Editing Theatre Exhibit (section)

=== '''THE MOVIE SCREEN AND ORGAN''' ===
We have an organ in here because every theater in Greer during the silent-film era would have used either a piano or organ for a live soundtrack. The music scores on the organ are prints of original “soundtrack” scores (we do not own these originals; they came from a museum in Kansas). Notice their titles; the musician played whatever fit the film in the moment. Also notice the mirror on the organ. While this organ did not come out of a theater, some theater musicians did use a mirror to watch the movie right above their sheet music, so they could time their music appropriately. This organ can technically still play, but the internal mechanism needs some restoration and care prior to use. We hope to do this work and hold a “silent” movie screening with original music score played live.

We show the 1948 movie, Greater Greer, the Heart of the New Industrial South as the standard film running in our theater on a daily basis. The movie was created by order of Bill Drace, then manager of the Grand. He hired Holly Smith, a filmmaker in Charlotte, to produce the film. The original filmstrip was stored in the projection booth of the theater. Just before the building was demolished, fireman Bobby Colvin went through the clear the building and ensure no one was inside. In the projection room, he saw the film and recovered it. He sent it to the film department at USC in Columbia to be transferred to VHS tape, which was later transferred to DVD; our copy is taken from the DVD. We have been in contact with Bobby Colvin, trying to recover the original; he has not yet been able to find it, though he believes it is still in his possession. If we can obtain it, we will have it professionally digitized and restored; until then, the copy we play is the best that exists.

One last detail about that original filmstrip: it was almost certainly produced on nitrate film, which is highly flammable if it gets damp and very dangerous to store or work with.