Celebrity Home Theaters past and present

[Roger]

Above is an image of a home theater or screening room as it was called at the time; as I’m sure you can see the image is quite old, 72 years old to be exact (image circa1934). This particular screening room belonged to Ann Harding new window who appeared in 50 plus films from 1929 to 1956.

Ann’s personal Bijou included: “Two 35mm projectors at $10,000 each, a viewing area twenty feet wide with a sixty foot throw from the booth to the screen and an electronically operated, hand-painted stage curtain.”

It should come as no shock that the Hollywood elite enjoyed “Home Theater” long before any of us ever heard the term. Many of those early home screening rooms served dual purpose use for both work and play.

I would be remiss not to mention the source of the image of Ms. Harding’s home screening room. Greenbriar Picture Shows is a great repository of information about Hollywood’s golden age.

The site is chock full of rare classic movie images, original studio ads, and behind-the-scenes photos. If you’re interested in seeing a bit of Hollywood’s past Greenbriar Picture Shows new window is highly recommended.

Though I can’t quite put my hands on the article, I had a magazine that mentioned Martin Scorsese’s home screening room; the article mentioned Mr. Scorsese entertaining quests at home with sneak peaks of his upcoming projects and current releases of the day (circa late 70’s early 80’s).

I’m interested in finding other examples of these celebrity screening rooms either on the web or in print. The March issue of Audio Video Interiors showcased Penn Jillette's new window home theater.

While it was interesting to catch a glimpse of Mr. Jillette's set-up, I’d like to see some other celebrity theaters. Anyone have any other examples you’ve ran across?

Link To Original Article

[Richard W. Haines]

Many if not most Hollywood insiders had 35mm screening rooms which was a status symbol in the past.
It's referenced in movies like "Sunset Boulevard" and "Words and Music". Most celebrities were film
collectors.


Scorsese had a 35mm and 16mm screening room in his NYC apartment back in the nineties but
I'm not sure if it's still in use. I would guess he has a DLP set up now. Sylvester Stallone had
a 70mm set up in his house. Michael Jackson had a very strange screening room to show 35mm
in his ranch way back when. It was featured in an inteview with Oprah. It had theater seats
but also a bed for him to screen the features...


Hugh Hefner had a 35mm screening room at the Playboy mansion. Roddy McDowall had a screening
room as well.


I have a screening room with 35mm, 16mm and an Optoma DLP.


In the seventies the late Jack Valenti and the MPAA instituted a major crackdown on home theaters
and film collecting. The reason was the emerging home video market on VHS. While the studios
had no problem with celebrities owning copies of movies in 35mm or 16mm and screening them privately
at home, there was another group of people who were transferring copyrighted films onto VHS and
selling them as bootlegs. Valenti refused to distinguish between film collectors and film pirates and
gave speeches calling collectors 'a cancer in the belly of the industry'. He claimed that anyone who
had a print of anything was a potential 'film pirate'. To set an example, he had the FBI arrest Roddy
McDowall, one of the most beloved actors in the industry and terrorize and intimidate him into 'naming
names' of other collectors he had purchased prints from. They seized his collection. McDowall was
quite shocked and said everyone had prints of movies in Hollywood and most of his were given to
him by the studios upon request. McDowall eventually got his prints back and he donated them to
a University Film Department. Hugh Hefner also got into trouble by privately screening "Star Wars"
for guests at the mansion. Other people in and outside of the industry were harassed too and film collecting and home theaters went underground for a while. This was around the same time that Universal and Disney sued Sony Betamax and almost destroyed the home video market before it began. The Supreme Court ruled it was not piracy to tape movies off of television as long as they were for home use and not sold and that ended the persecution of film collectors in general. On top of that, it turned out that some studios had been negligent about preserving their movies and they had to turn to film collectors to help them restore them. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "King Kong" and others were restored with the help of collectors who had saved the missing footage in their prints.


Today home theaters are very common and virtually everyone is a film collector but back in the seventies it was a real problem and people were afraid that the FBI would knock on your door and bust you for 'unauthorized exhibition' or 'piracy' for screening movies in 35mm or 16mm in your livingroom.
Here's what makes it even stranger. Shortly before the VHS format was introduced, studios were selling
complete Super 8 sound prints of films like "Gone with the Wind". How could it be piracy to screen a different film format if the movie was released for home use? Most of the FBI cases were dropped because it was impossible to prove them and most of the prints circulating in film collecting circles
had be slated for destruction anyway. Only a handful of release prints were saved for revival screenings
and drive ins after a movie had played the rounds. The rest were either junked or just left at the theaters or exchanges which is where collectors went garbage picking or purchased them directly.



Today, the only way to see an original 35mm or 16mm Technicolor print of a movie is through film
collectors since the process was eliminated and you cannot replicate the specific 'look' of these
prints on Eastmancolor or video. Few studios have Technicolor copies of their classics, they were
junked years ago. You can simulate it on DVD but it's still not the same.

[Bob_99]

Thanks for the posts. This is very interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

Bob

[Richard W. Haines]

You're welcome. Fortunately, I missed the persecution since I started collecting in 1985 but I heard lots of stories of people being harassed in the seventies. You
would think the FBI had more important things to do than target people watching
prints in their livingroom like they were hardened criminals. In later years even colleges like Keane got into trouble for showing prints in their film classes.


Today most movies are available for purchase or rental but decades ago it wasn't
that easy to see a movie upon request. There were irregular television screenings
but they were censored or cut for commercials. 16mm rental companies existed
but the copies were usually worn or faded and they charged $50-$200
per showing. In large cities there were revival theaters but even there, not every movie was available. If you wanted to watch a specific picture, you had to either be a film collector or know film collectors. For example, five of the Hitchcock classics had been pulled from release for years. There was no way of seeing "Vertigo" or "Rear Window" outside of private screenings even though you were in danger of being raided by the Feds. What if you were a film student, a writer or historian and wanted to watch one of these movies? The MPAA's position was...you were
out of luck. It was an insane situation and I'm certainly glad things have changed
for the better since the home video revolution. Before that the availability of
any given movie was at the discression of the distributor and many were not
preserving their libraries. The popularity and quality control of DVDs have inspired
most studios to restore and preserve their backlog although in a few cases it might
have been too little too late (i.e. "Lost Horizon", "Tom Jones").

[mechman]

Richard,

Very interesting history! Thanks for taking the time to put it together! It seems like whenever new technology comes out there are new fears.

mech

[Richard W. Haines]

Mechman,

There's no question that technology has outpaced distribution and copyright concerns.

[Owen Bartley]

I can't find much about it, but I remembered that Fabio was supposed to have a pretty serious HT setup. Here's a short interview where he's apparently working with the Geek Squad, and he mentions his Krell gear.