I recently enjoyed a pleasant trip out to Kansas to visit my soon to be married daughter, Elizabeth. Growing up in a household of endless projector light, she shares my movie collecting enthusiasm and is well aware of my fondness for all things cinematic. Heck, I even bought a nice LPP print of Gone With the Wind, her favorite film, to screen when she visits home. Well, seeing as how she lives just about 25 miles from Lawrence, Kansas, she surprised me and arranged a tour for us of the old Centron Studios. Centron (CENtral United States and elecTRONic)was the brainchild of two Kansas University grads, Russell Mosser and Art Wolf and they produced hundreds of educational and industrial shorts from 1947-1990s. In 1955, they outgrew the back of their downtown Lawrence camera shop they were using for film production and moved into brand new facilities at 1621 W. Ninth Street. After the company was dissolved in 1990, a KU law professor, Charles Oldfather, and his wife Hortense, donated money to KU for purchase of the facilties. I am a complete CENTRON nut, collecting many many of their 16mm educational gems. (Has there ever been a better movie defining America than "A Day of Thanksgiving"?) Wow--thanks to Elizabeth and the kindness of the KU Film Department, I was actually going to walk through the building where these old shorts were filmed!! It was a hectic Friday morning of travel to even get to Kansas--driving through a MONSTER of a thunderstorm to arrive at Philadelphia International then getting in a line that had about 900-1000 people ahead of me at airport TSA screening at 5:10AM--not my idea of holiday fun . Despite a flight delay and a near missed connecting flight in Chicago, I happily arrived in Kansas City at 10AM., greeted by Elizabeth. (Yes, there ARE signs in the KC airport indicating "Tornado Shelters"-- this IS Wizard of Oz Land...) After a quick stop at her home for some refreshment, we set off for Lawrence. Lawrence is a university town, Kansas University, almost geographic dead center USA, beautiful, neat and clean (you'd be hard pressed to find a cigarette butt or straw wrapper anywhere on the street--99.9% litter free.) Unfortunately, the heat was unbearable with indexes of 113 degrees farenheit, so without benefit of SPF 2,000,000, we limited our sidewalk strolling to locating a brewpub for some lunch nourishment. After that, it was off to the Centron Studios. Centron, or, accurately, what WAS Centron, was easy to find: I researched it using Google street view and recognized the neighborhood before we even arrived at our destination. The studio building, as is much of Lawrence, KS, is a step back into 1950s America--lots of brick and burnished aluminum and crisp angles. We pulled into the parking lot at the same time as an elderly gentleman, and the three of us, myself, Elizabeth and the elderly stranger, made our way to the receptionist's desk where we were warmly greeted. Our "tour guide" promptly appeared, faculty Professor Matt Jacobson. I expected a 10-15 minute tour, but, hey, I was in Kansas, and things, and people and thoughts move a bit slower. The elderly gentlemen who arrived at the same time we did was a Professor Emeritus of the KU film school and just happened to drop by to see "how things were going". Minutes later, another faculty member, Chuck Berg, joined us. For the next hour and 15 minutes we were treated to a slow wander through the facility where cinematic history was made.... MORE TO COME
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File comment: Entry - CENTRON STUDIOS
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File comment: Reception Area - CENTRON STUDIOS
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File comment: 1955 Sketch of the CENTRON STUDIOS
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