Historic Houlton theater faces economic curtains

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HOULTON – Once the center for community entertainment, the Temple Cinema in Market Square is now barely hanging on and could close if there isn’t an increase in patronage.

“I can’t believe the movie business is dead,” says Brian “Herbie” Hockenhull, owner of the Temple, as he waits in the lobby for the delivery of the next movie, “Meet the Parents.” “I just can’t believe it.”

At one time, there were at least two dozen community movie theaters and drive-ins in the region north from Howland. Today, less than a handful remain. The Temple is one of them.

Theaters have had an on-and-off history in Houlton since 1903, when Walter French first started showing movies. The Temple has been the only show in town since the early 1960s when the Houlton Theater closed down.

Hockenhull has managed the Temple since 1978 and purchased it in 1996. But with moviegoers becoming more scarce, he isn’t sure how much longer he can hold on.

“I’ve got a desk full of bills up there,” he continues, looking up briefly toward the cluttered little office that overlooks the main lobby. “You get two or three good weeks and you can pay your bills, but when it stops, you’re beat.

“Last night’s show, I had one person in for the first show,” he adds. “That’s pretty bad; $4 income.”

When “Grease” was released in the 1970s, the theater took in $6,000 in one week, Hockenhull recalls. And when “Titanic” played in 1998, the shows were sold out every night for a week.”

By comparison, during one recent week, Hockenhull says his entire income came to just over $700, including what he made from concession sales.

There are a number of factors Hockenhull sees as contributing to the demise of small town movie theaters like The Temple, including shrinking populations, competition from larger, multi-screen complexes, and the content quality of movies.

“A lot of these movies, people won’t go across the street to see them,” he says, adding that the violence and R ratings of most movies tend to drive away family audiences.

He points to a group of teen-agers milling around outside a video-game hall across the street when he says that video games and movie rentals also have had a big impact.

“Most of the people who come to movies now are teen-agers, because they want to get out of the house,” he says, looking out through the twin double doors onto Market Square, as a teen-age couple walks by.

His biggest clientele now are the pre-teens and young teen-agers who are old enough to go out to a movie but still can’t drive. “But once they get their license,” he says without finishing the sentence.

When the Temple opened in 1919, it was heralded with full-page ads and stories and pictures in the local newspaper. A deep stage, orchestra pit and seating for 600 made it a natural site for local shows, traveling acts and of course, movies.

Today, the theater is a shadow of its former self.

The main theater and stage were split in 1980 to add a second movie screen that would give people a choice of what to see. The orchestra pit was covered over and the box seats along the walls were taken down.

Below the stage, a narrow wainscoted hallway is lined with dressing rooms now used to store old seats and movie signs.

On the stage itself, behind twin movie screens and old curtain, there’s an old popcorn machine, a dust-covered nickel candy machine, and even the piano from the silent movie era.

“You go back in time when you go through this place,” says Hockenhull, 53, who has been in the movie business for 32 years, since he was in college and lived in Fort Fairfield.

At the front of the theater, the old overhead projection room is now a storage area for antiquated carbon-arch movie projectors and other odds and ends.

“It was a cracker box up here,” recalls Hockenhull. “You had two projectors with carbon-arch lights, and it got pretty hot.”

Holding up an old splicer that required glue to put broken sections of film together, he adds, “I’ve stuck a lot of film together with these things.”

Next door is Hockenhull’s office.

“The history’s fantastic in here,” he says, as he opens a file cabinet full of old newspaper clippings, movie lore and programs. “I never throw anything out.”

There is a 1931 advertisement for “East of Borneo” with Rose Hobart and Charles Bickford and another for “This Modern Age” with Joan Crawford.

A prized possession is the 1940 projectionist’s manual for “Gone With the Wind” that details what the operator must do throughout the showing of the film – all 16 reels of it – from setting the intensity of the house lights and to what to do when a drum roll sounds.

The theater today is a mixed tapestry of orange fabric walls, and blue-and-purple upholstered chairs that have been taken from closed movie theaters.

The hardwood floors under the seats are marked with scores of irregularly shaped, black circles of old gum. The red carpet in the aisles deepens in tone in places where sodas have been spilled by moviegoers struggling in the darkened theater to find their seats.

Hockenhull says that in the past, he had a weekly payroll of $200 for people who helped with concessions and other tasks. Now, it’s mostly him.

“On show night, I’m doing everything,” he says, as he steps behind the concession stand. “Running projectors, selling tickets, selling candy and cleaning up.

“You have to dig in your heels until you get some money to pay your bills with,” he says of his situation.

Hockenhull has less than a year to go before he pays off his mortgage and owns the theater outright. If he can hold out, things will be easier without the payments hanging over his head.

If he can’t, it might be only a matter of a few months.

“If this place closes up, nobody’s going to re-open it,” he says. “Nobody’s going to hitch a wagon to a dead horse.”