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In March, 1906 John Griffin invifed surprised Toronfonians to visit his first theatre. The Theatorium, which stood on Yonge Street, near Queen, almost where the front of Loew's is now. A few years later, when this picture was taken, it had become the Red Mill. This was to become the first of his 11 Toronto theatres and others throughout Ontario. Griffin claimed that it was the first regular theatre in Canada and that the only one west of New York at that time was in Pittsburgh. He was probably referring to the theatre which was the first to offer a continuous performance, opened by John P. Harris in 1905, which ran from 8 a.m. to midnight. The Theatorium, 17 feet wide and 100 feet deep, operated t orn 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
sioned to take the series of pictures was because at that time he was the big¬ gest exhibitor of motion pictures in England and was the owner of the London Bioscope Company which used to supply practically all of the Music Halls with twelve or fifteen-minute reels as part of their program. As this part of his exhibition field was well organ¬ ized, he decided to spend considerable of his time in Canada with the idea of opening up a new field along the lines he had already started in.”
The man who was to become the most far-sighted person in the Canadian mo¬ tion picture scene entered the film business by becoming a partner of Charles Urban, who went from New York to London to manage a Bri¬ tish branch of a USA projector company and sell Edison films. Urban was soon in business for himself as a leading pro¬ ducer, distributor and exhibitor and was so busy travelling across the Atlantic that Bradford came to take charge of most of his outside exhibition.
His brother-in-law, A. D. Thomas,
was one of Britain's first and most ad¬ venturous exhibitors, for he travelled to the West Indies and Canada to give shows for his own enterprise, the Royal Canadian Biograph Company. Thomas is credited with being the first to offer films as a full evening’s entertainment, his show running two-and-a-half hours.
Coming from the bustling British market, Bradford gave many exhibi¬ tions in halls and had no liking for store shows, since he believed in films as a permanent form of theatre entertaanment. He is credited with opening the first national group of exchanges as the representative of P. L. Waters of New York, a leading distributor as the Kinetograph Company.
Bradford's activities took him to many Canadian communities, large and small, and in many of them he was res¬ ponsible for the first film exhibition. In 1905 he stayed in Montreal, becoming interested in the Bijou Theatre and Karn Hall, the latter on afternoon operation because of dancing in the evening. Tne Keith-Albee vaudeville cir
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