Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

the Helicopter people in Teheran.

One of my friends in Iran was Ed Outhouse (yes, that's his name...(c
Ed and I got involved with the AMVETS Iran-American Club, a beautiful
multi-story facility owned by some really rich Iranians who also owned
several big theatres in town. I was a projectionist and had installed
many projection systems in theatres back in the States, so when he found
that out he took me to the club's owners and we made a deal that Ed and
I were to install an exclusive little club theatre for about 100 patrons
in a big room on one of the floors formerly used as a ballroom.

We installed it all and I ordered the equipment from Charlotte, NC, USA
from an old friend who was a projection engineer from the local theatre
supply company. "You're where?!", Tip said to me.....very funny. He'd
never heard of Iran, now he was getting calls from it....

The theatre was a great success! Our first feature film was the new
"Star Wars" which had just been released but was not yet playing in Iran
to massive crowds a week later....after I took the movie back to the
movie theatre originally destined to play it in Farsi. The English
original sound track played if you played the film track optically
(35mm) and the Farsi dubbing company, also owned by one of the owners of
the club, painted a flexible magnetic track over one of the two optical
sound tracks where the Farsi translation was played by Iranian actors.
Film has two sound tracks for a reason. Two tracks gives us the
opportunity to mostly eliminate any scratches in the film from making a
big pop on the speakers. The audio is a combination of both tracks and
any differences in the tracks must be imperfections and scratches which
are nulled out. Each track is the exact opposite of the other, phase
wise. But with one track covered up, it made our job of playing the
original optical track left a little tricky and a bit noisy if the print
was dirty or scratched or spliced too much. Noone complained. They
were thrilled. Ed and I got honorary membership, worth about $US8000 at
the time with full memberships to keep us happy. I spent two nights a
week running films noone else in Iran ever saw from all over the world.
Some very important people in Tehran knew me from our little theatre
association. Films appeared in the booth, no questions to be asked....
(c;] I did some projection engineering at a couple of the club owners'
theatres, too, on the side. One theatre got a whole new stereo sound
system at my recommendations. It worked great! 16 huge speakers hidden
over the entire theatre, Iran's first surround sound....

I lost track of Ed, who worked for Bell Helicopter, whom I assume you
were referring to. They had a nice house with a walled garden quite a
ways up the mountain Tehran is built into....a very nice neighborhood
compared to mine down in the main city. We had a great friendship for
the time I was in country.

--
Global Warming and Creationism are to science what storks are to
obstetrics...

Larry