The future, past of theaters in Wrangell

In the late nineteenth century an American cinema pioneer named Charles F. Jenkins introduced the world to its first taste of movie going with his Phantoscope film projection system. It was the first true motion picture projector that allowed for crisp, clean and realistic movement to be shown to a mass audience.

The year was 1894 – now, fast forward to 2013.

Last week Wrangell took a step into the digital generation with the installation of a new projector at Castle Mountain Entertainment that utilizes hard drive technology to show movies at the James and Elsie Nolan Center. No longer in use are the behemoth twin film projectors that required regular maintenance on its hundreds of moving parts – and constant cooling necessary to keep the machines running.

When the projector fired up for the first time last week, the newest Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” was shown – and represented the first time a brand-new, first-run movie had been shown in Wrangell in decades.

The new projection system, a Barco D-series cinema projector, will include a server-based file system for movies and will add Dolby digital sound to the presentations. Unlike the multi-reel film projectors, the new system will only require a hard drive to put the movies on the silver screen.

Seattle-based McRae Theater Equipment, Inc. filed the single bid for a replacement to the old-fashioned 35mm film projectors at the theater. The bid for $62,482.85 was approved during the Jan. 22 meeting of the Borough Assembly.

Wrangell’s first movie theater, the Coliseum, opened in 1930 and ran continuously until it was destroyed in the March 1952 downtown business district fire. After the fire, movies were shown intermittently at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall. It was not until 1958 that former Wrangell mayor Dick Ballard opened the 49th Star Theater at the old gymnasium building, near the current location of the library, and later at the corner of Front Street and Lynch Street, in the building where the offices of the Sentinel reside.

In his youth, Jeff Angerman was a projectionist at the 49th Star and remembers his time there.

“I started working there in junior high, so that was about 1972,” Angerman said. “A lot of the guys would get hired by Dick and his wife. They were usually there at every movie and they would patrol around, if people were getting too loud or rowdy they would be all over it. They lived upstairs in the back apartment, so they were always around. Dick was an astute businessman and he didn’t put up with any nonsense.”

Angerman also described the old fashioned technology employed at the 49th Star.

“In those days you had to splice a cartoon onto the movie because there was a cartoon before every showing,” Angerman added. “Then, you played the movie and had to switch back and forth between reels, all while using the old retorts that provided power to the carbon sticks that lit the film.”

In his younger, wilder days, before taking over the reins of city finances, Jeff Jabusch says he remembers going to the 49th Star – and was notorious with Ballard for doing so.

“There were two of them, the 49th Star theaters, and I have been to both of them,” Jabusch said. “It was a great place to go. Though, Dick Ballard used to tell people he never kicked anyone out of there more than Monty Buness and me.”

Buness said he remembers it as having good clean American fun at the movies.

“I don’t know about all that,” Buness said. “We were just normal kids having normal fun.”