Crime. And Punishment. Sometimes:
Swindlers, Cons and Thieves Hit the Movies

For the same reason that someone yearns to be an actor, an exhibitor or an exchange man, criminals were also attracted by the popularity of the movies. Motion pictures were a booming business, and it appeared (from the outside, at least) that money was being minted. The public was certainly on board – they seemed to have an insatiable appetite for movies, movie stars and movie culture. And because film fans were so eager to shell out their hard-earned dollars, it was only a matter of time before others looked to exploit that for their own benefit. And yet, for an industry that was relatively new to the American scene, the methods typically used by criminals to libertate this cash were often tried and true. The con, the theft, the break-in – none of these were particularly innovative. But they could all adapted for the movie business, in ways that made the old scam new again, all to ensure that what was once yours would, eventually, become theirs.

As with many new and fast-growing industries, there’s an initial period when the landscape is wide open and changes occur at a furious pace. With the motion picture business still formalizing in the early teens, innovators in the field were proposing a variety of new ideas and business methods, not all of them well-considered. Few things were out of bounds in an industry with few boundaries. But it wasn’t just the movie folk charting the unknown; criminals were also looking for ways to get in the game. Take the swindle, a method that proved remarkably adaptable to this brand-new business.

We’ll start with J.E. Jones. We don’t know his actual name, but in late 1914 a gentleman identifying himself J.E. Jones was making the rounds of Spokane picture houses selling glass advertising slides, commonly flashed onscreen during reel changes or between pictures.^[1] Jones spent a good deal of time traversing the city, making contacts, giving demonstrations and talking extensively about a revolutionary new process that made his slides more colorful, more durable and cheaper to make. Jones was a gifted salesman, and it showed. In short order he lined up several prospective clients, taking their orders and their advance money, and on December 28^th skipped town entirely, leaving behind a sizeable (and unpaid) hotel bill. A.R. Patten, Secretary of the Spokane Motion Picture Exhibitor’s League, promptly wrote a letter to Moving Picture World, both to warn others about the scam and, if possible, get information on Jones’ whereabouts.

J.E. Jones, whomever he was, was a small-time crook with enough industry knowledge that he could pass himself off as a maker of glass slides, and seems to have had experience in the trade. But sometimes you needed more gumption than skill to pull off these scams. In 1922 an unknown man was traveling through the East and Midwest representing himself as Seattle exhibitor John von Herberg, though on some occasions he posed as von Herberg’s brother. The man claimed to be raising money for an expansion of the von Herberg picture interests – never mind that he was trying to raise those funds everywhere EXCEPT the Pacific Northwest. And that was news, of course, to the actual John von Herberg back in Seattle, who wasn’t doing anything of the sort. The Seattle exhibitor was eventually alerted to the scheme and issued a disclaimer to the motion picture trade papers, hoping to shut the scam down.^[2] Unfortunately there was no word on whether this mystery man was ever identified or apprehended, though he seems to have taken money from at least a few unsuspecting donors before he vanished.

There was also no word on whether authorities captured the gentleman who blazed into Olympia, Longview and Kelso in August 1923 identifying himself as Hollywood director George Melford. Melford, whose directorial career extended into the 1940s (and who later worked as a character actor), briefly shot to fame after directing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, which was followed almost immediately by another Valentino smash, Moran of the Lady Letty.

In this case, the faux Melford was allegedly in Washington scouting locations for a film entitled The Lone Trail, set to star Jack Holt and Jacqueline Logan, and didn’t play anything low-key. He talked to anyone and everyone about his so-called project, usually at local businesses where he was poised to make a sizable purchase via check. One of these was the Talcott Brother’s jewelry store in Olympia, where he purchased $84 worth of items and asked that they be sent to his mother, presenting the cashier with a check, drawn on a bank in Hollywood, for $100. Fortunately, all the man got was his $16 dollars in change; before the jewelry shipped, the store manager had the foresight contact the bank directly. The institution was real, and the check appeared to be authentic, but the account number was bogus. So Talcott Brother’s was out $16, but held onto their merchandise; the Hotel Olympian, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. There the Melford impersonator stayed for several days and ran up a nice tab, only to skip town without paying a dime.

Word of this scam got out quickly, but not quickly enough to catch up to the mysterious Mr. Melford, who relocated from Olympia down to the Longview/Kelso area, taking up residence at the Hotel Monticello. By the time folks there learned the truth, it was also too late – the bandit had once again slipped out of town after passing a fistful of bad checks. “Doubtless ‘on location’ elsewhere,” quipped Moving Picture World.^[3]

The work of J.E. Jones, as well as the impersonators of John von Herberg and George Melford, were small crimes committed by lone wolf operators. Some scams, however, were more elaborate. On July 7, 1923, Roscoe Russell was arrested in Seattle and charged with grand larceny for defrauding investors in a motion picture distribution scheme. Deemed a “most clever fraud” by Motion Picture News, Russell allegedly swindled marks out of nearly $20,000 by setting up fraudulent companies and selling partial interests in the distribution rights for certain motion pictures. Like the swindlers before him, Russell was a big talker with a convincing sales pitch. He had purchased several old film prints, then cut those pictures into shorter excerpts, which he said were clips from the film(s) he was trying to distribute. Russell then told the potential investor a fantastic story about the picture’s so-called plot, then showed them a brief glimpse of the star in action, working that clip into whatever plotline he chose to describe. (Among others, Russell was said to be showing scenes from Tod Browning’s Under Two Flags, starring Priscilla Dean, plus a pre-stardom Valentino film later reissued as The Isle of Love.^[4]) He was banking on the fact that the victim, despite being a film fan, wouldn’t be able to identify the scene given his elaborate (and entirely fictional) plot description, convincing the mark that they were buying into a new, never-before-seen production. Movies, of course, were typically distributed through exchanges, but Russell was banking, correctly, that his targets weren’t very savvy about how the motion picture business operated.

Roscoe Russell was eventually caught and booked into the King County Jail in July 1923, with bail set at $2,500. But, for reasons unexplained, he was out almost immediately; for reasons further unexplained, he went right back to operating the same scam. In October Russell was again arrested and charged with larceny, this time in a suit brought by Thomas Stromsvog of Seattle, who alleged that Russell sold him 50% distribution interest in a film called Devil’s Angel which, of course, did not exist. Stromsvog put his loss at $600, and in December 1923 Roscoe Russell was convicted of the charge.^[5]

One person who should have taken an interest in Roscoe Russell’s case was Seattle lawyer Moncrieffe Cameron, because he was detained about a month later in a scam centered on an outfit called the Better Pictures Company.^[6] As the name suggests, this entity, based in Philadelphia, claimed to be a production company with the stated goal making clean motion pictures for discerning movie patrons. The goal of Better Films was to identify 300 “corporate directors” from around the country, each of whom would put up $10,000 to support the effort. According to Better Films, those funds would then be used to buy their way into distribution through United Artists, which they estimated to cost about $250,000. (Spoiler alert: the major Hollywood studios do not have a cover charge.)

After receiving a few complaints, Moncrieffe Cameron was eventually questioned by representatives of the Washington Better Business Bureau (BBB) about his activities. Cameron had already collected some initial seed money (he told the BBB it was $500; Motion Picture News claimed it was 10 times that amount), but he no longer had it because the funds had been transferred to Better Pictures in Philadelphia. Nonetheless, he assured BBB representatives that he would refrain from additional fundraising until he obtained the proper permit from the Secretary of State’s office. Cameron, who claimed to be involved in the project for “purely altruistic reasons,” told the Daily Times “‘I have merely been trying to do a little good to help pave the way for better pictures. If there is going to be any objection to this work I shall discontinue it…’”^[7]

This intervention by state officials appears to have killed his Better Films recruitment effort, at least in Washington state. But Cameron had been making inroads with several potential investors before he was questioned. He already had $10,000 pledges from Mrs. J.P. Weyerhaeuser of Tacoma and former state senator Alex Polson of Hoquiam, not to mention an endorsement in principle (but no financial stake) from Reverend Mark E. Matthews of Seattle’s First Presbyterian Church. Someone who actually put up money for the effort was Russell Callow, head coach of the University of Washington crew team. Callow appears to have lost his tiny investment, but the big-name donors (including Mrs. Weyerhaeuser) withdrew their pledges after authorities questioned Cameron’s operations.

The Better Films debacle never led to any charges, but the fundraising effort was sketchy at best, not the least because Moncrieffe Cameron’s name was attached to it. Just 15 months later, in March 1925, Cameron was arrested for embezzling $300 from a client, one of eight similar complaints that had been lodged against him with state officials. Cameron was tossed into the King County Jail but came up with $1,500 in bail money, then promptly skipped town and – on top of everything else – passed a few bad checks on the way out. And it only got worse. Now a fugitive, Cameron was disbarred in absentia before eventually being apprehended in Los Angeles in 1926. He was extradited back to Seattle to face the original charges, but additional clients had since come forward alleging similar instances of embezzlement. For Moncrieffe Cameron, the game was up; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July.^[8]

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] “Looking for Jones” (letter dated January 12^th from A.R. Patten, Secretary of the Spokane Motion Picture Exhibitor’s League), Moving Picture World, 30 January 1915, Page 684.
[2] See “Look Out for Him,” Moving Picture World, 16 September 1922, Page 187.
[3] See “Longview in Film Play,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 August 1923, Page 4; “Kelso’s Movie Bubble Bursts; ‘Director’s’ Checks No Good,” Seattle Daily Times, 14, August 1923, Page 10; and “Pacific Northwest Warmly Welcomes Pseudo Director,” Moving Picture World, 1 September 1923, Page 41.
[4] See “Film Dealer Arrested,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 July 1923, Page 6; and “Seattle Man Faces Picture Deal Charge,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 July 1923, Page 1. Although released in 1922 and trumpeted as a new Valentino film, The Isle of Love was shot years earlier as a vehicle for Julian Eltinge but never released. It was eventually recut and released in 1920 as An Adventuress, apparently to little fanfare. It was then recut again and re-released in 1922, not only to capitalize on Valentino’s stardom but also to exploit the recent death of actress Virginia Rappé, who also appeared in the film. All this cutting and recutting of the film obliterated most of the actual plot, as the producers eagerly reused footage and altered scenes in an attempt to make the most of what had been a relatively small role for Valentino in the original.
[5] See “Second Charge is Filed,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 October 1923, Page 15; and “Convicted of Fake Sale,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 December 1923, Page 2.
[6] See “‘Better Films’ Scheme Halted after Inquiry,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 January 1924, Pages 1-2; and “Seattle Orders Halt on Picture Stock Sale,” Motion Picture News, 2 February 1924, Page 480. The Better Pictures Company was different from the Better Film Association of Washington, which was a legitimate group that was also active at this time.
[7] “‘Better Films’ Scheme Halted after Inquiry,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 January 1924, Page 2.
[8] See “Attorney Held on Larceny Charge by Woman Client,” Seattle Daily Times, 14 March 1925, Page 1; “Lawyer Faces Fund Charge,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 15 March 1925, Page 3; “Disbarment Complaint Filed Against Cameron,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 May 1925, Page 10; “Hearing Given Lawyer,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 July 1925, Page 2; “Ex-Seattle Attorney Held for Embezzling,” Seattle Daily Times, 15 June 1926, Page 3; and “Ex-Seattle Lawyer to be Sentenced Monday,” Seattle Daily Times, 10 July 1926, Page 3.

Swindles like the ones Moncrieffe Cameron or Roscoe Russell were running used the motion picture business as a jumping off point for their scams. In that sense, they piggy-backed on the popularity of the movies without stealing directly from the industry itself. The direct way to hit these businesses was to rob the box office, of course, but a less obvious target were the films themselves – a crime that wasn’t as uncommon as it might seem.

One Seattle’s earliest known film thefts occurred in May 1906. At that time, up-and-coming vaudeville magnate Alexander Pantages had secured the rights to an original film of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco, which occurred five weeks previous. Seattle, like many other West Coast cities, enjoyed a strong connection to the Bay Area, so interest was high when Pantages booked this exclusive film for a weeklong run at his namesake theatre, located at the corner of Second and Seneca.^[1] He wasn’t alone in arranging this type of programming – both the Star and the Orpheum, rival vaudeville houses, were also showing their own moving pictures of San Francisco that same week.

Around 5:30 p.m. on May 24^th, however, someone snuck through the side door of the Pantages and took the film print out of the projector, robbing the house of its prize attraction. That evening, “after weeping and wailing and gnashing of managerial teeth,” Alexander Pantages took to the stage, announcing that the bill’s feature attraction would not be shown and offering a $100 cash reward for information that led to an arrest. The film itself was valued at $600, but at least Pantages had options. He had already wired his house in Tacoma, where a second print of the film was screening, and had it shipped up – thus a theft from the Pantages in Seattle became, in practice, a theft from the Pantages in Tacoma.

It didn’t take long for the stolen picture to be located. It had been discarded in an alleyway off Fourth Avenue, and though slightly damaged, was still usable. With questions about who took the film and why, a suspect quickly emerged – R.S. Shaw, a former employee at the Pantages who had recently been let go. According to a report in the Daily Times, Shaw committed the crime out of revenge and bragged to his interrogators (Shaw was taken into custody almost immediately) that he’d reveal the film’s location if they paid him $75.

The problem with this account was that it was given to the Daily Times shortly after R.S. Shaw’s arrest, and it doesn’t seem to square with the facts. Like, at all. Despite being detained and questioned, the Seattle police didn’t have anything to go on other than the fact Shaw was a former Pantages employee who happened to live in the vicinity. The Daily Times alleged that Shaw would reveal the film’s location for a price, an obvious suggestion of guilt, but nothing came of that disclosure. There were questions, in fact, as to whether Shaw even made that claim, despite the paper’s breathless reporting. So, after a bit of questioning, it became clear that R.S. Shaw was not actually the culprit, and police quietly released him from custody. There was no explanation as to why the Daily Times offered such specific information about Shaw’s questioning, leading readers to assume the case had essentially been solved, only to have the entire thing fall apart. Of course, there may have been other factors that made Shaw guilty as (not quite) charged. The fact that he was a former Pantages employee was one, but another may have been that he was African American. There’s nothing to suggest that race played a factor in his arrest or in coverage of the crime, but several people eagerly jumped to hasty (and incorrect) conclusions, and there’s nothing to suggest that it somehow didn’t play a role.

So with the Shaw story pitched on its head, police instead settled on the theory that the theft had been perpetrated by employees of a rival vaudeville house who wanted to hurt business at the Pantages. Which was possible, but didn’t make much sense – both the Orpheum and Star Theatres were showing their own San Francisco-themed pictures, and that was probably the case in other local houses as well. This was a big news event, and cameramen had converged on San Francisco following the tragedy, resulting in any number of films entering the market at roughly the same time. How the theft of a single motion picture could somehow tip the business fortunes of one vaudeville house over another was a bit dubious. While a notice several weeks later in the New York Clipper observed that “[s]everal arrests have been made in connection with the robbery,” the detainment of R.S. Shaw showed that arrests don’t necessarily mean convictions.^[2] In this case the crime was never solved.

The theft at the Pantages Theatre in May 1906 was by no means an isolated incident, and by the early 1920s there was actually an underground market for stolen films. In the summer of 1921, for example, the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry warned of a growing operation wherein American-made films were being taken and shipped to Japan or other parts of Asia, where they were duped and sold in foreign markets.^[3] It’s a smuggling effort that hit the Northwest when, on November 7, 1921, 33-year-old T. Shima, a Japanese exporter, was arrested at the Northern Pacific Hotel in Seattle’s Chinatown neighborhood.^[4]

Shima wasn’t a local resident, but had been on police radar for his alleged ties to film smuggling; he was, in fact, hiding out in Seattle to evade law enforcement in San Francisco. Authorities described the smuggling ring as such: films would be stolen, generally by white thieves in the United States, from theatres, exchanges or the express companies who delivered prints. Those films would be packed up and sent to men like Shima on the West Coast, whose front business was in the shipping and receiving of electrical goods. Some of these receivables would go directly from San Francisco to contacts in Shanghai, while others were taken by courier from San Francisco to Honolulu, then shipped to destinations in Asia. There, the films would be duped, then dumped onto the Asian and European film markets at discounted prices.

While being interrogated in Seattle, T. Shima denied involvement in the theft of any films or their eventual duplication. His part in the ring, he claimed, was to play the middleman, paying the original thieves an average of $22.50 per stolen film. “The baring of the film theft plot is said by [private detective F.L.] Masters to uncover the mystery that has surrounded the loss of valuable films all over the country, many of which were stolen in Seattle during the last few years.” Shima was booked but freed after posting $2,000 in bail. Then, after a brief court proceeding in Seattle, Shima was extradited back to San Francisco for trial.^[5]

Apprehending T. Shima, however, didn’t put a dent into these thefts. Just six weeks later, on the morning of December 29, 1921, assistant manager Alfred Bloom arrived at the Seattle Metro exchange to discover that thieves had made off with 18 reels of film during the night. Metro’s film vault held a large quantity of the company’s releases. This robbery, however, was notable because only two pictures were taken – all 11 reels of the Rudolph Valentino film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and all seven reels of his latest release, The Conquering Power.^[6]

This was no ordinary job. The culprits broke the glass on the front door of the exchange, then reached inside to unlock it and let themselves in. The films were stored in a fireproof combination vault, which they managed to open in short order. Then, once inside, the criminals rummaged through every title Metro had on hand; in this case, they knew exactly what they were looking for and made sure to get every reel of those films. “Police are working on the theory that the thieves may be connected with the gang of motion picture conspirators whose activities were uncovered in November when T. Shima, San Francisco Japanese, was arrested in Seattle,” noted the Daily Times. To that end, Seattle police dispatched officers to the waterfront to monitor shipments going either to San Francisco or the Far East, although their efforts turned up no sign of the missing pictures.

To be expected, Alfred Bloom claimed that no film exhibitions would be impacted by the theft, but that announcement was just for show. Behind the scenes, the Metro exchange was thrown into chaos because The Conquering Power was scheduled to open at the Strand in two days time. With John von Herberg, whose Greater Theatres Company operated the Strand, threatening to file suit, the exchange fell all over themselves before locating a print in California that could be shipped to Seattle in time for the opening.^[7] Other clients showing the Valentino picture down the line, to be sure, were also anxious to know whether their programs would be impacted by the theft.

But despite the possibility that an international film theft ring that may have been operating in Seattle, the increased police attention didn’t stop the robberies. Barely a month after the Metro break-in, for example, manager Donald Geddes of Ye College Playhouse in the University District reported that a print of the Mary Carr film Over the Hill had been stolen from his garage.^[8] And later, in 1923, Seizabura Mukai, operator of the Jackson Theatre in Seattle’s Chinatown neighborhood, had a two-reel episode from the Cyclone Smith western series taken from his venue.^[9]

These thefts, coming within months of each other, certainly gave the impression that Seattle was a hotspot for international film smuggling, but the hysteria began to die down as law enforcement officials around the country (and particularly on the West Coast) began cracking down. But it wasn’t necessarily true that all these thefts were part of a formal operation, and in fact they may not have been connected at all. It’s tough to explain why a gang of organized thieves would target the Valentino films, which Metro valued at a (significantly inflated) price tag of $100,000, then follow up that daring heist by taking a sentimental Mary Carr film from 1920, valued at a mere $1,000 and by no means on its first run in Seattle. And the two-reel Cyclone Smith film, stolen much later, wouldn’t have fetched much on the open market at all. In fact, the most inexplicable thing about these events was the fact that Donald Geddes, who lost Over the Hill, thought it was a good idea to store a 10-reel, highly-flammable nitrate film in his garage – something that ran afoul of every storage law on the books. But Geddes and his wife Myrtle were longtime Seattle exhibitors, operating several houses in the city’s northern suburbs, including the University District, Fremont and Ballard, and don’t seem to have suffered any consequences for that decision. That said, it wouldn’t be the last time their garage was a crime scene. Three years after Over the Hill was stolen, in 1925, Myrtle Geddes was confronted by four masked men who jumped on the running boards of her car as she arrived home late one evening.^[10] This wasn’t a random crime, because the men knew exactly what they were doing. At the time Geddes had with her a leather case with approximately $500 in receipts from the Majestic Theatre in Ballard, which disappeared into the night along with the culprits. Much to their detriment, it seems, the Geddes family didn’t believe in proper film storage nor in using the house safe.

But not all film thefts were perpetrated by hardened criminals, international or otherwise. In the fall of 1918, several exchanges along Seattle’s Film Row noticed something amiss. Film was going missing; it started small, mostly edited scraps in wastebaskets, but graduated to lengthier portions and sometimes entire reels that couldn’t be located.^[11] Even more strange was the fact that there was no real rhyme or reason behind these occurrences – bits and pieces, here and there, with no logic as to what was going missing, how it was happening or why. This went on for several weeks, with each individual exchange chalking up the incidents to careless employees. It wasn’t until the various exchange men began complaining to each other that they realized the problem wasn’t just their own offices – this was happening in exchanges up and down Film Row.

Things finally got serious when the Greater Features exchange suddenly couldn’t locate an entire Charlie Chaplin film that arrived earlier that afternoon. There was no mistaking what had happened – the picture arrived via express delivery, it was signed for, then simply vanished off the loading dock. Perhaps it was misplaced, but if so, no one knew where it was. Or they didn’t, until several days later when a pair of young men came into the exchange with the Chaplin film in hand, armed with a story that finally solved the curious case of the pilfered pictures.

While walking near Lake Union, these men were approaching an old, unused stable when they noticed a group of boys gathered outside. They were clearly up to something, but hurried inside and shut the doors. Curious to know what they were up to, the young men slinked around the outside of the building, peeking through the wooden slats, and to their surprise discovered that the boys had set up their own makeshift movie theatre, having obtained an old hand-cranked projector to show whatever celluloid scraps they could lay their hands on. Eventually the boys were spooked by the young men and abandoned the stable, leaving behind the Chaplin picture, fully intact.

The Greater Features exchange notified police, but an inspection of the stable revealed only few leftover pieces of film. Things finally came together after the boys were located and questioned individually. Every one of the exchanges hit by these miniature thieves was located at street level, and every one had windows, doors or shipping areas that faced the alleyway behind the building. Just like any moving picture house in Seattle, when these boys needed a new attraction for their so-called “theatre,” they headed down to Film Row to get one. An open window, an unlocked door, an unsupervised area – the boys just slipped inside the exchange, grabbed a handful of whatever was lying around, then made a hasty exit before anyone noticed. Most of the time they only got scraps and discarded bits, but when opportunity presented itself, they weren’t afraid to step up their game. The fact that a brand-new film was sitting out in the open, unsupervised, was just too tempting. They probably had no idea they were getting the latest Chaplin release – they just got lucky.

The boys caught a break when the entire incident was written off as mischief. Greater Features got their Chaplin film back, but at least one exchange lost an entire reel of another film that was never recovered. Most of the missing footage was waste, so the incidents were more curiosity than criminality.

But the clandestine movie house in a barn on the shores of Lake Union? That may hold the record for the Seattle theatre with the shortest length of operation.

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] See “Picture Film Stolen,” Seattle Daily Times, 25 May 1906, Page 7; “Moving Picture Film is Stolen,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 25 May 1906, Page 16; and “Moving Picture Film Found in an Alley,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 May 1906, Page 22.
[2] See “Held for Theft of Films,” Seattle Star, 25 May 1906 Page 1, “Take Suspect in Film Theft Case,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 May 1906, Page 5; “Shaw is Released,” Seattle Star, 26 May 1906, Page 3, “Star Adds Fire Film,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 May 1906, Page 2 and “Notes,” New York Clipper, 9 June 1906, Page 434.
[3] “American Films Stolen and Copied in Japan,” Seattle Daily Times, 17 August 1921, Page 8.
[4] “Film Smuggling Plot Bared by Seattle Arrest,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 November 1921, Pages 1 and 5.
[5] “Film Theft Case Continued,” Seattle Daily Times, 16 November 1921, Page 17.
[6] See “Thieves Obtain Films,” Seattle Daily Times, 30 December 1921, Page 3; “Yeggmen Get $100,000 Movie Films in Seattle,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 30 December 1921, Page 1; and “Film Burglars Elude Detectives,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 31 December 1921, Page 16.
[7] “Stolen Film Row Ends,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 January 1922, Page 11.
[8] See “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 11 February 1922, Page 638; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 18 February 1922, Page 1134.
[9] See “Cyclone Smith, Two-Reel Film, is Stolen,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 August 1923, Page 5; and “E.J. Carey Back in Seattle; ‘Rasty’ Wright a Matchmaker,” Moving Picture World, 25 August 1923, Page 638.
[10] “Three Women are Robbed by Thugs in Cars,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 January 1925, Page 1; and “Bandits Get Receipts of Two Seattle Theatres,” Motion Picture News, 7 February 1925, Page 546. A similar home invasion robbery happened to Aberdeen exhibitor Ed Dolan in 1927, but in that case the thieves didn’t do their homework. Working on the assumption that Dolan brought the box office receipts with him each evening, the men laid in wait and surprised Dolan as he came home after closing up one night. But Dolan was no fool and hadn’t ever made a practice of carrying large amounts of cash. As a consolation, Dolan gave them a total of $10 – all the money he had on him at the time – and the men left without a fight. (“Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 13 May 1927, Page 1861.)
[11] S.J. Anderson, “Rob Seattle Exchanges of Films,” Moving Picture World, 28 September 1918, Page 1911.

Swindles and stolen film happened on occasion, but far and away most of the crime committed against movie theatres centered around the box office receipts. Perhaps the most frequent offense was to rob the ticket booth at front of the theatre; this was an obvious target, since the cashier was placed out in front, alone, in glass enclosure with few defenses. Moreover, the unwritten rule was that the cashier should be a pretty girl – this was, after all, the first theatre employee that patrons would see, and who didn’t want to be greeted by an attractive young woman?

The problem with female cashiers was that they were great for business, but not much of a crime deterrent. Thankfully, robbing the cashier usually resulted in a small loss, the perpetrator making off with whatever change was piled on the counter inside the booth. In fact, this type of theft probably happened so often, at so many theatres, in cities and towns of all sizes, that it was somewhat akin to pickpocketing – a crime, but not one over which newsprint was spilt. Not all of them involved smashes, but on some level the occasional grab was part of doing business.

When this type of low-level crime failed, however – well, that was a different story. Take the respectable-looking young man who, in November 1918, waited oh-so-patiently in line at the Mission Theatre in downtown Seattle. This was part of the process, to stand amongst the other patrons and not draw attention. But, when his turn came with the cashier, suddenly this man was all business. Without warning he lurched forward, shoving both arms through the brass opening of the kiosk and grabbing at the nickels and dimes that had been pushed into small piles on the counter.

In theory this was a good strategy – he had the element of surprise and two fistfuls of coins for the effort. He did, however, grossly underestimate the cashier, who had evidently seen a few movie heroines in her day. Though startled by the man’s sudden move, this cashier didn’t recoil in horror, as most did, but instead sprung into action. Before the man could pull his arms back out of the booth, she grabbed both his wrists, put her foot to the edge of the counter and pushed backwards with all her might, screaming at the top of her lungs.

The shouts got the attention of the Mission doorman, who looked up to see the cashier wrestling with a man whose arms were now bloodied (the girl’s force tore his shirtsleeves and scraped his forearms), and who was now buried up to his shoulders in the ticket booth, face pressed up against the glass. This quick-thinking doorman, who had also seen a few movies in his day, rushed from his position to grab the thief from behind, though not before plunging his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, finger extended, and pressing it into the small of the robber’s back. Already, in 1918, the finger-in-pocket-simulating-a-gun trick was a thing. Corny? Yes. Effective? Also yes. The would-be robber gave up the fight and remained subdued until police arrived at the Mission, after which he spent four months in jail.^[1]

Unlike our friend at the Mission Theatre, some grabs actually paid out. A more successful effort was undertaken in January 1925 when Eleanor Rutherford, a cashier at the Everett Theatre, was robbed of $1,200. Operated by the Star Amusement Company, their policy was to have the box office receipts from all their local houses (Star Amusement dominated the Everett market at the time) transferred to the house safe at the Orpheum Theatre each evening. Rutherford was transporting the evening’s receipts from the Everett Theatre in a car driven by fellow employee Barney Yanta, something the pair had done many times before. However, when she stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the Orpheum, a man jumped out of the car behind them holding a pistol, relieved Rutherford of the bag and fled before anyone could process what was happening. “Although scores of people were passing on the brightly lighted street,” reported the Post-Intelligencer, “the robbery was so quickly and skillfully executed that the bandit regained his machine and was whisked away by a confederate before an alarm could be given.”^[2]

Of course, there were times when the crime moved up to an actual smash and grab. Such was the case with manager Cecil Gwinn of the Liberty Theatre in Olympia, who seems to have attended the Donald and Myrtle Geddes School of Business (Mis)Management.

Cecil Gwinn was a popular manager in Olympia, but here his decision-making skills were not on display. After the evening close, it seems, Gwinn had gotten into the habit of counting the combined box office take of the Liberty and its sister house, the Capitol, while sitting in the glass ticket booth in front of the theatre, in full view of everyone, at night, by himself. So, in hindsight, it’s hardly a shock that in December 1925 Gwinn would encounter a lead pipe flying through one of the glass panes at 11 p.m. on a Sunday, the shards scattering in a million directions and providing the lone robber with easy entry.^[3] The total take from the Liberty was small – only about $350 – but it could have been worse. The culprit was, obviously, in a bit of a hurry, and made the unfortunate choice of grabbing, among other things, two heavy sacks of coins before attempting his getaway; he either dropped one or decided to lighten the load after running about half a block.

But consider Cecil Gwinn lucky, because some smash and grabs turned out much worse – just ask Ben Profitt, one of several partners operating the Bell Theatre in Chehalis. In late December 1915, Profitt was the last person to leave the theatre one evening, around midnight, and just happened to be carrying $25 in house money when he did. Someone knew Profitt would be the last one out, knew he’d be alone, and was wise to the fact that he would be carrying some (if not all) of the Bell’s evening receipts. And that someone was standing outside, in the shadows, waiting for Profitt to make his exit. When that occurred, the exhibitor locked the door and turned to leave when the stalker took one step out of the darkness and hit him squarely in the face, knocking Profitt out with a single punch. It must have been quite a blow, since he had to be revived a while later when someone finally noticed the exhibitor sprawled out on the sidewalk. The culprit was never apprehended, and the house was out $25.^[4]

By Eric L. Flom – November 2025

Notes:

[1] S.J. Anderson, “Robber Caught by Cashier,” Moving Picture World, 14 December 1918, Page 1224.
[2] “Three Women are Robbed by Thugs in Cars,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 19 January 1925, Page 1.
[3] “Lone Bandit Robs Liberty in Olympia,” Motion Picture News, 19 December 1925, Page 3002.
[4] “Other Northwestern Notes,” Moving Picture World, 23 January 1915, Page 550.