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Tom Hanlon
Tom Hanlon, chief of Sound
Branch when Army Pictorial Center closed, was the subject of a query by
his nephew, John Hanlon. "My name is John Hanlon and I
am asking if anyone knew or has information they can share regarding my
uncle Thomas Francis Hanlon who was the sound recording chief at the
Army Pictorial Center. He worked there from approx. 1941 thru 1970 or
when it was closed.
"The A.P.C. studio just so happened to open
the year my uncle was born in 1919. My uncle passed away in 1996. Any
info. would be greatly appreciated."
Your web editor replied:
I believe Tom was part of one little activity,
since he was head of sound. The sound guys were excited because someone
had brought in the sound track for Jeanne Eagles' 1929 film,
“The Letter”, on those big Vitaphone disks. APC had an unusual
collection of antique equipment including a Vitaphone disk player. They
transferred the sound track to some other medium, probably tape, circa
1969 or 1970. I remember the Vitaphone disk played from the inside out.
Now I see that the disk sound track for this film is incomplete. No
wonder the sound guys thought it was a real treasure. Many of the people
in the studio were film buffs and collected and shared film rarities.
It was probably Tom who also related a story.
Some of us screened John Huston’s “Let There Be Light,”
the “restricted” film following shell-shock patients returning from the
war and undergoing therapy. I believe it was Tom because he was among
the few old-timers who were there from the early days. As we watched the
early scenes in the film, of GIs and the wounded going down the
gangplanks of a troop ship on their return to New York, he remembered
working sound on the film because the SCPC GIs had to get up very early
in the morning to be at the dock to meet the ship and film the soldiers’
arrival.
The Army acquired the studio from Paramount in
February 1942, so I surmise that Tom was one of the soldiers like Joe
Lipkowitz who went in with Colonel Gillette to take over the place and
begin clearing all the junk out. They said they tossed a lot of props,
set items and equipment as junk, when today it would all be valuable
collectibles. Oh well, there was a war on and work to be done.
Tom was among the APC crew that won a first
place trophy in the Industrial Management Society's Seventeenth Annual
Film competition in 1968.
Army
Pictorial Center welcomes any further information or anecdotes about Tom
Hanlon and the Sound Branch. Send information.
(Updated July 10,
2016, and September 8, 2020.)
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