Film Shows Depend on Road Transport
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Cinema Film Service Demands a 100 per cent. Delivery System _WHAT might be termed " the silent VW service " of road transport—the carrying of cinema films—has been
going on unobtrusively throughout Great Britain for over a quarter of a century. Little, however, is knowe. of . the work of this importanTorganization which keeps to a time-schedule even • stricter than that of . the railways. Films must arrive on time if the show is to go on. The major portion of those distributed in this country is sent by road, and this is undertaken by the London and Provincial Film Transport Co., Ltd.
Large fleet, of plain vans operate from London, Birmingham, Man
chester, Glasgow and other centres,
and these vehicles arc distinguishable only by the orange lining on dark grey
or black paintwork. Sometimes a single-panel advertisement board is carried on each side otherwise there is no indication of the contents. of the vans.
They go out three times a week, usually starting on Sunday night with transit cases loaded with films for showing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, -or,.perhaps, for six days, according to the bookings at individual ,cinemas:.
A second run is made every Wednesday night with a further batch of films for Thursday, Friday and Saturday showing. Sometimes the Sunday films go out on Thursday, but, as often as not, a separate journey has to be made on Saturday night to collect used films and to drop the Sunday ones.
What are known as film dumps arc arranged at each big centre, to which films are brought back and sorted for redistribution. The practice is for each cinema to label-up transit cases, with labels provided by, renters, directly after the end of each threeor six-day run. By this means it is possible for the film transport company to deliver films to another cinema in a nearby district without them being returned to the renters, who are often at a great distance. Large batches of films are sent by passenger train when the distance is too great for road transport.
Let-downs are almost unknown, but when they do occur it is usually due to an error of the renters, or some delay in -return from another cinema. On the longer-distance trips vans start out
'on Sunday afteritoon with films for Monday showing. During the blitz periods the us.ual film dumps were split up and each film-renting company set _up safe storage dumps on its own, well outside the, danger area. Films are. highly inflatnraable and are not, therefore a desirable commodity to harbour when fire bombs are about, yet, so long as they be kept cool in tins and transit cases, they are perfectly safe. The vans in use are usually of 1-ton or 30-cwt. capacity. Drivers are furnished with keys to unlock gates or doors at some cinemas, as it is often in the middle of the night when delivery is made—long after cinema staffs. have left the building. In this' way, the -service goes on, day and night, and few people realize that the grey and orange van passing them on the road ieprobably taking films to be shown at their local cinema that day. In the early days of' the bioscope, film operators themselves had to collect their own films from renters' offices ii within a certain radius, otherwise they were sent by train, and, even to-day in Central London, big cinemas . still collect from Wardour Street. Unfailing reliability is the keynote of film
tra nsport. C.R.S.L.