Between The Lines
Adam Rudnick's reporter notebook
A cat named Indiana Jones?
January 20th, 2010 at Wed, 20th, 2010 at 4:40 pm by Adam
The Olympic Theatre has been a downtown Arlington staple for the past 70 years.
Who would have thought running a small-time theater this day and age would be so much work?
That was my first reaction when I interviewed Norma Pappas, owner of downtown Arlington’s Olympic Theater.
The 70-year-old theater, purchased by Pappas and her father in 1977, has been operated by Pappas for the past 33 years.
Not only did I learn about the process of obtaining a film and showing it, I learned that there are a lot of long days.
Here are a few facts that stood out to me:
- Pappas told me that she works close to 75 hours per week, despite having five part-time workers helping out throughout the week.
- Movies literally have to be taped together in order to be shown on the big screen. An average movie has six reels, which must be spliced together perfectly in order to ensure the movie looks good on screen.
- Not only does Pappas splice the movies together, she also assembles the preview reel, which changes from week-to-week.
- The Olympic Theatre has a resident 5-year-old cat named — can you guess? — Indiana Jones. “He had to have a movie theater name,” Pappas said.
Click here to visit the theater’s Web site or check out it’s recently created Facebook group.
Stay tuned to The Arlington Times Web site for a full story on Olympic Theatre, along with a photo slideshow.
Adam Adam Rudnick has worked as a reporter in Snohomish and Skagit counties since graduating from Western Washington University in 2006. Since then, he has written for a number of daily and weekly publications, most recently The Arlington Times and The Marysville Globe.
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