, suffering the slights of overzealous fire inspectors.

We had at least 13 fire exits at the St. George — I still own a stained glass exit sign bearing that number. Each fire door had to have a working “breakaway bar,” for fast exit. Every fire hose had to be ready to go. Pressure was supposed to be maintained in the standpipe system at all times. And then there was Dean’s favorite absurd rule. It had made sense forty years prior, when film (once actually Celluloid) had been highly combustible. The fire extinguisher in the projection booth was supposed to be 24 inches off the floor and strapped to the wall, in order to be closer to the projectors. One Friday afternoon, ours was observed to be six inches too low, and the omnipresent fire inspector wrote us up. But, unlike Fred, we were actual theater managers.Apparently you don’t have to be in business to be treated like somebody who is.

 “I’ve been holding tours for about 50 years, and I’ve never had a problem,” Hermes states. He disputes the fire inspector’s claims, stating that he has purchased extra fire extinguishers, invested in new emergency lighting and has people sit in the back row of the theater, both because the organ sounds better and on account of the fact that the audience is closer to the exits. He once had a fire drill with about 40 or 50 people, and, according to him, everyone was able to exit the basement within 5 minutes. The Basement Bijou is probably safer than most theaters, including the St. George, in our time. 
 
While investigating movie palaces in Racine, I read up on the sad tale of the Venetian, an Italian Renaissance United Artists palace opened in 1928, torn down in 1977, the year we lost management of the St. George. Fred was in the forefront of the effort to save the Venetian, as this excerpted letter, quoted in the Comments section of the Venetian’s Cinema Treasures entry, attests:

Letter to the Journal Times, Sunday, Aug. 25, 1974 – 11 A Racine. Wis.
Urges Rebirth of Venetian

To the Editor:
Suggestions for helping the Racine Symphony from Mrs. Leo Draves in her letter a few weeks ago were excellent.
One...requirement for good attendance and performance is the necessity of a...home, one which is permanent, and can be shared with the many other fine musical and stage groups of our community. Excellent acoustics are an absolute must, as are good sight lines. All this awaits us in the elegant auditorium of the Venetian Theatre now waiting for rebirth as a performing arts center....
Let us use this beautiful theatre as a civic auditorium for all to enjoy. If we ever lose it, it will be gone forever.
—FREDERICK P. HERMES
1710 Heather Lane
           
Here’s to Fred!  And to the Basement Bijou — in Caledonia, Wis., actually, should you choose to visit — and here's to the organ he rescued. If he hadn’t gone to the trouble, it probably would have been cannibalized for parts like the Wurlitzer that was gone by the time we got to the St. George Theatre. Only its stage elevator survived. The instrument itself, or parts of it, ended up in a Texas pizza parlor. 

2 Comments
Elizabeth Leslie
11/1/2017 09:05:07 pm

Fascinating to read about the Bijou Basement and a man so determined to keep (and use) the organ. Worth a trip to Wisconsin!

Reply
vh
11/1/2017 10:16:06 pm

How can anyone get so much stuff into one basement? Oh, wait. I've got several truck loads under my own floorboards...but nary a theater organ.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Victoria Hallerman

    Author

    Victoria Hallerman is a poet and writer, the author of the upcoming memoir, Starts Wednesday: A Day in the Life of a Movie Palace, based on her experience as a movie palace manager of the St. George Theatre, Staten Island, 1976. As she prepares her book manuscript for publication, she shares early aspects of theater management, including the pleasures and pain of entrepreneurship. This blog is for anyone who enjoys old movie theaters, especially for those who love the palaces as they once were. And a salute to those passionate activists who continue to save and revive the old houses, including the St. George Theatre itself. This blog is updated every Wednesday, the day film always arrived to start the movie theater week.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Ambler
    Audience
    Candy
    Fire!
    Harlem
    History
    Inwood
    LHAT
    New York City
    Projectors
    Restored Theaters
    Roots
    Technology
    Television
    Tour
    VCRs
    Washington Heights

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Recommended

    • St. George Theatre
    • LHAT
    • NYC Go