Question about movie distribution and viewing in "the day"

[Amy Jeanne]

Of all the film books I've ever read there is just one thing that I never really got a clear answer on (or maybe I just don't understand it), but HOW ON EARTH were movie distributed in the 20s and 30s?

To be clearer: Did they have just ONE print of a movie that traveled around the world? I know this can't be -- but I'm always hearing of "lost" movies being found in places like New Zealand and Poland. Did they make multiple copies of the films to ship out? If so, why are so many now lost? What happened to them after they ran their courses? I've heard horror stories where they have burned the nitrate for the silver. And, of course, improper storage -- but that still doesn't explain to me why only ONE copy of a film will exist!! Did they really destroy everything they possibly could?

How did movies run in the theatres? Like today? Were there intermissions? Did reels need to be changed every 20 minutes? When I'm watching silent movies in particular sometimes I'll see a title card that says "Please wait while we change the reel."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Film distribution was built around regional film exchanges -- depots operating in various cities to serve particular zones. Most of these exchanges were directly controlled by the film studios -- you had the "First National Exchange," the "Paramount Exchange," the "Metro Exchange," and so forth, but there were also independent exchanges that handled the product of small-time independent studios. Sufficient prints would be made to service these exchanges -- a typical feature might have up to a hundred prints circulating at the peak of its run. Once the run was finished, the exchange would be responsible for disposing of most of the prints -- they were sometimes cut up for use in toy projectors (!), or even given away to neighborhood kids, but usually they were melted down to reclaim the silver. One or two prints would be retained in the studio vault, along with the negative, so that if a re-release happened fresh prints could be made. Sometimes, though, prints ended up very far from the studio -- Australia and New Zealand were at the end of the distribution line, and it cost more to ship the prints back than it was worth. So they were either destroyed there or kept in the exchange until they disintegrated or were stolen. Which is why so many "lost films" turn up there to this day.

Films were shipped and run on 1000 foot reels until the conversion to safety film in the early fifties. Most theatres by 1920 had two identical projectors side by side, and the projectionist would switch back and forth between the two thru the performance. The average feature might run 8000 feet, so that meant eight reels, with seven changeovers during the course of the presentation, plus whatever shorts were being shown. So a projectionist's job was very busy. Once safety film came in, film began to be shipped on 2000 foot reels -- which is still the case today. (Most modern theatres splice all the reels together to run them on an automated machine called a platter, which does away with changeovers, but the theatre where I work still does changeover projection.) The "Please Wait While We Change Reels" slug was meant for small town theatres that couldn't afford a dual projector setup. THis was common during the nickelodeon days, but became much less so as the twenties wore on.

Studios controlled what theatres were allowed to show their pictures, either thru direct ownership or thru contractural arrangements, so you'd see all Fox films at a Fox theatre, all RKO films at an RKO theatre, all Paramount films at a Paramount-Publix theatre, and all MGM films at a Loew's theatre. Only when one of the controlling studio's films wasn't scheduled could an independent film or film from another studio be shown, and these were generally not favorable dates. Independent theatres, meanwhile, were usually required to contract to show *all* of a particular studio's product -- A pictures, B pictures, shorts, cartoons, newsreel, whatever -- in order to get any of it. So with all this material to be dealt with, films generally had very short runs -- the average theatre only booked each film for a three day run, and sometimes as short as two days.

"Block Booking" and studio control of theatres was done away with by a series of antitrust rulings in the early fifties.Today most film distribution is handled by either Technicolor or Deluxe Labs, which manufactures the prints and operates regional exchanges to distribute them around the country. And they still melt down the prints at the end of their run -- you'd be surprised how very few 35mm prints exist of films made as recently as the 1980s.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

It seems I'm talking about Clara Bow in all my posts of late, but she is my latest fascination!

Read her biography "Runnin' Wild," that author does a good job of explaining some of the back story of how movies were distributed and watched at that time. It is quite interesting... the control and the "runs" in certain theatres before others would be able to get them. What shocked me was discussion of movie theatres as large as 4,000 seating!

Lizzie, is that right? I can't imagine a movie theatre that large or the logistics of showing a film there. How large was the screen. Also, the logistics of a theatre with a 100+ member orchestra? Wow! I guess in my mind all theatres were like the ones in small towns where my family went: lush, but small, and you were lucky if the piano player showed up for the film!

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Thanks Lizzie!! That answers a lot of loose questions I've had!

As for the independant theatres, would those be your friendly neighbourhood theatre in Anytown, USA -- or were some of these theatres owned by the corporations? In my neighbourhood, for example, there was the Upsal Theatre and the Sedgwick Theatre -- both within 3 miles of each other on the same road (both still standing, but unoperational as movie theatres.) The Upsal is tiny, the Sedgwick is huge and ornate art deco! Would the Upsal play Paramount films and the Sedgwick play, say, MGM films? Do you know if they would they both play the same movie being so close?

And I still wince when I hear about movies being deliberatly destroyed. I think of all the work and time that went into it and I think it's such a shame that it got tossed so nonchalantly. *sigh*

 

[LizzieMaine]

Many "neighborhood" theatres were controlled by regional chains, which were in turn affiliated with a studio. Where I work was controlled from the twenties thru the fifties by a company called "M&P Theatres," which ran small theatres thruout New England, and in turn M&P was controlled by Paramount. M&P also ran the *other* theatre in town here, so while there was an illusion of competition, there really wasn't any. Paramount films always got priority here, and films of other studios had to take whatever dates were available. Because there were no other theatres in town, the other studios would be very willing to make favorable deals on the rental fees so as to guarantee a chance to get their films shown.

What it sounds like in your town is that the big theatre was the "first run" house -- it would get the newly released films first, of whatever studio it was affiliated with, as well as the pick of films from other studios. The smaller house was probably a second-run operation, which got the big films after the big theatre was finished with them -- but it might also get first-run films from smaller studios. Universal built its whole marketing and release program around such small theatres, and I imagine a lot of Universal stuff would have been shown there.

As far as the size of theatres goes, seating in the thousands was common for first-run theatres in even medium-sized cities. You'd have an orchestra level, a mezzanine, and a couple of balconies -- plus a pit for the musicians, a stage for prologues or vaudeville, and a pipe organ that would rise out of the pit on a hydraulic platform to play before and after the show. Most every decent-sized city had at least one showpiece theatre like this, and big cities had several. Even neighborhood theatres might hold a thousand or so.

Here's a great site for fans of vintage theatres -- http://cinematreasures.org/ -- which will give you an idea of the vast range of places where films were shown in the Era. This one is where I work.

 

[skyvue]

Lizzie, you guys are doing with the Strand exactly what I wish other small towns would do with their restored theatres, but too often don't -- using the space as a picture house AND a performance space.

So many small-town theatres don't bother to show movies anymore; they limit their bookings to musical performances and local theatre companies and/or high school productions. All those have their place, of course, but if only more small-town bijous would include movies in the mix... sigh.

I love old movie theatres and track them down whenever we're on a road trip. I look forward to visiting, if not patronizing (here's hoping), the Strand one day; it looks great.

 

[Widebrim]

Just to add a bit to LizzieMaine's great info:

"B" studios (those which generally specialized in low-budget projects) like Mascot, Republic, Monogram, Grand National, PRC, etc. usually didn't have the financial resources to set up their own exchanges, so they ended up releasing their films to independent distributors under what was called the states' rights system. These distributors were called franchisees, and could distribute films from various studios. The studios sold the rights to the franchisees to distribute their films on a territorial basis (i.e., an Atlanta distributor would cover the Southeast, one in Chicago would cover the Midwest, etc.). Such a system of distribution did not entail advance investment by the producers for distribution, and was therefore economical. Franchisees of the '30s and '40s included Astor Pictures, Cavalcade Films, and First Division.

(Note: Republic and Monogram did eventually establish their own exchanges in major cities.)

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Here's a question:

I know before the Production Code each state had different censorship laws. Did the indivdual theatre chop up the films?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Usually edits required by state censor boards would be done by the exchanges -- the censor board would inform the studio of the required cuts, and the studio would then send a message out to the exchanges instructing them exactly where the cuts were to be made, right down to the number of feet and frames. However, there were also cities and towns that might have censorship policies, and in these cuts might be made at the theatre level. Sometimes theatre owners themselves would require cuts, and there are even cases of individual projectionists removing scenes they found either boring or objectionable in one way or another. With all this cutting going on, by the time a print made its way back to the exchange after its final showing, it was often quite choppy.

On the other hand, though, such random editing sometimes leads to the accidental preservation of bits of otherwise-lost films. A few years back, a sequence from the otherwise lost 1930 Technicolor musical "The Rogue Song" was found here in Maine. Evidently a projectionist felt that the sequence involved was dull and that cutting it out would make it easier to cram another showing into the day's schedule. So he sliced it out, rolled it up, and stuffed it into a corner of his booth -- where it was found sixty years later. And now it's one of only two surviving sequences from that otherwise lost feature.