Moving Picture World (Jul 1916)

410 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD July 15, 1916 Melvin G. Winstock, who managed the Peoples and the National, and was considered one of the big men in the game. Mr. Winstock was last heard of in Seattle. D. C. Burkhart, one of the former managers of the Peoples Amusement Company's houses, is now out of the game entirely except for being a regular reader of the Moving Picture World. Portland's largest photoplay theater is the T. & D., recently opened by Turner and Dahnken. Its seating capacity is 2,200 and its manager is M. O. Leonhart, formerly of Berkeley. The handsomest theater is undoubtedly the Columbia, built in 1912 by Foster and Kleiser and now leased to Jensen and Von Herberg, of Seattle. Its manager is E. J. Myrick, who has made the house one of the most popular. Portland's East Side, the residence portion of the city, is well supplied with photoplay theaters. Among the fine suburban houses are the Alhambra, the Sunnyside, the Union Avenue, the Broadway, the Crystal and the Tivoli. William Graeper, manager of the Union Avenue, is an active worker in the Oregon Motion Picture Men's Association, and Martin B. Donovan, of the Portsmouth, is one of the pioneers in the business, having operated theaters on the East Side for many years. Prominent among the suburban theaters or* the West Side are the Ideal, managed by Al. Sather, formerly with the Peoples Amusement Company, and the Nob Hill. The Portland Amusement Company operates three theaters in the workingmen's district. There is no immediate prospect of additional theaters being erected in Portland. In fact it is conceeded that there is already an excess of seating capacity notwithstanding the fact that Portland is an excellent photoplay theater city. During the past theatrical season there has been but one theater playing road shows and one stock house to supply the people's demand for drama. Perhaps this condition has resulted from the great number of photoplay theaters, or perhaps the lack of "legit" houses has caused so many photoplay theaters to blossom forth. A. NELSON. Toronto, Canada, Claims Birthplace of "Little Mary >> Thafs Something in Motion Picture Lore, Canadian Town Has Good Theaters, Too. but TORONTO'S connection vdth the moving picture industry'really began twenty-odd years ago with the birth of Mary Pickford in a modest little home on University avenue, Toronto, but it was not until seventeen years ago that Toronto amusement-seekers saw much of the projection of pictures of the continuous sort. And Toronto is still seeing its first of this and that in moving picture art. For "instance, it was, comparatively speaking, very recently that local prominent citizens began to feel the "gaze" of the moving picture camera's eye and the presence of camera men at a local event sometimes almost eclipses the importance of the occurrence itself because Toronto, and all Canada, has been practically overlooked by news photographers until very recently. ^_ In spite of some undevelopment, however, Toronto has its real moving picture pioneers. In point of experience, the oldest projection machine operator still in the business in Toronto is George Mehl, who screened French pictures in Shea's Yonge Street theater seventeen years ago. He is now chief operator for Shea's new vaudeville theater in Toronto, and other veterans around town are proud to relate that they received their first instructions from him. The pioneer exhibitor of Toronto is John Griffin, who started opening up store shows twelve years ago until he became the owner of some twenty-five theaters throughout Ontario. His circuit now consists of thirteen houses, two of which are located in Toronto. Oldest Exchangemen Still Busy. The oldest exchangemen still in the game, though young in years, are J. J. and Jules Allen, now the controlling hands in the Paramount Pictures Corporation, a two-million dollar Canadian company. These magnates, incidentally, threw their hats into the cinema ring ten years ago when they opened the first picture theater in Canada outside of Toronto and Montreal. Tins was at Brantford, Ontario, which now has a population of 25,000. Toronto's very first film exchange was the Dominion Film Exchange, which was opened at Queen and Victoria streets in 1907 by a Mr. Thompson, who has since left the city. The Allen brothers opened the Allen Amusement Company in Brantford in 1908 and the Kleine Optical Company was also one of the early exchanges here. The Gaumont followed quickly, but this business was bought out by the Mutual Film Corporation when W. Campbell, who is now looking after Bluebird interests in Toronto, took charge of the new Mutual Branch. Toronto drew its first and only moving picture producing company in the summer of 1914 when the Conness-Till Film Company was organized. A studio was established at Swansea, a suburb of this city, but only three or four film dramas were completed before a fire wiped out the whole plant in March, 1915. These Toronto-made pictures are still beintT screened, their most recent projections being in England, where they have been advertised as Canadian pro CUCti' Movin? picture films have been censored in Toronto for the whole Province of Ontario for the past six years, the first censoring taking place on January 6, 1910. The original censor board consisted of G. E. Armstrong, Robert Wilson and O. Elliott. Two members of this board, Armstrong and Wilson, remain, John Burns replacing Elliott when the latter was transferred to the moving picture branch of the Provincial Treasurer's Department, which was established in May, 1912, with R. C. Newman in charge. Mr. Newman has been in command of the mechanical crew of Shea's vaudeville theater for many years previous to his Government appointment, and had built the sets for many Canadian houses. In Ontario last year there were 355 moving picture theaters under license and fifty-five other theaters, such as town halls, auditoriums, were also licensed to have picture shows. Of the 355 houses, catering to 2,500,000 people in the Province, eighty-two were Toronto theaters. In 1914, previous to the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, there were 366 moving picture theaters in Ontario. This year, 1916, will probably see a greater number of houses than in the banner year of 1914. The licensing of picture theaters by the Ontario Government began in 1910. Saw Pictures Made in 1904. The very first continuous pictures were "snapped" in Toronto in April, 1904, when the wholesale district was wiped out by a conflagration. These pictures were taken by George Scott of the Melies Company, and the views consisted mainly of flames and a few ruin scenes. This film was screened at many church bazaars and other entertainments around the city during the subsequent year. It was also in 1904 that pictures of Toronto were taken by Clifford Denham of Charles Urban's Bioscope Company, England, for the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Dominion Government. Denham is now the manager of the new $450,000 Royal Victoria theater in Victoria, B. C. Much colonization work was done for Canada by the exhibiting of the Urban films in the British Isles and in Europe. There has never been a serious fire in a Toronto moving picture theater and, with probably only one exception, operating booths were used from the start. The exception was at Shea's theater, where the projecting machine occupied a place on the edge of the top gallery and the people sometimes meddled with the machine until a railing was built around it. There was no magazine on the machine and the film simply passed from a roll into a cloth bag beneath. One night the house was practically destroyed by fire and the moving picture apparatus was blamed for the blaze. When the ruins cooled off, however, the film that had been used at the last performance .was found undamaged in the bag below the box. Although George Mehl is the oldest operator still in the game here, a predecessor was George Layton, now with a road show, who turned the crank for the inaugural picture projection in Toronto before Mehl took hold. Among the early operators are W. Redpath, now demonstrator and roadman for the Pathescope Companv of Canada, and C. McMahon, now chief operator at Shea's Hippodrome, Toronto, both of whom took lessons from Mehl. Claire Hague of Toronto, now head of the Canadian Universal Company, is also an old-timer. Hague first travelled with a carnival company which hit Toronto about sixteen years back and later he was an employe of the Aliens in their first theater at Brantford, Ontario. Another Brantford operator was Ben Cronk who, after ten years in the business, is