Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
THEATRE MEN — Temple Theatre owner Mike Hurley, left, and manager Patrick Blanchette stand outside the historic theatre in downtown Houlton. The Temple, like many smaller movie houses, is wrestling with the concept of converting from 35mm film to digital to keep up with changes in the industry.
By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — It is hard to imagine downtown Houlton without the Temple Theatre marquee lighting up the night skies.
But unless the theatre makes a costly transition from 35mm film to a digital format, movies in the Shiretown may be in jeopardy. Upgrading the Temple Theatre to a digital format is not a question of “if” but rather a question of “when” because movie studios are slowly phasing out prints on 35mm film, according to owner Mike Hurley.
“It’s going to happen, without a doubt,” Hurley said. “It has gone far beyond a conception. I would dare say most theatres in Maine, at this point, have already converted.”
The cost to upgrade is about $60,000 per screen for new equipment, Hurley said, making it a sizeable investment for a small theatre. However, he is optimistic used equipment could be obtained for under $50,000 per screen.
Hurley also owns a three-screen movie house, the Colonial Theatre, in Belfast, which has gone digital.
“I would like to say within a year, to a year-and-a-half maximum, the Temple will have to convert,” Hurley said. “It’s expensive, but it is to our advantage. The sound and picture are far superior.”
Some towns in the state have organized community fundraisers to help save their cinemas, while other municipalities have offered tax breaks to help keep businesses afloat.
Exactly when studios will stop distributing movies on film is difficult to pinpoint. A report by the IHS Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence Service has stated that studios will cease production to major markets by the end of 2013. Hurley, however, feels that timetable simply isn’t likely to occur.
“In Houlton, what we are primarily looking for, are the big hits,” Hurley said. “All of those movies are available in 35mm and I have yet to feel that I can’t get a movie I want. There is no concrete answer for when it will happen. Every time a theatre like Temple converts to digital, that is one less 35mm print needed.”
He gave the example of the upcoming film “Riddick,” which comes out on Friday. That movie only has about 2,400 print copies available nationwide. Of that amount, only about 20 percent are 35mm, which results in about 480 copies.
“The reality is, all the big movie houses have gone digital,” he said. “Now it’s all the small guys who still need prints. And those places are, one-by-one, making the transition to digital.”
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
FILM REELS — The projector room of the Temple Theatre shows how the current 35mm film is projected onto the silver screens. Movie studios are cutting back on producing 35mm film, instead switching to digital, which is forcing small theatres to make costly investments.
Studios opted to make the switch from traditional film to digital as a way to save money. With digital, a movie is sent to a theatre on a hard drive, requiring very little effort to maintain. With 35mm films, each movie arrives on three reels and must be spliced together at the theatre.
The slow phasing out of 35mm film copies has been something the Temple has struggled with in recent years as fewer prints are available, creating a longer-than-usual wait time for a movie to come to Houlton.
“When we first saw the problem hit home was when the movie ‘The Help’ came out,” Hurley said. “There was only about 1,000 prints and everyone wanted to see that movie. If you had digital, they (the studio) would just send a hard drive with the movie on it. That was one of the big movies of the fall and those studios who had film copies weren’t letting them go quick enough.”
“You need to sell tickets when people want to go,” Hurley said. “There are three groups of people — one group never goes, one only goes to the big hits (two or three times a year) and the third group goes all the time.”
Going digital is not the only change Hurley would like to make. He has explored the idea of converting the balconies into two separate, smaller screened, areas to double the number of movies available for customers.
Making such a huge investment in the Temple Theatre will hopefully make the business more attractive to a potential buyer. Hurley has been trying to sell the theatre, ideally to a local resident, for a number of years now.
“When I bought the Temple and renovated it, I did it with the intention of finding a local buyer to take it over,” he said. “There are people who call us and we have active conversations. Sometime in the near future, someone else will own it.”
“When Mike Hurley, whom I believe is a true visionary, came to Houlton and saw the Temple Theater in its broken down state, he saw the possibility of a gem of a theater as the hub of the community,” said Jane Torres, Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce executive director. “He bought the space in 2002 and began renovations that would rejuvenate an old space and bring theater-goers back into the downtown area.”
So what would the town of Houlton be without the Temple Theatre? That is a question Torres hopes never gets asked.
“Try to imagine a Houlton without the Temple Theater,” she said. “As a theater that has been part of the downtown area since 1919, it is almost impossible to think of it with lights out and locked doors. I truly believe that a good movie theater is critical to the health and sustainability of a downtown area and we are tremendously lucky to have one in our community.”
The Braden Theatre, a three-screen movie house in Presque Isle has already gone through the transformation, and the four-screen Braden Theatre in Caribou is in the midst of changing to digital. Those two are believed to be the only cinemas north of Bangor to convert to digital.
History of the Temple Theatre
The Temple Theatre, on the north side of Market Square, is one of the oldest continuously operated movie theatres in the state.
In the early days of cinematic Houlton, there were several movie theatres in town.
File Photo
ORIGINAL VIEW — The exterior of the Temple Theatre has remained relatively the same over the past 94 years. This view shows how the building looked when in opened in 1919.
In 1907 the New Past Time Theatre opened on the corner of Water Street and Market Square. It was located on the ground floor of what is now more familiarly recognized as Key Bank. The Bijou opened its doors that same year on the second floor of what is now the Putnam Arcade on the south side of Market Square.
The cinematic history of Houlton continues with the short lived Orpheus followed in 1911 by the Dream Theatre, which was located on the ground floor of the Opera House on Court Street next to the present Houlton Pioneer Times building. This grand-sized theatre closed in 1926 never to reopen after the plaster ceiling fell down.
In 1919, The Temple Theatre was opened in the newly constructed Masonic building on Market Square. E.J. Bolan, the architect of the Masonic Lodge, had produced a fine cinema in a conjured style of grandeur featuring a central lobby with terrazzo floors, an attractive ticket booth with a curved glass front and glitzy brass railings to set the mood of movie anticipation.
Nearly 100 people were present for the April 29 grand opening. The first nitrate celluloid hand cranked through the projector at The Temple starred Madge Kennedy in “A Perfect Lady.” The front of the theatre was equipped with an orchestra pit as in the days of yore. The films were silent. Bryson’s eight-piece orchestra provided the melodic backdrop for cinematic entertainment.
The theatre was leased and operated by one G. Beecher Churchill of Fairfield. Being the upstanding individual that he was, “no picture was shown on the screen unless it had been previously exhibited to either Mr. or Mrs. Churchill.” A different movie was shown each day with the exception being Sunday when the theatre was closed. The price of a child’s admission was one dime and adults had to fork over 15 cents.
Originally, the projection booth was located at the rear of the balcony and the concession stand was where the current projection booth is located today. In the 1980s, the single screen theatre was split with the construction of a wall down the center of the auditorium in order to provide greater film title offerings.
When Hurley purchased the Temple Theatre in 2002, the cinema was in a sad state of disrepair and had closed its doors for a short period of time. Hurley renovated the cinema, using much of the original lighting fixtures and other items to preserve its history.
The Temple reopened on Nov. 1, 2002 with much fanfare. In 2004, Hurley purchased the Temple Building, with the exception of the third floor which is still owned by the Masons, and the adjacent parking lot.
Editor’s note: The History of the Temple Theatre was obtained from the business’ website.
