The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

32 CI)e Cbeatte church on the night of the exhibition. Of course, this method of exploitation was a vast deviation from Mr. Shepard's original plan, and was a last resort necessitated by the numerous unexpected circumstances. It was, nevertheless, slightly profitable though laborious, and, above all, the enthusiasm the exhibition invariably created fully established in his own mind the correctness of his theory as to the merit of this form of amusement. In the meantime, he never ceased in his efforts for a trial in city theatres, and finally succeeded in securing Labor Day at the Academy of Music in Haverhill, Mass., on short notice. Much to the surprise of the local manager, who had been grieved at being without a regular attraction for the holiday, "Shepard's Moving Pictures" played to very good business, and his amazement at the reception given the show aroused his own enthusiasm so that he offered Mr. Shepard his next open date, which was played to a capacity business. This proved the turning point and the real beginning of the moving-picture show as a bona-fide theatrical attraction. At this time the bookings of the principal theatres throughout New England were controlled by the firm of Cahn & Grant, of New York, who persistently refused to consider Mr. Shepard's request for booking, in spite of his success in the few independent theatres he had succeeded in booking on the strength of the big business he had done in Haverhill. He then conceived a novel plan for an entering wedge in the Cahn & Grant circuit by proposing to Mr. Cahn that his type of amusement, being in reality an exhibition, could be presented in their theatres Sundays, thus bringing a revenue on a day the house would otherwise be closed.