Marquee Still Glows After 35 Years as Landmark

The Vernal Theater opened nearly 35 years ago with the Paramount production, “Two Years Before the Mast,” starring Alan Ladd.  The movie which finished its run at the theater last week, “E. T.,” became the best money-maker the theater has ever had.

In between, some things have changed, such as improvement in projection equipment as the state of the art improved.  Some things haven't, such as the eternal symbol of the industry, the neon-lit sign and marquee.

There have been the expected occurrences, like plumbing problems in the rest rooms, power failures or delayed shows to wait for the movie to arrive at the theater.  Sandra Davis recalled these things while talking about the theater that she has grown up with. She is a member of the Shiner family, which has owned the Vernal Theater since its opening.

The structure remains pretty much as is, said Brent Shiner, the current manager.   He believes the marquee will stay where it is, suspended by cable from the building for a long time.  The city has since prohibited that kind of architecture.

Mrs. Davis said the marquee has posed some maintenance problems because of its age.  Very few people know how to work with neon lights, so a change will be made to conventional florescent lighting.  Replacing letters for the marquis is difficult because they aren't made anymore.

The establishment has another unique feature – three sizes of seats, according to Mrs. Davis.  The rest room fixtures also don't match.  She believes it was because of the shortage of building materials as a result of World War II.

She said the theater opened in either 1946 or 1947 and showed second-run films for about a year and a half.  The reason:  it took that long for a film to work its way through the distribution system after its release in New York.

The Vernal Theater competed with two other movie houses for a while, the Vogue and the Main.

Shiner said the theater business is an up and down one.  Business suffered with the introduction of television and more recently during the introduction of cable television.  But movies this summer, such as “E. T.” and “Rocky III” did very well, he added.

Mrs. Davis recalled that classics such as “The Ten Commandments” and “South Pacific” did well in Vernal as did a pair of recent films, “Every Which Way But Loose,” starring Clint Eastwood in a rare comedy role, and its sequel, “Any Which Way You Can.”

“E. T.” played for six weeks this summer, she added.

“There is a big difference in age groups over the years,” said Mrs. Davis of audiences.  Unless it's a “big movie,” younger people mostly make up the audience.

Along with theaters in Salt Lake City, she said, the Vernal Theater was the first to show the Robert Redford movie “Jeremiah Johnson,” which was filmed in this part of the state.

Mrs. Davis said the theater's projection system was improved in a big way in 1965 when the original carbon-arc projectors were replaced by lamphouse-style projectors.  (The older machines produced light by passing an elecrtical current between two carbon-tipped points.)

In 1978, the theater took another big step in improving its projection capability.  Reels were abandoned in favor of a “platter” system that feeds and takes up the film without the need to rewind.  The film, delivered in 20-minute reels, is spliced together for use on the platters, explained Shiner.

Mrs. Davis said a new sound system was installed this summer.