THEY PUT SHOW IN ROADSHOW : He Had an Eye for Figures

At 14, Leonard (Pug) Arenson became aide-de-camp to his country-salesman brother, Herman (Jake) Arenson, traveling by train and bus through the mountain towns and tobacco, cotton and coal mining burgs.

Pug Arenson, now 68 and retired, remembers his late brother with pride: “They said that once he set down, took a couple of puffs on the cigar and pulled out the press material, the exhibitor was hooked. I never knew him to go away empty-handed from a deal.”

More than 50 films in mint condition fill a storage room on Arenson’s property, including “Chained for Life,” “Child Bride,” “Marijuana,” “Human Wreckage,” “Confessions of a Vice Baron” and Tod Browning’s classic “Freaks.”

Then there is the memorabilia: posters, wax heads, photos of John Dillinger in various poses of derring-do, and the wooden “gun” that he used (supposedly) to make his escape from a Hoosier jail possible (countless others claim to have the same gun), and his likeness carved in wax by a St. Louis sculptor.

Leonard Arenson delivered films and ad materials, kept an eye on the box office, and made nightly collections--always in cash. Out of the day’s take, he would keep anywhere from $1 to $5 (depending on ticket sales), which he used for room and board, and to send to his mother. They might take in several hundred dollars--or as little as $10, depending on the weather and other factors.

As “Roadshow on Wheels,”the Arenson brothers operated from a Buick roadster, then, in the ‘40s, a motor van equipped with a gas-operated turbine to power a turntable and loud speaker. A sound truck became a vital part of the sell, along with trailers of coming attractions, hundreds of posters, lobby displays, pamphlets and books on marriage, social disease, crime and narcotics that cost about 12 cents each and sold for 50 cents to $1.

“Sales moxie was important, but if you never arrived in time to put on the show, you may as well have put up a sign, ‘Out of Business.’ You had to know how to fix flats, avoid mud holes, get along on a busted spring, snake up narrow mountain roads at night and have some mechanical know-how. A good set of tools, extra battery, cables, hoses, chains and even a first-aid kit were part of the vehicle’s baggage of survival for a roadshow man. That is why a great number tried the game, few made it.”