A page from a 1916 catalog shows a Power's Cameragraph Model 6-B, similar to the machine used in Saratoga.
Graphic courtesy of Willys Peck
Saratoga Stereopticon
One man's arc lamp is another man's missing link
By Willys Peck
Probably my favorite journalistic aphorism is, "Don't ever underestimate the power of the press." Its validity was demonstrated to me most recently in the form of an email that a man in Soquel sent to the Saratoga News. He had read my Stereopticon column of Nov. 12, 1997, in which I described some parts from a very old motion picture projector that I had, and still have, in my possession.
I haven't yet had a chance to speak to the man, so I don't know how he happened to be picking up now on a writing almost four years old. Also, Soquel does seem to be a bit out of the Saratoga News circulation area. Or is it? The inquiry, however, does bring up an interesting bit of Saratoga history that I think is worth repeating.
The movie projector was a 35-millimeter Power's Cameragraph, circa 1916. This, of course, was before sound, or "talkies," as they were first known. It was a theater-size machine of heroic proportions, standing almost as high as the projectionist. Although a motor drive was available, the basic machine was equipped with a hand crank. As I got the story from various sources, the projector was purchased through a public subscription drive, and the theater was the then-new Saratoga Foothill Clubhouse.
One would think the projector would have been set up at the rear of the auditorium and focused on a screen on the stage. But, according to the late Arch Brolly Sr., who was hired as a high school student to turn the crank, the machine was set up in the Fireside Room and aimed through the glass-topped doors at a screen in the alcove directly opposite.
I don't have more information on the frequency or patronage of these movie shows, but I do know that the projector eventually wound up at the Saratoga Grammar School, which was built in 1923. Again, I can't say whether it was actually used there, but I do know there was a metal-lined projection booth above and to the rear of the auditorium, later the media center, where such a machine could have been installed.
I also know that the projector, or pieces of it, wound up in the basement under the auditorium, where I had seen them before my 1937 graduation from the school, and I knew those pieces weren't doing anybody any good. In the fall of 1937, I asked the principal if I could have them. She was glad to see them go.
At home, I assembled the parts I had. There was the four-legged base, which included the lower reel case; the lamp house, as it was called, containing the arc light assembly; and the upper reel case. The main mechanism, through which the film moved from upper to lower reel, was missing. My older brother, who always had been good at tinkering with radio and electrical equipment, actually got the arc light to function, but there was no way to use it.
With the advent of World War II, I took most of the parts to the local scrap-metal drive. All I kept was the arc light assembly and the upper reel case. Enter now the gentleman from Soquel and his interest in these relics. According to his email, he had purchased a Power's Cameragraph at an antique show, and the only missing part was the arc lamp assembly.
Talk about coincidence! And, while we're at it, one could mention the power of the press when it comes to orchestrating coincidences.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
