Boxoffice (Apr-Jun 1947)

FILMS OF AMERICA . . . X Here is the story of film distribution in America's Big City, where the dollars and cents decisions affecting the industry are made. One of the world's most glamorous sights — Times Square at night, with its lights and crowds and theatres. By WALTER WALDMAN EW YORK is the business end of the film business; the home town of the home offices; headquarters for worldwide distribution. New York is the place where most of the dollars and cents decisions are made affecting the industry. Two of its streets help call the tune for this industry. There is Wall Street, which provides financial sinews and policies, and Broadway, which provides much story material for Hollywood’s studios. As the birthplace of the industry, New York is rich in film history and traditions. Its list of notable “firsts” is long. The first commercial exhibition of film took place Apr. 14, 1894, in a converted shoe store on Broadway near 27th street. The first “gross” for that showing, provided by ten peephole Edison Kinetoscope projectors, was $120. Two years later, Apr. 23, 1896, the first commercial exhibition on a theatre screen was held in Koster & Bial’s Music Hall at 34th street and Broadway — the present site of Macy’s. Thomas Armat did the honors with his Vitascope projector. The first efforts to exchange film were made during 1897 in Raff & Gammon’s 28th street studio. The first advertising films were exhibited that same year on an outdoor screen at Broadway and 34th street. Although Hollywood is today the production capital of the world, New York City, Westchester county, and sections of New Jersey falling within the metropolitan exchange center, originally held that title, In nearby West Orange, Thomas A. Edison perfected his Kinetoscope projector Oct. 6, 1889. Two years later, Edison built the world’s first motion picture studio in West Orange. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, studios were popping up all over the metropolitan district. There was the Raff & Gammon studio on West 28th street; the Biograph studio on East 14th street; the Komic studio in Yonkers; the American Eclair studios at Fort Lee; Powers Picture Plays in the north Bronx, and Pathe at Bound Brook, N. J. The studio trek to Hollywood didn’t get NEW YORK going full blast until the second decade of the century. By that time New York had clinched its position as an exhibition and distribution center. Fourteenth and 23rd streets were originally the exhibition and distribution centers of the city. Following Armat’s successful experiment at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall, projection equipment was installed that same year (1896) in Eden’s Musee and Keith’s Union Square Theatre on 14th street. gY 1914 motion picture theatres, along with vaudeville and legitimate playhouses, had moved to the Times Square area. It was there that the first de luxe film house was built. This was the Strand Theatre, now a Warners house. In 1914, S. F. Rothafel, after whom the Roxy was named, was manager of the Strand. It also was in the Times Square that sound first came to motion picture theatres, unofficially, in 1923 when Lee De Forest introduced his Phonofilm at the Rivoli; officially, in 1926, when the Warner Bros, introduced their Vitaphone at the Warners’ Theatre. These are all history-making events. Until about 1915 most of this buying and selling took place in the neighborhood bounded by 14th and 31st streets, and Sixth and Fourth avenues. Eddie Carroll and John Dacey, now selling for RKO, recall those early days when they sold Pathe product out of the General Film Co. offices. At that time Pathe was one of the ten companies comprising General Film. Carroll operated out of the Masonic Temple Bldg, on 23rd street, headquarters for the New Jersey territory; and Dacey worked from the office on 31st street and Fourth avenue. That office covered New York and Long Island areas. William F. Rodgers, vice-president in charge of distribution for MGM, was branch manager for General Film during those pioneering years; and Joseph J. Unger, general sales manager for United Artists, began his industry career as a booker for General Film. By the time the Motion Picture Patents Co., parent organization of General Film, had been dissolved as a trust by the supreme court in April 1917, the exchanges were concentrated north of 42nd street. pROM 1912 until 1929 Filmrow was spread among three buildings — 1600 Broadway, 729 Seventh Ave. and 130 West 46th St.— all off Times Square. Originally most of the companies were quartered in 1600, into which Universal led the uptown migration between 1912 and 1913. Famous Players-Lasky, Pathe and United Artists were other tenants in later years. But when 729 — the first New York building exclusively for the industry — was completed in 1915, most of the important exchanges moved there. These included First National, Metro Picture Corp. (after 1924 Metro-GoldwynMayer), Pathe, RKO, Columbia and eventually Famous Players. William Fox kept his Fox Film Corp. at 130 West 46th St. until 1926, when the exchange moved to its present site on West 44th street. TOURING those days when Filmrow was on and around Times Square, Carey Wilson, now an MGM producer and writer, was branch manager for Famous Players, and Milton Kusell, now general sales manager of domestic distribution for Selznick Releasing Organization, was sales supervisor. The third and final large-scale migration of the exchanges began in 1923, when Paramount completed its present building on West 44th street. Bob Fannon, today assistant branch man( Continued on page 31) 28 BOXOFFICE :: June 28, 1947 4