Smoking In A Projection Box

[Maurice Leakey]

What a pity that film makers can't get details correct, particularity when it comes to film projection. I've just been watching the 1987 film "Wish You Were Here" on Talking Pictures TV.

A young couple go to their local cinema to watch "Love Story" which had its UK general release in November 1944. We have a great shot of the projection room with its two Peerless Magnarcs (I used these for many years), but, horror upon horrors, the projectionist is smoking a cigarette. Yes, with 4000 ft of nitrate film on his projectors. (The projectors have 2000ft spool boxes). Nitrate film was issued on 1000ft cores.

It wasn't until 1949 that Kodak introduced safety film.

Peerless Magnarc | Michael Brnd | Flickr

[Steve Lee]

I totally agree with you Maurice, as things like this in films and television drive me mad. But it always seems to be connected to technology and its workings.
The film Cinema Paradiso, a projection box with one projector! Vintage cars with a radio cassette in the dashboard? Exotic foreign locations with 13amp U.K sockets on the walls!
We were watching something a couple of weeks ago set in the sixties, and in the background there is a Tascam reel to reel tape recorder, this machine wasn't produced until 1982!
I just wish they would get it right, and not just presume because it is old school technology it doesn't matter how it is used or presented.

The cinema in the film Wish You Were Here is the Dome Worthing, I have had the pleasure of watching several films in this beautiful cinema.
Fortunately it is still intact and is fully restored.

[Osi Osgood]

Things have changed some. I remember as a kid, it seemed like every man had either a big "stogie" or cigarette hanging out of they're mouth and the only time they're wasn't one was when they were sleeping, and half the time that was only because it had rolled out of they're mouths while they slept. While there are still a lot ofsmokers today, as well as vapors, smokers in training, it seems like the high period of time for smoking was the generation coming out of WW2 and after. As this generation is dying out, the number of smokers is going down.

[David Strelitz]

Come on guys, give them a break One of the chariot drivers in Ben Hur had a gold watch on 😁😜🤔
There have been some great progs showing continuity errors from films and TV.

[Maurice Leakey]

Two more observations.
1) Projector 2 was running yet the projectionist was standing on its other side and using the viewing port of projector 1.
2) The show was finished. The National Anthem was playing yet the casher still remained at her desk. The cashier would usually close the cash desk about an hour into the last film so that the manager could be given a note of the day's takings, the paperwork could be completed, and the cash put into the safe before the show came down.

[Joe Caruso]

Smoking (nicotine), has a direct bearing on celluloid, causing the start of VS...tobacco smoke does dig into the emulsion...think on it next go when you inhale an old reel/film...Shorty

[Steve Klare]

It's the hard part of producing any staged story: you're creating a world for the characters to live in which means you are basically stuck to get everything right. These range all the way from era appropriate beverages, foods and clothing to the physics of objects moving on-screen. Anything you get wrong, there will be some expert you neglected to hire watching at home saying something like "Nope! -Abraham Lincoln had no zippers in his clothing!".

When I hear people in TV and movies discuss electricity i almost want to scream! (-no use: unless I'm at work nobody will get what I'm so upset about!)

Then again, let's not even mention what happens when a train enters the picture.
(OK...let's!)

I've seen shows where the entire premise comes down to "No!". There was one maybe 20 years ago where a locomotive engineer was upset over layoffs and decided to steal a diesel-electric and motor off to Corporate Headquarters to protest.

There are all these guys standing around a control tower saying "We can't stop him!". There I am sitting on the couch: "Of course you can! Set a signal against him: if he passes it his brakes will set! Have the Cops standing there with handcuffs!".

-but who wants to see THAT movie?!!

[Graham Ritchie]

Interesting thing about smoking going to a cinema in Glasgow when I was very young and being fascinated by the fact the projector beam ever reached the screen as back then everyone smoked cough cough . I remember watching documentary film made in the projection room of a Odeon cinema in England, where the projectionist opened up the side cover of the carbon arc lamp house to light a cigarette.

Thankfully just about everywhere I once worked smoking was either banned or folk just did not do it.

Steve taking about stopping a train, this film we screened at the cinema years ago called "Unstoppable" was pretty good.

[Ed Gordon]

Nothing surprising about this. Movies have always had goofs, and always will. That is why IMDB has a dedicated subsection for "Goofs". Here are some from a newer movie (Bullet Train):


As Claude Rains famously said, "I'm shocked!"

[Brian Fretwell]

Then again, let's not even mention what happens when a train enters the picture.
(OK...let's!)

I've seen shows where the entire premise comes down to "No!". There was one maybe 20 years ago where a locomotive engineer was upset over layoffs and decided to steal a diesel-electric and motor off to Corporate Headquarters to protest.

There are all these guys standing around a control tower saying "We can't stop him!". There I am sitting on the couch: "Of course you can! Set a signal against him: if he passes it his brakes will set! Have the Cops standing there with handcuffs!".

-but who wants to see THAT movie?!!

Well in the UK you can't actually do that yet that level of train control here except on the Underground with stop cocks ETCS is about to be introduced but they could set a signal against him in the hope he would slow down and use catch points to stop it by derailing it safely.

[Steve Klare]

Oh, here that's the Locomotive Engineer's most embarrassing career moment, and quite often their last. When a train passes a "Stop" signal, an actuator in the track opens up a valve under the locomotive and dumps the air pressure in the brake lines: full emergency brakes. Suffice it to say this doesn't go unnoticed by the Dispatcher and he's not prone to keep it a secret!

There are only a couple or reasons that this happens, and none of them sound very good in your boss's ear! It took the better part of 100 years, but cell-phones becoming common has finally introduced a new bad-reason. (It's happened a few times, too!)

I did some research: the movie is "End of the Line" with Wilford Brimley. It's on YouTube...dubbed in German.