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Show Volunteer plan questioned for opening of old Rivoli Theatre (Letters to the Editor) Does it really make so much difference to Springville whether wheth-er or not a movie theatre is opened again? The canvassers would lead one to believe it does. During the recent drive to taining first run or even second run pictures that can only be obtained on a percentage basis. It is required of the theatre to pay a percentage of admissions as charged by the theatre. A small percentage of "passes" is .sig'n up 75 cents monthly donors don-ors on the city utility bill for the period of five or more years, much emphasis was used to get signers by using the story that our children needed a show house in town to go to to keep them from going out of town. This emphasis is a good one, but one in which only parents thinking in terms of younger than teenagers, could accept. Only a very small percentage of the show-going teenagers who have access to a car, will remain in the city when going out for a movie date. Those youngsters in the movie matinee age .can certainly cer-tainly not be large enough in quantity to pay for the amount of money needed to maintain the monthly erpense of running a full time movie theatre project. pro-ject. Canvassers have said very little regarding the adult movie attenders, who, generally speaking, would probably never get to more than one movie during a month. The above mentioned factors, grant you, are in the negative light of the project, but when weighing whether or not the responsible obligation should be attempted by somewhat inexperienced in-experienced personnel, all phases phas-es of the project should be carefully scrutinized. Theatre managers who have had years of experience can testify to the complexity and keen bidding rivalry in ob- ll allowed, but the other admissions admis-sions would be included on the percentage take. Doesn't this mean the theatre would be pay-ign pay-ign the percentage over the 75 cents admission which might be $1000 or higher? It appears that way and if so, this would be added expense. It is a known fact that a theatre cannot purchase top rate pictures on a "choose the one we want" basis without taking a little of the "bad" with the "good" ones. For this reason, if first run movies are to be shown here and surely a theatre could not operate successfully financially if they were not top rate shows then unfavorable movies would certainly be part of the thea-atre thea-atre program. As a parent, I do not oppose having a theatre. However, since complicated and costly bidding must be made and the expensive cost of running a high class program must be met, it appears to me that a skilled, enterprising individual or corporation is needed to assure as-sure the financing of it. The proposed voluntary donation set-up with the probability of 50 or more dropping out after af-ter an initial few months of paying, poses a threat to the financial backing. Movie companies com-panies demand a high percentage percen-tage on first run movies, from 40 to 90 percent of the first runs and this has to be paid on I regular charged admissions. Can this be handled by the proposed plan? Movies are occasionally provided pro-vided in the elementary school grades for the younger set. A program of movie showings was conducted in the junior high school for a period of time and school officials themselves them-selves point with high concern the problem of discipline which ultimately caused the program to be disbanded. This problem was part of the trouble at the Rivoli before it closed its doors. Can a voluntary program pro-gram be more successful in handling discipline? With the stress on pornography, pornog-raphy, bad movies, bad environment envir-onment for the young set to be in, plus the possibility of a poorly managed theatre with a questionable financial basis, I would choose to have my children child-ren who are too young to be going to movies out of town without being chaperoned, remain re-main at home and see the older old-er movies provided for them on TV. Woodrow Weight |