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gle-screen, little theaters, even though we're historic."
• At the Ohio Theatre, a two-screen operation tucked into a row of picturesque downtown buildings in Madison, Ind., owner Tony Ratcliff also hasn't been able to raise the $81,000 needed for a digital conversion.
• Ratcliff said he's trying to raise $25,000 for a down payment on a bank loan this fall, but he is behind his goal and now has little more than $9,000. Unless he can install digital equipment by next year, the theater may have to close. Ratcliff and other theater owners are looking at other uses for the theater, such live events, or renting it out for community gatherings.
• Ratcliff said traditional, 35 mm film has become scarce, making it harder for his theater and others to get the films they need to stay in business. He pointed to one movie, "Courageous," which was released Sept. 30. Ratcliff said he could have received a digital version of the film in November but ended up waiting until late January to receive it in 35 mm because fewer copies were available. Movies often go to larger theaters first.
• "It's only going to get worse, especially for small-town theaters," Ratcliff said. "We're the low man on the totem pole."
• Allen Hinkle closed his Bonham Theater in Fairbury, Neb., on Aug. 2, after he couldn't sell the operation or attract enough donations.
• It would cost $110,000 to install digital equipment in the 86-year-old theater, a brick structure featuring four large arched windows only a half block from the county courthouse.
• As the final day neared, Hinkle said parents in the southern Nebraska town of 4,000 asked him what their kids would do now for entertainment. Hinkle said he didn't know how to respond.
• On a warm, breezy night last week at the Isis Theater in Crete, few people showed up to see the 7:15 p.m. screening of "Total Recall."
• Among the few were Gene and Robin Mignogna, a couple from Pennsauken, N.J., who were visiting relatives. Gene Mignogna said he was taking his wife on a date to celebrate his 57th birthday.
• He smiled as he glanced up at the red and white theater marque.
• "There's a kind of nostalgia, coming to places like this," he said.
•

• WINDBER, Pa. (AP) -- Police say a western Pennsylvania man's toilet theft scam didn't end with a clean getaway.

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