SEATING THE FILM PUBLIC

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 265, 5 August 1937, Page 5

SEATING THE FILM PUBLIC

The Work of an Usher in a Busy Theatre Is Not the Pleasant Occupation IK Seems to a “Fan”

J)ANCERS and artists, apparently, are not the only people ■who are born with their talent already within them. You have no more chance of making a theatre usher out of any girl who happens to ask the manager for a job, than you have of producing a Rembrandt from the man who paints lions on circus canvas. If you doubt it, ask any manager.

TO the young film “fan” who sleeps with the faces of about ten dozen film stars, gazing, lus-trous-eyed, from the walls of her bedroom, the work of the theatreusher may sound inviting, even romantic. But. to the usher herself, and to the disillusioned manager, it is no .such thing. “Take it from mo, the usher has the hardest job in tbe theatre, barring the manager,” was one comment in Wellington yesterday, “It’s hard because it’s thankless and it is essentially high-pressure work.” True, no special training is required by these neat, quick ghosts that loom out of the darkness of the cinema to show you to your seat. The mechanics of the job, as it were, can be mastered in very short lime by the girl of intelligence and alert mind. But there is more to it. than the ability to locate seats by the numbers on a little coloured ticket. First, theatre ushers have to work fast. Cinema patrons do not come in ones and twos. They flock past the ticket office in t.heir hundreds in the last quarter hour before the programme begins. And when they cram together in the aisle awaiting their seats, they will not tolerate delay. After a couple of minutes they begin grumbling, then cursing and making darts at the only seats that they can find vacant. This is the behaviour that makes ushering high-pressure work. For, in the average city theatre it is not possible to use more than two ushers in an aisle. Extra help is a hindrance. Scapegoat for Everyone. (SECONDLY, an usher must be unfailingly and sometimes superhumanly courteous. She it is who liears the brunt of complaints for faults that are not her own. Errors in reservations, errors in tlie ticket office, errors of her fellow-ushers—for all these she is blamed. And not gently. The cinema public can be as abusive as a parrot that has lived its life with an old-fash-ioned sea-captain. “And there you have it,” explained tbe Wellington manager. “A girl may be a charming and pleasant girl in ordinary circumstances, but in the dark of the theatre, trying to hurry, listening to complaints which should not be made to her at all, even pleasant girls sometimes abandon courtesy. Theatre ushers are born, not made. It Is all .a matter of temperament.

“And there are such things as tripping over people’s feet. Some girls do. As worrying to the usher as the impatient patron, is the patron who, ouce seated, refuses to move from his scat when a mistake has 'been made. “Gate-Crashers” and Cheats. THEN there are the incorrigible op- *■ timists who attempt to save t.heir pence by cheating the management.. Sometimes, on busy nights they try “group bilking.” When a party of perhaps six' people crowds through the door, the attendant may find that lie has been given only five tickets.. One person has trusted to tlie crowd and the hurry to squeeze past without showing a ticket. Others try the trick of leaving on a pass-out check soon after the programme begins and then coming back to take a better seat. There have even been cases of girls of 18 and 19 years of age dressing in school tunics in order to buy tickets at half price. But in 'general, few of these petty swindlers escape detection. The attendants are wise in the ways of the cheaters, and they have effective schemes for catching them out. Failure to Claim Seats. TTARDER to combat is the person j X who makes telephone reservations on the off-chance of being able to attend the theatre. “There is a sort of fellow,” said the manager with a i twinkle, “who rings up every theatre In town and then meets his girl friend I in the city and says, ‘Where shall we I go? I have seats for every film.’” I Nowadays, however, when reserva--1 lions are not held after the programme begins, these inconsiderate patrons are less troublesome. The other type, who arrives at the ticket office at 8 o’clock and swears he has made a telephone reservation in the afternoon, nitbough none of the staff has taken it, is an individual whose I wiles are easily exposed. Other and more devious tricks are often tried to trick the ushers and the I cashiers. To do her work well, an I usher must have eyes like a eat and ■ the observation powers of a detective. For these qualities she is paid 36/I a week, working 32 hours in broken time. Look at it any way you like, mi usher’s job is not all smiles and watching Clark Gable making love to glamorous beauties.