Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1936)

time of experience in handling and entertaining the public. "I always figured that it was more profitable to be a big man in a small town than a small man in a big town, so I spent most of my life in the sticks, as they call it." Here Bert Silver chuckled yet again. "Just the same, we never failed to make good when we did happen to wander into some big town ! "The motion picture business needs the small town showman. And if he were treated a little better he could be kept satisfied — and, you know, a satisfied customer always comes back where he was brothers, organized the Silver Brothers circus in Michigan. It held together for nine years. Then, in 1905, Bert observed that his own family (he had been married in 1883) had amplified sufficiently to make up a troupe of his own, so with his three eldest children he formed the Silver Family Swiss Bell Ringers and Concert Company, playing on the Chicago Star Lyceum Course in several States. The following year he expanded this venture into the Silver Family circus, with 25 performers and helpers in addition to himself, his wife and six children. It wasn't Ringling Brothers, of course, but — well, the billing could boast of 25 teams and wagons (later becoming five trucks, five trailers and 15 touring cars), and fourteen circus acts in addition to vaudeville acts and band. By 1916 there were 52 people in the company. "We were just about the first all-gasoline circus in the game," observed Mr. Proscenium area of new Silver Theatre. Silver proudly, "that went out, stayed out and made money and friends." Then in 1917 his youngest son, Richard, was called to war. Showbusiness was supplying its quota of doughboys. Performers were hard to get. Bert Silver decided to quit trouping until after the European business got settled and the people he needed were available again. He never returned to it. Daughters had married out of the profession. The family was broken up. He sold the circus property and "settled down" in Greenville to confine the rest of his theatrical adventuring to the "picture show" which he had established there seven years before and had been operating by remote control. "The dav for small travelling shows had passed," Mr. Silver added. "Fifty or 60 years ago theatres were scarce things in Michigan, and travelling shows scarcer. But the motion picture, once it got a good start, quickly changed the small town showbusiness. "But I still cannot see the picture show business as showbusiness. The improvements from film to equipment are great. Still, it used to take experience to run a show successfully, and now farmers, butchers, bakers and any guy that has a lot of nerve can go into it and as a rule be more successful than people who have had a life well treated the first time." The fine new Silver Family theatre has been built as a monument. It will carry into coming years something from the very beginnings of showbusiness in America. To revamp the former house, Mr. Silver employed a firm of experienced theatre architects, Bennett & Straight of Dearborn, Mich. An entirely new front was constructed, the interior was revised throughout, in materials as well as decorative scheme. The seating capacity was enlarged. Old-fashioned elements were removed. The new theatre is modern in both appearance and mechanical facilities. It will be fit to carry on the Silver Family tradition in showbusiness for a good many years to come. "My other interests?" Bert Silver thought a moment, then offering another one of those Silver chuckles — "Maybe it's a pretty good time to say that I am a Democrat. I have been elected four times the mayor of Greenville, which is a Reoublican town, and now, at the age of 76, I am supervisor of the largest ward in our city. I have worked as hard trying to be a good citizen and help to my town as I worked at showbusiness. I am on the job eighteen hours of every day — and hope to be fore at least 100 years more." — George Schutz. 12 Better Theatres