The Moving picture world (November 1926-December 1926)

November 20, 1926 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 135 New Paramount Recalls Romance Magnificent Building at Times ***** Thirty Years Ago Blase NewsSquare Is Realization of _ mrtx-it oAnrrxiT paper Men Marveled at _ _^ By EPES W. SARGENT ^. , Great Dream First Flickers HIRTY years ago a quartet of newspaper men had their feet on the brass rail of the Morton House bar, discussing the Lumiere Cinematograph which had just been shown the press in the Union Square Theatre, which was a part of the hotel. Three of them were the vaudeville editors of the Dramatic News, Mirror and Clipper. The fourth was Burton, of the Morning Sun, one of the few daily newspaper men who knew vaudeville intimately. Burton was the most optimistic of the four. He thought the pictures would last "at least a year." Five or six years later Percy G. Williams, William Hammerstein, Sydney Wilmer, of Wilmer and Vincent; William Morris, the vaudeville agent, and this writer, were lunching at Luchow's, in East Fourteenth Street. Someone spoke of a new amusement idea just opened in the same block, showing moving pictures at a fivccent admission. After lunch we all visited the place. This was not the first "store show." Already there were two on Sixth Avenue, but this was almost underfoot, so it got our attention. It was the first any of us had seen. It was fairly typical of those early days and presently had its duplicate all over the city. It was a vacant store, converted to its new use by throwing a partition of unpainted boards across the width of the room, near the front, giving a lobby of about five feet depth. Directly back of this was a platform for the projector. There was no projection room ; just the plank platform. At the far end of the room was a screen of cotton cloth, none too tautly held by lashings at the four corners. Strong: Arnu and Weak Technique At one side was a piano and between the machine and the screen were perhaps a hundred wooden slat folding chairs. The place was lighted by one four-lamp chandelier, and along the walls the scars of the dismantled shelving still showed. There was no attempt at decoration. The piano was presided over by a young man with powerful arms and a weak techniqu.e. This was before the automatic piano ; first ballyhoo device, was used, and the player literally pounded the piano in an effort to get his music out to the street to supplement the persuasions of the proprietor and otherator, both of whom were trying to coax a crowd. A woman ticket seller completed the personnel. In a few minutes the crowd of about thirty was deemed sufficiently large. The operator came in and struck his arc while the proprietor made a brief lecture on the pictures. The four lights went out and the first picture, a fifty foot comedy, bickered onto the screen. A short scenic followed and the third num ber was a song illustrated by lantern slides and sung by the pianist. There was another comedy and then the star feature ; a night scene showing a display of fireworks. This was the eel's tail in those days, for it was in blue and yellow instead of straight black and white. That was all there was to the show lasting perhaps ten to twelve minutes and as the audience, representing about $1.50, passed out through one gap in the partition, three persons, nucleus of the next performance came in through the other. History repeated itself. Only Willie Hammerstein could see any possible chance for the crude device. Even Wilmer, who now controls scores of picture-vaudeville thea Here is the realization of the Paramount dream — the building that dominates Broadway. tres, was unimpressed. At that time the single Wilmer and Vincent holding was a tiny upstairs auditorium in Utica, N. Y. But these store "fit-ups" multiplied with amazing rapidity. They made the jump from Fourteenth Street to 125th Street almost overnight, some of the shows were lengthened slightly, and they all seemed to make money. Some Houses Grew "Fancy" It was not long before they began to assume a semi-permanent aspect. Some effort was made at decoration, plaster walls gave a smoother screen, and many of the houses even sought to achieve some suggestion of an ornamental front. All of them carried fewer than 300 seats to escape that section of the New York building code which required that houses with a capacity of more than 299 must have a clear space on at least three sides. Most of these places were scarcely larger than the fire alleys required of the larger houses. By 1905 or 1906 it was possible to obtain imposing false fronts of galvanized metal or staff composition, seats now were veneer opera chairs, screwed to the floor, and the machines were housed in what then lived up to the name of "booth." They were just large enough for one machine and the operator, for space was valuable. J. Austin Fynes, who resigned the general management of the F. F. Proctor houses about this time, turned his attention to the speculative side of the business and made a nice clean-up opening and selling houses. We recall one house he opened on 125th Street — an old church — which cost nearly $1,500 to fix over, and he declared that he got the outlay back the first three days, which included a Saturday and Sunday. Keith and Proctor meanwhile formed a combination and they went in heavily for picture houses. It was to Keith that we owed the "Bijou Dream," which was so generally used for a title in those days. His original Boston theatre was known as the Bijou and it became the godparent of hundreds of Bijou Dreams. Another heavy investor was Sigmund Lubin, then manufacturing pictures in Philadelphia. Previously the Vitagraph had conducted a few scattered Sunday night concerts and took a roadshow flyer now and then, but Lubin was the first producer of pictures to go in for a theatre building program. In addition to the Palace and Victoria, two "regular" theatres on Marked Street, Philadelphia, he had a score or more store shows in Philadelphia, and several outof-town houses. Lubin Was Not Hopeful And it is interesting to remember, in these days of producer owned chains, that Lubin sold his holdings about 1909 because he believed that the picture theatre was on the wane. He believed in the future of the pictures as a vaudeville proposition, but he had little faith in the picture theatre as such, and he sold his holdings to Felix Isman, a Philadelphia real estate operator, just before the boom. He put the money into what was then the largest studio in the country, and Isnian made a fortune. Isman's example inspired the very junior member of another real estate firm, and before his death Stanley Mastbaum was the Mastbaum and the real estate business became an annex to the theatre proposition. (Continued on Page )