Photomatic

Thirteen years ago a 29-year-old Cleveland dentist named Joseph E. Klein found himself in Manhattan, idling along Broadway. It was a balmy summer evening. Klein caught sight of a line of people a block long, inching patiently toward an unknown destination.

"What's this all about?" he inquired of the last man in line. The man replied that the people were waiting their turns at a machine which took photographs in the privacy of a cabinet, delivered the finished print with astounding promptness.

Klein joined the queue, inched along for one hour and 20 minutes. Then he reached a dingy little shop, entered the cabinet, removed his hat, smiled brightly. Motors hummed, shutters clicked. Next he was conducted to an antechamber where he had to wait 20 more minutes. Finally he received an unexciting likeness of himself, paid 25-c-, departed.

''What this dingus needs," he reflected, "is speed."

Dentist Klein went home to Cleveland, gave up his practice, settled down to work out an automatic photographing device with emphasis on speed. The machine which Dr. Klein perfected last month was exhibited to Clevelanders last fortnight. He and his associates, organized as Photomatic Corp. of America, are to start producing it this week at the rate of 100 per month.

Twenty-five seconds after a Photomatic customer in the booth deposits 25-c- and pulls a lever, his finished picture, framed in light metal, drops out into a receptacle. This speed is accomplished by exposing three-inch circles of sensitized paper already framed. Immediately after exposure the discs are shot into a developing chamber, sprayed by six chemicals which develop a positive print. The print is not quite dry when the ejecting mechanism shoots it out to the customer.

Instead of selling or leasing the machines, Photomatic will have agents working on profit percentage try to install them in hotels, restaurants, stores, amusement parks.

Hard-headed observers were afraid that Photomatic was a frail bark launched in the troubled sea of automatic photography. Much had happened in those fantastic waters since Dentist Klein strolled idly up Broadway.

Anatol Josepho is remembered as the "Smart-Immigrant-Who-Made-a-Million" with his Photomaton. Born in Omsk, Siberia, Josepho reached Manhattan with $30 in his pocket and a bee in his bonnet. He got imposing backing: venerable old Henry Morgenthau Sr., father of the Secretary of the Treasury, became chairman of the board of directors of Photomaton Corp., and Major General Robert Courtney Davis, onetime Adjutant General of the Army, became president of the company. Inventor Josepho got a check for a flat $1,000,000.

The Josepho "Photomaton" -- which like Dentist Klein's machine developed positives on sensitized paper -- made a series of eight exposures in 18 sec., delivered the finished strip in eight minutes for 25-c-. For a while it seemed enormously popular. In Britain a lurid little promoter named Clarence Charles Hatry launched a Photomaton company, saw its stock triple despite the fact that it could not have earned its dividend if every man, woman and child in Britain patronized Photomatons once a year. Then in 1929 Promoter Hatry, juggling gigantic deals, landed with a crash in jail for forging bonds. The U. S. Photomaton company was not technically involved but its business was suffering anyway and in October 1930 it went into receivership. Inventor Josepho had vanished with his fortune. Now the U. S. company is owned by American Portraiture Corp. of Manhattan, has three shops of its own and nine licensees as against its halcyon peak of 150.

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