The birth of the Cinema - Part: 1

[Mike]

I was just given a book from some dear friends called "Open Wide" about movie marketing. I've yet to dig into it but plan to within the next couple weeks.

It dawned on me, something I have read a fair amount about is the evolution of the motion pictures in the U.S.A.

It facinates me how far the cinema has come in 100 years, both in presentation and content. Westerns were a staple for 7+ decades and then became as sparse as vitamins in popcorn.

Where did it ALL begin?

-They were known by many different names at the time, some borrowed from legitimate theaters or famous monikers to give them style -- the Bijou Dream, the Tivoli, or the Edison. Some were dank holes that crawled with roaches and reeked with disinfectant. Others were well-kept, orderly establishments were women could spend a relaxing hour after an afternoon of shopping. Newly arrived immigrants, who didn?t know a word of English, could pay a nickel and be entertained -- the pantomime transcending all language barriers.

While every one of these establishments were different, all had two things in common. All showed moving pictures and most of them charged five-cents admission. These were America?s first legitimate movie theaters. These were the nickelodeons.

At first films were exhibited in Kinetoscope parlors. The patron dropped a penny into a slot, then peered through an eyepiece to see a minute?s worth of action -- maybe a parade. Then he would go to the next machine, deposit his penny, and see another bit of action.

The public soon tired of the novelty. In the meantime, inventors had perfected the movie projector and the same short Kinetoscope films were shown back-to-back in darkened storerooms, a sheet for a screen, and wooden benches to sit on. As more of these storeroom theaters opened, films became longer -- sometimes five minutes or more. Then, in 1903, Edwin S. Porter produced ?The Great Train Robbery?, the first western film to tell a real story. Patrons flocked to see it and fell in love with the movies.

Film studios popped up everywhere in spite of Thomas Edison?s claim that he had ownership of all the patents on the movie camera and projector. But not even the powerful Edison could stem the tide. New films came twice a week from Biograph, Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig -- then powerful studios, all but forgotten today. The stars of the time were Florence Lawrence, John Bunny, Mary Pickford, Arthur Johnson, and others.

Most films were no more than one reel in length (about 12 minutes). Some were even shorter. The audience didn?t know the names of the actors on the screen. The studios reckoned that if the actors became well-known and developed a following, they would have to pay them more than $5 a day, the standard wage. Stories were simple -- melodramas, comedies and farces, and short versions of the classics.

For a time, many people looked down on the movies and the theaters in which they were shown. Movies were considered to be the entertainment fit only for the lower classes. And some actors -- even out-of-work actors -- would rather have starved than be forced to appear in them. But the biggest complaint of all was the converted storerooms, in which movies were sometimes shown, were dank holes, alive with lice, roaches and other vermin. Furthermore, some people -- especially women -- thought being in total darkness in the middle of a crowd frightening. If the movie industry was to continue to prosper, suitable places had to be provided to show them -- not jerry-rigged storerooms.

On November 26, 1905, John Harris and Harry Davis of Pittsburgh opened the first theater exclusively created for the showing of motion pictures. Located in their penny arcade on Smithfield Street, Harris and Davis partitioned off a portion of the building, They installed a screen, projection booth and 96 folding chairs. Their first attraction was The Great Train Robbery . Admission was a nickel. The theater proved extremely popular and, before long, was open from 8 a.m. until Midnight.

Word got around quickly and other entrepreneurs followed suit. Nickelodeons sprang up all over the country. At first, they were mainly patronized by the working class. There was still a lot of resistance from the gentility. But the reputation of the movies was improving. Theater owners, like the Warner brothers of Pittsburg and Louis B. Mayer of Haverhill, Massachusetts, worked to make their places acceptable to all. Floors and seats were swept and cleaned every night. Some owners went whole hog and even put cushions on the seats.

Nickelodeon programs were changed twice a week and consisted of about five different films -- a drama, a comedy, an adventure, a novelty and maybe even a documentary -- with a combined running time of about an hour. Since the films were silent, accompanying music was provided by a piano or accordion.

Each time a film ended, the show would stop while the projectionist changed reels. Some nickelodeons would provide sing-a-longs between reels, accompanied by illustrated song slides flashed on the screen. Usually the son or daughter of the theater owner would lead the singing. Jack Warner, later the head of Warner Brothers, led the singing in his family?s Nickelodeon in Pittsburg.

The heyday of the Nickelodeon lasted less than 10 years. When the studios began making feature-length films, theaters were charged higher rentals. Admission prices climbed to 10-cents or more. Larger, more ornate theaters were built, complete with balconies, carpeting and even proscenium arches. One by one, the nickelodeons either went out of businesses or were renovated to accommodate larger, more sophisticated crowds.

The movies had come of age and so had theaters.

[_Annabelle_]

Thanks for sharing that.

I find film history quite interesting and try to catch any documentaries and read any materials on the subject whenever I can. I also enjoy learning about the past and present techniques in cinematography, production, directing, acting and basically anything related to film or its evolution.

[Mike]

Thank you~

You are very welcome!

Like wanting to know about songs, what inspired them, how they were arranged, and all that. Movies are the same way for me. I really enjoy the background of cast selection, who was first selected or approached for lead roles, what it took to actually make them. The special effects and how they enhance the story.

From the script, story boards, the first shout of "action" or "go" by the director to the last aspect of editing and initial screening. Movies have forever shaped our culture.

Everything is different now. The last 100 years of film evolution is amazing!

[Mike]

Films really blossomed in the 1920s, expanding upon the foundations of film from earlier years. Most US film production at the start of the decade occurred in or near Hollywood on the West Coast, although some films were still being made in New Jersey and in Astoria on Long Island (Paramount). By the mid-20s, movies were big business (with a capital investment totaling over $2 billion) with some theatres offering double features. By the end of the decade, there were 20 Hollywood studios, and the demand for films was greater than ever. Most people are unaware that the greatest output of feature films in the US occurred in the 1920s and 1930s (averaging about 800 film releases in a year) - nowadays, it is remarkable when production exceeds 500 films in a year.

Throughout most of the decade, silent films were the predominant product of the film industry, having evolved from vaudevillian roots. But the films were becoming bigger, costlier, and more polished. They were being manufactured, assembly-line style, in Hollywood's 'entertainment factories,' in which production was broken down and organized into its various components (writing, costuming, makeup, directing, etc.).

Even the earliest films were organized into genres or types, with instantly-recognizable storylines, settings, costumes, and characters. The major genre emphasis was on swashbucklers, historical extravaganzas, and melodramas, although all kinds of films were being produced throughout the decade. Films varied from sexy melodramas and biblical epics by Cecil B. DeMille, to westerns (such as Cruze's The Covered Wagon (1923)), horror films, gangster/crime films, war films, the first feature documentary (Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922)), romances, mysteries, and comedies (from the silent comic masters Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd).

1920-1930 was the ten year period between the end of the Great War and the Depression following the Stock Market Crash. Film theaters and studios were not initially affected in this decade by the crash. Some of the best artists, directors, and stars from European film-making circles were imported to Hollywood and assimilated there as emigrants (e.g., Ernst Lubitsch, Pola Negri, F. W. Murnau, Victor Seastrom, Greta Garbo, Michael Curtiz, etc.).

The Major and Minor Film Studios:

The basic patterns of the film industry (and its economic organization) were established in the 1920s - the studio system was essentially born in the second decade of the century (with long-term contracts for stars, lavish production values, and increasingly rigid control of directors and stars by the studio's production chief and in-house publicity departments). After World War I and into the early 1920s, America was the leading producer of films in the world - using Thomas Ince's "factory system" of production, although the system did limit the creativity of many directors. Production was in the hands of the major studios (that really flourished after 1927), and the star system was burgeoning.

Originally, in the earliest years of the motion picture industry, production, distribution, and exhibition were separately controlled. When the industry rapidly grew, these functions became integrated under one directorship to maximize profits, something called vertical integration. The major studios (see below) were those that had consolidated and controlled all aspects of a film's development. By 1929, the film-making firms that were to rule and monopolize Hollywood for the next half-century were the giants or the majors, sometimes dubbed The Big Five. They produced more than 90 percent of the fiction films in America.

The Big-Five studios had vast studios with elaborate sets for film production. They owned their own film-exhibiting theatres (about 50% of the seating capacity in the US in mostly first-run city houses), as well as production and distribution facilities. They also distributed their films to this network of studio-owned, first-run theaters (or movie palaces), mostly in urban areas, that charged high ticket prices and drew huge audiences. They required blind or block bookings of films, whereby theatre owners were required to rent a block of films (often cheaply-made B-pictures) in order for the studio to agree to distribute the one prestige A-level picture that the theatre owner wanted to exhibit. This technique set the terms for a film's release and patterns of exhibition and guaranteed success for the studio's productions.

[Monopolistic studio control lasted twenty years until the late 1940s, when a federal decree (in U.S. vs. Paramount) ordered the studios to divest their theatres.]

The Big Five Studios Logo

1. Warner Bros. Pictures, incorporated in 1923 by Polish brothers (Jack, Harry, Albert, and Sam); the studio's first principal asset was Rin Tin Tin; became prominent by 1927 due to its introduction of talkies (The Jazz Singer (1927)) and early 30s gangster films; it was known as the "Depression studio"; in the 40s, it specialized in Bugs Bunny animations and other cartoons

2. Adolph Zukor's Famous Players (1912) and Jesse Lasky's Feature Play - merged in 1916 to form Famous Players-Lasky Corporation; it spent $1 million on United Studios' property (on Marathon Street) in 1926; the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation became Paramount studios in 1927, and was officially named Paramount Pictures in 1935; its Golden Age stars included Mae West, W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and director Cecil B. DeMille

3. RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures, evolved from the Mutual Film Corporation (1912), was established in 1928 as a subsidiary of RCA; the smallest studio of the majors; kept financially afloat with top-grossing Astaire-Rogers musicals in the 30s, King Kong (1933), and Citizen Kane (1941); at one time, RKO was acquired by eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes

4. Marcus Loew of Loew's, Inc., was the parent firm of what eventually became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM, first named Metro-Goldwyn Pictures - in 1924 - was formed from the merger of Metro Pictures (1915), Goldwyn Pictures Corporation (1917), and the Louis B. Mayer Pictures Company (1918); the famous MGM lion roar in the studio's opening logo was first recorded and viewed in a film in 1928; its greatest early successes were Gone With the Wind (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), as well as Tarzan films, Tom and Jerry cartoons, and stars such as Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, and Spencer Tracy

5. Fox Film Corporation, founded in 1912 by NY nickelodeon owner William Fox, was known for Fox Movietone newsreels; it later became 20th Century Fox, formed through merger of Twentieth Century Pictures Company (founded in 1933 by Darryl Zanuck) and Fox in 1935; famous for Betty Grable musicals in the 40s

Three smaller, minor studios were dubbed "The Little Three", because each of them lacked one of the three elements required in vertical integration - owning their own theaters:

The Little Three Studios Logo

1. Universal Pictures, (or Universal Film Manufacturing Co), founded by Carl Laemmle in 1912; formed from a merger of Laemmle's own Independent Motion Picture Company (founded in 1909) with Bison 101, the U. S. production facilities of French studio Éclair, Nestor Film Co., and several other film companies; its first successes were W.C. Fields and Abbott and Costello comedies, the Flash Gordon serial, and Woody Woodpecker cartoons;

2. United Artists, formed in 1919 by movie industry icons Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Charlie Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith as an independent company to produce and distribute their films; United Artists utilized an 18-acre property owned by Pickford and Fairbanks, known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, and later named United Artists Studio in the 1920s

3. Columbia Pictures, originally the C.B.C. Films Sales Company in 1920 founded by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn, and Joseph Brandt, and officially named Columbia in 1924; established prominence with It Happened One Night (1934), Rita Hayworth films, Lost Horizon (1937), The Jolson Story (1946), and Batman serials.

Other studios or independents also existed in a shabby area in Hollywood dubbed "Poverty Row" (Sunset Blvd. and Gower Street) where cheap, independent pictures were made with low budgets, stock footage, and second-tier actors. It was the site of Harry and Jack Cohn's new business, the C.B.C. Films Sales Company (later becoming Columbia Pictures). Many of the films of the independents were either horror films, westerns, science-fiction, or thrillers:

Walt Disney - specializing in animation; originally formed in 1923 in Los Angeles by Walt and Roy Disney

the Monogram Picture Corporation, founded in 1930 by W. Ray Johnston to make mostly inexpensive Westerns and series (Charlie Chan, the Bowery Boys, etc.); Monogram merged with Consolidated Film Industries, Mascot, and Liberty to form a new company in 1935 called Republic Pictures, headed by Herbert Yates of Consolidated

Selznick International/David O. Selznick - headed up by David O. Selznick, the son of independent film producer Lewis J. Selznick, the founder of Selznick Pictures; Selznick International Pictures was formed on October 15, 1935

Goldwyn - headed up by Samuel L. Goldwyn

Republic Pictures, founded in 1935 by the merger of Consolidated Film Industries, Mascot, Monogram and Liberty, and headed by Herbert Yates

Extravagant Movie Palaces:

The major film studios built luxurious 'picture palaces' that were designed for orchestras to play music to accompany projected films. The 3,300-seat Strand Theater opened in 1914 in New York City, marking the end of the nickelodeon era and the beginning of an age of the luxurious movie palaces. By 1920, there were more than 20,000 movie houses operating in the US. The largest theatre in the world (with over 6,000 seats), the Roxy Theater (dubbed "The Cathedral of the Motion Picture"), opened in New York City in 1927, with a 6,200 seat capacity. It was opened by impresario Samuel Lionel "Roxy" Rothafel at a cost of $10 million. The first feature film shown at the Roxy Theater was UA's The Love(s) of Sunya (1927) starring Gloria Swanson (she claimed that it was her personal favorite film) and John Boles. [The Roxy was finally closed in 1960.] The Roxy was unchallenged as a showplace until Radio City Music Hall opened five years later.

Grauman's Theatres:

Impresario Sid Grauman built a number of movie palaces in the Los Angeles area in this time period:

the Million Dollar Theater (on S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles), the first movie palace in Los Angeles, opened in February, 1918 with 2,345 seats, and premiered the William S. Hart western film The Silent Man (1917)

the Egyptian Theatre (on Hollywood Boulevard) opened in 1922 with 1,760 seats; it was the first major movie palace outside of downtown Los Angeles, and noted as having Hollywood's first movie premiere; its opening film was Robin Hood (1922) that starred Douglas Fairbanks; the theatre's creation was inspired by the discovery of King Tut's tomb that same year

the now-famous Chinese Theater, with 2,258 seats, opened in Hollywood (on Hollywood Boulevard) in May, 1927 with the premiere of Cecil B. De Mille's King of Kings (1927).

Star Imprints at Grauman's:

Grauman, dubbed as "Hollywood's Master Showman," established the tradition of having Hollywood stars place their prints in cement in front of the theater to create an instant tourist attraction ever since. (Legend has it that during the theatre's construction, silent screen actress Norma Talmadge accidentally stepped into wet cement and inspired the tradition. Grauman immortalized his own footprints, and invited Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to do the same.) These are the first 10 stars, beginning in the spring of 1927, to imprint themselves (with handprints, footprints, or signatures) in the concrete of the Chinese Theatre's forecourt:

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Apr. 30, 1927

Norma Talmadge, May 18, 1927

Norma Shearer, Aug. 1, 1927

Harold Lloyd, Nov. 21, 1927

William S. Hart, Nov. 28, 1927

Tom Mix and Tony (his horse), Dec. 12, 1927

Colleen Moore, Dec 19, 1927

Gloria Swanson, 1927 (specific date unknown)

Constance Talmadge, 1927 (specific date unknown)

Charlie Chaplin, Jan, 1928

Pickford and Fairbanks:

Two of the biggest silent movie stars of the era were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. America flocked to the movies to see the Queen of Hollywood, dubbed "America's Sweetheart" and the most popular star of the generation - "Our Mary" Mary Pickford. She had been a child star, and had worked at Biograph as a bit actress in 1909, and only ten years later was one of the most influential figures in Hollywood. She was married to another great star, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Their wedding in early March, 1920 was a major cultural event. She was presented with a wedding gift - "Pickfair" [the first syllables of their last names], a twenty-two room palatial mansion in the agricultural area of Beverly Hills - marking the start of the movement of stars to lavish homes in the suburbs of W. Hollywood and the making of Hollywood royalty. [The couple remained married from 1920-1935.] Strangely, Mary Pickford's downfall began after she bobbed her hair in 1928.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. also became an American legend after switching from light comedies and starring in a series of exciting, costumed swashbuckler and adventure/fantasy films, starting with The Mark of Zorro (1920), soon followed with his expensively-financed adventure film, Robin Hood (1922), and the first of four versions of the classic Arabian nights tale by director Raoul Walsh, The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with magical "flying carpet" special effects. Another first occurred in 1926 - a Hollywood film premiere double-featured two films together: Fairbanks' The Black Pirate (1926) with early two-color Technicolor (and the superstar's most famous stunt of riding down a ship's sail on a knife) and Mary Pickford's melodramatic film Sparrows (1926). Fairbanks scored again at the close of the decade with The Iron Mask (1929). The first and only film that co-featured both stars was a talkie version of The Taming of the Shrew (1929). Pickford's Coquette (1929), her first all-talking film, won her an Academy Award, but she retired prematurely four years later.

Other 1920s Box-Office Stars:

The top box-office stars in the 1920s included Harold Lloyd, Gloria Swanson, Tom Mix, Norma Talmadge, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Colleen Moore, Norma Shearer, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Lon Chaney, Clara Bow, and "Little Mary" Pickford.

Hauntingly mysterious and divine, Greta Garbo's first American film was The Torrent (1926), followed quickly by The Temptress (1926). Her first major starring vehicle was as a sultry temptress in torrid, prone love scenes with off-screen lover John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil (1926). MGM renamed Broadway actress Lucille Le Sueur and christened her "Joan Crawford" in 1925. And Louise Brooks made her debut film in mid-decade with Street of Forgotten Men (1925). Glamorous MGM star Norma Shearer insured her future success as "The First Lady of the Screen" by marrying genius MGM production supervisor Irving Thalberg in 1927.

Clara Bow, a red-haired, lower-class Brooklyn girl was subjected to a major publicity campaign by B. P. Schulberg (of Preferred Pictures (1920-1926) and then Paramount's head of production in the late 20s and early 30s). He promoted his up-and-coming, vivacious future star as his own personal star, after grooming and molding her for her star-making hit film The Plastic Age (1925) as a flirtatious flapper - the "hottest Jazz Baby in Film." Bow was also exceptional in Dancing Mothers (1926) and in her smash hit Mantrap (1926), and was further promoted with teaser campaigns for It (1927). She soon became known as "The It (sex appeal) Girl" (in the high-living age of flappers) after its February 1927 release. She was boosted to Paramount Studios' super-stardom in the late 1920s by more publicity campaigns, fan magazine glamorization, and rumor-spreading. Bow also starred in the epic WWI film Wings (1927), and in 1928 became the highest paid movie star (at $35,000/week). But by 1933, after years of victimizing exploitation, she had gone into serious decline and retired due to hard-drinking, exhaustion, gambling, emotional problems, a poor choice of roles, the revelation of a heavy working-class Brooklyn accent in the talkies, and a burgeoning weight problem.

Young screen actress, platinum blonde starlet Jean Harlow was also 'discovered' and soon contracted with aviation millionaire/movie mogul Howard Hughes to replace the female lead in his soon-to-be-released, re-made sound version of Hell's Angels (1930), another exciting WWI film about British flying aces.

Janet Gaynor:

Another famous screen couple, dubbed "America's Lovebirds" or "America's Sweethearts" were romantic film stars Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell who were eventually paired together in twelve films. [The fact that Farrell was homosexual was kept from the public.] Their first film was Seventh Heaven (1927), a classic romantic melodrama. For their work in Seventh Heaven, Janet Gaynor received the first "Best Actress" Academy Award and director Frank Borzage received the first "Best Director" Academy Award.

Janet Gaynor was also honored in the same year with an Academy Award for her exquisite acting in German director F. W. Murnau's first American film - the beautiful Fox-produced Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), often considered the finest silent film ever made by a Hollywood studio. Murnau's succeeding films were The Four Devils (1928) and Our Daily Bread (1930), with his last film the sensual semi-travelogue documentary Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) shot with documentarist Robert Flaherty. (A week before Tabu's premiere in early March 1931, Murnau died in a car accident.)

? by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.

[Carl]

When I grew up, there was a terrific theater in the center of town where we would all see whatever movie was playing that week. It was a huge theater with a massive screen, and it was quite a scene on weekends. At the time, it seemed great when these multiplexes popped up and we had a choice of movies, but it was never the same. In the age of old theaters, movies were a local bonding experience and a lot of fun.

[Uncle Joe]

When I grew up, there was a terrific theater in the center of town where we would all see whatever movie was playing that week. It was a huge theater with a massive screen, and it was quite a scene on weekends. At the time, it seemed great when these multiplexes popped up and we had a choice of movies, but it was never the same. In the age of old theaters, movies were a local bonding experience and a lot of fun.

I kissed my first girl in a movie theater. My second and third ones, too.

[XXX]

When I grew up, there was a terrific theater in the center of town where we would all see whatever movie was playing that week. It was a huge theater with a massive screen, and it was quite a scene on weekends. At the time, it seemed great when these multiplexes popped up and we had a choice of movies, but it was never the same. In the age of old theaters, movies were a local bonding experience and a lot of fun.

That and the Drive-Ins. We still have a couple of them here in San Diego and Los Angeles, but most went the way of the 3-D movie