Into the Engine Room:
The Business of Supporting the Movie Business

One of the biggest difficulties facing the Searchlight Theatre Circuit was acquiring new film releases. At the beginning of the 20^th century motion pictures had to be purchased directly from the manufacturing companies – a significant outlay for the exhibitor operating a standalone theatre. The setup worked better for touring exhibitors, since films could be purchased once and used for an entire season or longer if they remained in good condition. Traveling exhibitors like Steel and Freeland or the Fleming Brothers didn’t need to change film titles as often because their business model was not to swap out the films, but to set up in a new location where they could swap out the audience. Without the funds to acquire new titles frequently, venues like the Searchlight worked at a disadvantage and struggled to keep their core audience engaged, creating picture bills by mixing and matching the films in their possession. For the time being, at least, the business was structured in a way that favored the traveling exhibitor.

During the first decade of the new century, however, film distribution began to change. The key development was the creation of a separate entity that took on the responsibility for purchasing film titles, then making those pictures available to exhibitors through rental agreements. Family-style vaudeville used this process on a limited scale, with regional businesses that provided theatres with a weekly film service. But because these venues only needed a handful of pictures each week, and because they were almost never the main draw, there wasn’t an overwhelming demand for fresh, new titles. That changed as entrepreneurs began opening theatres where pictures took an elevated role on the bill. “The separation of distribution from exhibition and the treatment of a reel of film as a standardized interchangeable commodity had…revolutionary implications for the film industry,” Charles Musser observed.^[1]

On the West Coast, the Miles Brothers were instrumental in pioneering distribution via an exchange.^[2] Formerly Northwest showmen who resettled in San Francisco, they already had experience supplying films for the family vaudeville trade. In 1906, however, they purchased a large cache of older films (mostly travelogues) from the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and starting with that base, created a system that gave exhibitors the option of renting titles instead of buying them. The Miles Brothers weren’t the first to do this (several companies in the East already had similar operations), but they helped pioneer this new distribution system on the West Coast, which eventually took movie exhibition to the next level. “Renting from exchanges drastically reduced the cost of supplying entertainment,” James Labosier noted. “An exchange, depending in its ability to acquire film from manufacturers, could enable a nickelodeon to frequently change its entertainment bill. The novelty of new films helped business.”^[3]

The Miles Brothers aside, the earliest film exchanges were typically located east of the Mississippi, had limited film libraries and did business almost exclusively with urban exhibitors. Chicago emerged as a key distribution center; by 1906 the city had at least 11 exchanges, which grew to 18 by 1908.^[4] Some peddled “junk” – older, beat-up prints that could be rented for a low price, with the exchange lacking the facilities (or the business inclination) to inspect and repair product. Others provided better service and access to newer films, but that came at a price. The original setup was for an exchange to purchase multiple film prints directly from the manufacturer, adding them to their list of available rentals. Over time, however, exchanges began entering into their own rental agreements with the production companies. By 1909 it wasn’t uncommon for Pathé or other manufacturers to lease new prints to an exchange, only to have those returned after a specified period for discounted rental fees on a new set of films.^[5]

Sourcing motion pictures out of Chicago or San Francisco had obvious drawbacks for exhibitors in the Pacific Northwest. Eventually, however, regional exchanges began popping up to provide theatres with faster, more reliable service.^[6] “The business of distributing motion pictures became increasingly ruthless as the 1900s wore on,” explained Max Alvarez. “Market demands where such that it made little economic sense for an exchange to solicit theater accounts in distant locations where local rivals could provide faster or cheaper service. Opening additional branches became necessary for many [exchanges] to survive.”^[7] An early player in the Northwest was the Great Western Film Exchange, which opened in Spokane in early 1909.^[8] It was one of two exchanges operating in the city at that time; Seattle also had at least two, the Edison Display Company and the Pacific Film Exchange. Elsewhere, Portland had the Morton Film Exchange and the Independent Western Exchange, while Butte had the Montana Film Exchange. These numbers grew by the year. By 1911 the Edison Display Company had morphed into The General Film Company, the Independent Western Film Exchange opened a branch office in Seattle and a newcomer, Washington Film Service, had also entered the field.

Nickelodeon film shows created a huge demand for content. This alone was a challenge, but the exchange’s work was further complicated by the fact that client houses required new programs at different rates. The policies for individual theatres weren’t uniform, and they varied in response to business conditions – some managers changed bills once a week, others wanted new films every couple of days, and it was all subject to change at any time. Not only was this difficult for the exchange to manage, but it burned through product at an exponential rate. In an industry where success was determined, in part, by variety, everyone wanted access to the newest film titles, seemingly on demand. Competition was fierce.^[9]

To get an idea of how a film exchange operated, it’s helpful to look at a 1912 trade article highlighting the Pacific Film Exchange in Seattle. Not all exchanges operated in the same way – each had different specialties, policies or geographical reach – but the description of Pacific helps understand how these businesses worked at the time. Pacific reviewed the film catalogues of several (but not all) major producers, selecting individual titles and the number of prints they wished to receive; it’s not clear whether they were purchasing or leasing these films. They then created their own internal catalogue of rental subjects for selling purposes, though the article didn’t mention how often Pacific’s catalogue was updated. For existing clients, a salesman worked directly with the theatre manager to determine what type of films that appealed to the house’s core audience. Sometimes these discussions centered on individual titles, but generally it was the salesperson’s job to learn the exhibitor’s needs and deliver a balanced program (some comedy, some drama, etc.) with each bill change. In the early nickelodeon period, when the films were shorter, building programs required the selection of multiple pictures for each new bill. By 1912, however, many of Pacific’s clients were offering three reels per show, with three bill changes per week. “The exhibitor finds that the change of picture only three times a week pays better than giving the patrons too much for their money,” noted Ray Grombacher, manager of the Pacific Exchange. But despite their clients showing fewer pictures, the Pacific Exchange was still a flurry of activity from dawn to dusk, with films and advertising materials (also provided by the exchange) shipping in and out all day long. And business was good, according to Grombacher, though he grumbled that the producing companies tended to emphasize quantity over quality when it came to their releases.^[10]

The Pacific Film Exchange operated for several years before morphing into the next iteration of the business. In 1915 Grombacher sold Pacific to Metro, one of the production companies, who turned the business into their Northwest distribution arm. This was part of a trend; by the mid-teens many of Seattle’s original exchanges had been bought out by the manufacturers, while others came in and set up their own shops. Every big studio eventually had an exchange office in Seattle as well as other key cities around the U.S., with a few opening branch offices in secondary locations. For a time Pathé, for example, had their main exchange in Seattle but also a small office in Spokane that allowed them to better serve theatres from eastern Washington to western Montana. This type of vertical integration by the major film studios slowly brought production and distribution under common control; by the 1920s these studios were adding theatre chains to their empires, allowing them to control the film industry in certain areas (usually urban ones) from production all the way to exhibition.

Every film exchange had a branch manager who was responsible for daily business activities, plus sales representatives who covered the firm’s geographical territory. Below these folks were a host of clerical positions – bookkeepers, stenographers, etc. Booking clerks scheduled screening dates with exhibitors while shipping clerks organized and tracked film deliveries, managing the inflow and outflow of materials. Films returning from the road would be reviewed by inspectors, often young women, who examined the print and fixed any damage that may have occurred. Outgoing film prints might also include a package of advertising materials, including posters, lobby cards and/or photographs, though frequently exhibitors received some or all of these in advance of the picture.^[11]

The exchanges in Seattle and elsewhere kept films in circulation for as long as they retained market value, and inspectors helped make this happen. When a new picture arrived from the studio, an inspector reviewed it for completeness. The film would then be sent to a contract theatre; most new pictures debuted in Seattle, so this was usually a short trip over to one of the city’s downtown venues. Once that run was complete, the theatre brought the print back to the exchange, where an inspector reviewed the film again, a task performed almost every time a print was returned. Most theatres kept a basic set of tools (which might include scissors, razor blades and film cement) so operators could make print repairs on the fly. That might be good enough to get the film through an engagement, but a trip back to the exchange allowed the picture to be inspected top to bottom, where the work could be done to a higher standard if necessary. Films were reviewed for all types of potential damage, including breaks, tears, folds, scratches and even stretching, all of which degraded print quality over time. Exhibitors in Washington’s larger cities tended to show pictures first, so the films shown in these first-run venues were crisp and clear, free from blemishes that marred picture quality. But that wasn’t necessarily the case for the exhibitor in a small town like Ephrata, who was likely showing a picture that had been circulating throughout the state for months. On top of that, the Ephrata house might be receiving the print directly from a venue in another city, since the booking schedule didn’t allow enough time for the film to go all the way back to the exchange for an inspection. This meant the Ephrata house was at the mercy of anything that had happened to that print during the prior engagement(s) and simply had to work around any problems. In this way rural exhibitors faced a host of print quality issues that urban ones, for the most part, did not. This might include shortened or missing scenes (removed due to censorship or prior damage), scratches, patches, sections that were faded or had damaged sprocket holes, and sometimes all the above. Most film men treated their rentals with care, but in rural Washington it wasn’t uncommon for exhibitors to receive prints that looked like they’d been through the wringer. “A small-town audience viewing a scratchy, incomplete print…several months after its initial release surely came to the theater with a different set of expectations than did an urban audience viewing a pristine print during its first run nationally,” noted George Potamianos.^[12]

There was a constant strain between exchanges and exhibitors over who was more responsible for the condition of film prints. But in fairness to the exchanges, they sometimes had to repair some bizarre stuff – from filmstrips hastily patched with tape or stick pins, to operators who were too clever for their own good. In 1914 E.M. Roll, a projectionist in Sumas, wrote to Moving Picture World bragging about his solution for eliminating the break between reel changes. At Roll’s theatre, the house’s policy was to project three reels at each show. When those arrived, he spent time taking all of them – several standalone movies – and splicing them together so they fit onto one gigantic film reel of his own creation. But, because the house projector wasn’t designed to handle a reel that large, it lacked the necessary tension to pull the film through the machine. Not to worry, because Roll had a solution for that as well. In addition to this massive spool, he created some sort of attachment near the take up reel that helped yank the film through the projector, a setup that, he claimed, allowed him to get the proper film speed with few hiccups.^[13] Granted, Roll deconstructed this giant reel the end of each run, but he was nonetheless cutting and repairing prints that didn’t necessarily need to be cut or repaired. On top of that, he was putting these pictures through wear and tear they weren’t designed to take. Roll may have improved the movie experience for his patrons, giving them a continuous show (and by eliminating reel changes, perhaps squeezing in an extra screening or two per day), but exhibitors down the line were forced to work with prints that had been sliced and diced, stretched and pulled during their brief layover in Sumas.

The inspectors and the other clerks kept the exchange business humming, but the salesmen stood atop the food chain. These individuals, typically men, spent their time servicing the firm’s existing accounts while also angling for new business. Like the exchange itself, each salesman had a territory – Seattle, Tacoma or the Peninsula, for example. Some stayed in their own backyard, living and working close to the home office. For others, however, their territory could be large and quite far from the exchange. Each company’s coverage area also shifted over time, usually getting smaller (and denser) as the industry grew. Whereas some early Seattle exchanges serviced theatres all the way to Butte, by the 1920s most had clients only in Washington state, though territories varied from firm to firm. In 1924 the Seattle Goldwyn exchange stopped servicing houses in southwest Washington, for example, the work going instead to the Portland office, which was much closer.^[14] Of course, not every exchange operated that way, so while impacted houses dealt with the Portland office for their Goldwyn features, they almost certainly had to use the Seattle exchanges for other film services.

The prime areas for exchange salesmen were in Washington’s major cities. These were the most lucrative areas but also required them to be seen and heard frequently – urban theatre managers were accustomed to the full-service experience. Regardless of location, however, every salesman made regular house calls on existing clients while gladhanding other exhibitors in his territory, since all movie theatres (even those currently showing a competitor’s product) were potential customers. A good salesman chatted up the locals and made sure to know what was going on in the area, even when it wasn’t directly related to the picture business. He also kept an ear to the ground. The sale of an existing theatre (or whispers of a new one) might prompt exchange men from multiple companies to descend on a location, angling for time with the owner/exhibitor to see if he was in the market for new film service. The same thing applied to salesmen from the film supply houses in Seattle and Portland – everyone wanted to lock down new business, even if it was only on the drawing table.

Film salesmen were the goodwill ambassadors of the local movie business; it’s one reason why the trade paper correspondents sourced their weekly reports by visiting the Seattle exchanges. Extroverts by nature, they were good for stories even when there was little news to report – if anything, they just talked about themselves. They were also generous with perks. For clients this could be a range of features, such as extra advertising materials, contest prizes or helping with (and sometimes coordinating) promotional campaigns. They also played host when exhibitors came into Seattle on business. Showmen from around Puget Sound were frequent visitors, but even rural ones turned up at their exchanges several times a year, getting the VIP treatment while negotiating new business. For example, in 1924 Robert Anderson operated a small movie house in Forks, on the Olympic Peninsula, that was only open a few days a week but made business trips to Seattle about once every six months, even though he had less buying to do than most exhibitors.^[15] But he was a real go-getter compared to Frank and Lolita Airey. The Aireys operated theatres in Twisp and Winthrop, and when they came to Seattle in the spring of 1928, it was a shock to everyone. It was their first visit to an exchange in the five years they’d been in the business – up to that point, everything they needed (film service, equipment, etc.) had been sourced through the salesmen who came to them. They had never met with nor spoken with an exchange manager and never had any problems with the arrangement. In fact, the Aireys had only missed one show in five years, and that was because a weather issue delayed the print delivery. So in that case the exchange wasn’t to blame – obviously, that was God’s fault.^[16]

For salesmen working territory outside the Puget Sound area, there could be long periods on the road that weren’t just lonely, but sometimes dangerous. When an unexpected snowstorm hit eastern Washington in February 1923, exchange man Art Winstock was caught driving between destinations. The snow came in so quick that he was stranded somewhere near Davenport, the situation eventually dire enough that he had to abandon his vehicle. He almost didn’t make it; by the time Winstock found help, he had been exposed to the elements for so long that his hands were potentially frostbitten.^[17] Thankfully he got quick medical attention, so doctors didn’t need to amputate.

An equally serious incident occurred when “Sully” Sullivan, a salesman with the Seattle MGM exchange, made a trip up to Alaska in December 1927. Sullivan was going northward with a film delivery aboard the steamer Northwestern, operated by the Alaska Steamship Company. At around 5 a.m. on December 11^th, rough seas and high winds blew the Northwestern into a reef at Cape Mudge, on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. Sullivan and other passengers were jolted out of bed, then huddled below deck as the crew radioed for assistance. Lifeboats were readied but couldn’t be launched because the water was far too rough, and there was serious concern that the ship would eventually break apart, given the relentless pounding against the sea rock. Conditions were so treacherous that first responders didn’t dare pull up alongside the floundering ship; it wasn’t until noon, after being battered against the reef for seven hours, that a halibut schooner was finally able to give assistance. Sullivan and the others were unharmed, but all 60 of his films were destroyed due to a breach in the hold.^[18]

Danger was the exception, not the rule, but it did take a certain kind of person to thrive in the high-pressure world of film sales. The hours were long, the sales quotas were high and, depending on one’s territory, there might be extended periods on the road. Some excelled, others didn’t. “Anyone familiar with the inside of a film exchange knows full well that a salesman is not kept on the payroll for very many weeks unless he is clicking,” the Seattle-based Motion Picture Record claimed in 1928. “That is the one job in distribution that shows a man up – quick. Either he is a salesman in the revenue vs. expense weekly battle, or he is not; and if he isn’t, off the disbursement sheet he goes.”^[19] Any number of methods were used to incentivize the salesmen – contests, cash bonuses, etc. But it wasn’t difficult to tell who was having a good year: all you had to do was stroll past the exchange buildings in downtown Seattle and make note of which salesmen were driving the newest cars.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Berkley: University of California Press – 1990), Page 367.
[2] Charles Musser (with Carol Nelson), High Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H. Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling Exhibition, 1880-1920 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press – 1991), Page 127.
[3] James Labosier, “From the Kinetoscope to the Nickelodeon: Motion Picture Presentation and Production in Portland, Oregon, From 1894 to 1906,” Film History, Volume 16, Issue 3 (2004), Page 316.
[4] Max Alvarez, “The Origins of the Film Exchange,” Film History, Volume 17, Issue 4 (2005), Page 433.
[5] Ibid., Page 434.
[6] Musser, The Emergence of Cinema, Pages 434-435.
[7] Alvarez, Page 435.
[8] See “Spokane, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 22 May 1909, Page 672; “Among the Picture Theatres,” The Nickelodeon, June 1909, Page 169; and Charles F. Morris, “Regulations of Picture Theatres,” The Nickelodeon, September 1909, Page 122.
[9] Alvarez, Pages 438-439.
[10] “Pacific Film Exchange,” Moving Picture News, 13 January 1912, Page 33.
[11] Alvarez, Pages 443-445.
[12] George Potamianos, “Movies at the Margins: The Distribution of Films to Theaters in Small-Town America, 1895-1919,” in Gregg Bachman and Thomas J. Slater (editors), American Silent Film: Discovering Marginalized Voices (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press – 2002), Page 25.
[13] F.H. Richardson, “Thank You for ‘Them Words,’” Moving Picture World, 3 January 1914, Page 44.
[14] “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 12 April 1924, Page 1074.
[15] See “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 15 March 1924, Page 204.
[16] See “Seattle,” Motion Picture Record, 24 March 1928 (Vol. 5, No. 9), Page 10; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 21 April 1928, Page 1277.
[17] “Trade Events Around the Seattle Exchanges,” Motion Picture News, 17 March 1923, Page 1299.
[18] “Seattle Ship on Rock in Snow Storm,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 December 1927, Page 2; “Wild Current in Narrows,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 December 1927, Page 2; “Woman Wakes Sleepers to Fact of Wreck,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 December 1927, Pages 2 and 22; “Merely Duty to Him, but Deed Heroism,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 December 1927, Page 3; and “Hundreds at Wharf Should Glad Greeting,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 December 1927, Page 3.
[19] “Editorial Paragraphs,” Motion Picture Record, 31 March 1928 (Vol. 5, No. 13), Page 3.

As elsewhere across the U.S., it was common for film exchanges and associated businesses to congregate in a central location. In Seattle, this was eventually the area around Second Avenue and Battery Street, in the city’s Belltown neighborhood, which became commonly known as “Film Row.” But Seattle’s Film Row evolved slowly, over a period of years, the Belltown location emerging only toward the end of the silent era. Almost every major city had their own Film Row, but Seattle’s was somewhat of a moving target, particularly before World War I.

The city’s earliest film businesses didn’t necessarily situate near one another. Some had storefront locations, while others set themselves up in office buildings throughout the downtown core. This was a problem, however, because motion pictures at the time were produced on nitrate film stock, which was highly flammable. For exchanges located in office buildings, this was a potentially dangerous situation for both themselves and other tenants. Municipal building and fire codes didn’t always move in lockstep with the growth of motion pictures, and although Washington never had a serious exchange fire, there were incidents in other cities that made local officials well aware of the potential danger.

This wasn’t just a concern for the exchanges. In 1916 a fire broke out at the H.A. Johnson Seating Company in Seattle, a supply house located in an office building at 1214 Fourth Avenue. The blaze was small and quickly extinguished, but because the company’s inventory included upholstery and stuffing, a good amount of smoke billowed out the windows and down the street. Which is what sent Mike Rosenberg, walking toward his exchange office at the De Luxe Feature Film Company, located in the same building, into an immediate panic. Rosenberg looked up, saw the smoke and sprinted up Fourth Avenue, running up to his office and grabbing everything he could. He wasn’t the only one doing so – the building also housed the exchange offices for Metro, World and Fox. “[Rosenberg] dashed in, grabbed a box of his most valuable film, told one of his men to get another, and ran with it out to the end of the alley back of the building. In the other offices there was [also] a scramble for film and valuable papers…”^[1]

The incident spurred Seattle officials into discussing the fact that film exchanges, in particular, had safety issues that needed to be addressed. By 1917 the city’s Public Safety Committee was looking at the matter, proposing that “no permit shall be issued to manufacture, print, develop, keep, store or use motion picture films in any building more than two stories high.”^[2] Once the measure was passed by the Seattle City Council, the ordinance (coupled with changes to fire and zoning restrictions) encouraged the city’s various film businesses to relocate. They were in luck – a local developer was working on a brick building at Third and Virginia where at least six exchanges could operate. This space, which opened later that fall, eventually housed the local offices for Metro, Selznick, Fox and Goldwyn, and became the centerpiece of Seattle’s original Film Row.^[3]

S.J. Anderson of Moving Picture World described Metro’s space in the new building, where the studio’s logo had been hand-painted in gold on each of their exterior windows. There were spacious offices and workrooms, including one that held Metro’s advertising materials – posters, lobby cards, photographs and the like. At their prior location, the exchange had to store materials based on size, so their six-sheet posters were in one place, but their photos and lobby cards were in another. The new space allowed them to organize print materials by film release, so staff could fill orders from a single location. On top of this improved layout, the new Metro offices had a small operating room in which to preview films for clients and additional fire safety features that went beyond those installed by the developers, who specifically constructed the building with local film exchanges in mind.^[4] Later, in 1918, S.J. Anderson toured Pathé’s offices in a nearby building, where the firm not only had their own private screening room (with two projectors, no less) but a pair of film vaults. Curiously, one held the company’s newer releases along with an open container of eucalyptus oil, which Anderson was told kept the film “pliable.” At the time, the second vault was being used for a pile of older films that had just come back from a year in Alaska. Those prints, he was told, had made the rounds for so long (with no trips back to the Seattle exchange) that they no longer had any commercial value. Pathé intended to hand them over to the government so they could be burned to extract the trace amounts of silver used in the development process.^[5]

The move by film companies to a common area of Seattle occurred gradually, and attracted not only the major exchanges and supply houses but niche businesses as well. The Robinson and Walker Company, for example, was a small, Seattle-based exchange that specialized in exporting American films to Indonesia and the Philippines. Later, in 1926, D. Bowen and Nina Snyder headed the Seattle Film Exchange, which also did business overseas, while also running a chinchilla rabbit operation out of the same office.^[6]

The buildings on Seattle’s original Film Row around Third and Virginia where one- or two-story brick buildings, usually with alleyways in the back so delivery trucks could pick up and drop off materials. The setup confined these businesses (and their potentially dangerous cargo) to a group of shorter commercial buildings in a particular part of downtown Seattle, which would ideally make a fire less devastating. But even with improvements in the handling and storage of nitrate film, accidents happened, such as the one that befell Leon Bories on June 21, 1923. Bories operated a small independent exchange on Third Avenue, but made extra cash by renting vault space to other exchanges. On the evening of June 21^st, a fire of unknown origin ignited in Bories’ vault, resulting in the loss of 700 reels of film valued at $15,000. Only about $3,000 of that represented films that Bories was managing – the remaining losses were to films owned by other exchanges.^[7] Thankfully, the incident wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The vault was fireproofed to the extent that the blaze was contained to the room, and a sprinkler system helped knock the flames down. Nonetheless, the incident was a wake-up call for Seattle officials, who went back to review local safety regulations. To no one’s surprise, an updated film storage ordinance was passed within weeks – among other things, it required motion pictures to be sealed in regulation cannisters at all times. This was part of the problem with the Bories incident, as unsecured film helped fuel the blaze. Only 20 reels of film survived that fire, and all of them had been closed tightly in regulation cannisters.^[8]

Seattle was fortunate in that these incidents, when they occurred, were never catastrophic. Still, the volatile nature of nitrate film created problems. In 1925, when Seattle firefighters were combating a fire at the Moore Hotel, they had to work double-time because the incident was unfolding near the exchange offices for Film Booking Office, Warner Bros. and United Artists, which were located  across the alleyway.^[9] And the following year, fast-thinking employees at the Famous Players-Lasky exchange managed to bat down a fire at their location even before firefighters managed to arrive.^[10]

It wasn’t long before the days of Seattle’s original Film Row were numbered. In late 1927 the exchanges began uprooting themselves again – Seattle’s expanding downtown made their old locations too valuable for one- and two-story buildings. So another migration took place, this time a few blocks northward, to locations along Second and Third Avenues near Battery Street, in the Belltown neighborhood. A key feature of the Belltown Film Row was the Rendezvous Café, located at 2320 Second Avenue. Almost overnight the Rendezvous, still operating today, became the unofficial meeting place for exchange and supply men in the surrounding area. By that time Seattle’s Film Row had at least 16 individual exchanges, representing not only the prominent Hollywood studios but also specialty distributors, plus more than 10 different equipment and supply companies. This was in addition to various associated businesses that also played key roles in the local motion picture (and chinchilla rabbit) trade.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] S.J. Anderson, “Fire in H.A. Johnson’s Supply Store,” Moving Picture World, 9 December 1916, Page 1534.
[2] “‘Split Reel’ Notes for Theater Men,” Motography, 28 August 1917, Page 420.
[3] See “Will Build Central Exchange in Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 28 October 1916, Page 591; and S.J. Anderson, “Film Men Ready to Move into New Exchange Building,” Moving Picture World, 6 October 1917, Page 120-121.
[4] S.J. Anderson, “Metro’s New Seattle Quarters Occupied,” Moving Picture World, 13 October 1917, Page 285.
[5] S.J. Anderson, “Pathé’s Seattle Office is Most Modern,” Moving Picture World, 14 September 1918, Page 1600. Not all of Seattle’s exchanges serviced the Alaska market, but some did, which was also the case with some of its film supply companies.
[6] “Exhibitor Buys Exchange,” Moving Picture World, 12 June 1926, Page 567.
[7] “$15,000 Damage Caused by Seattle Film Fire,” Motion Picture News, 14 July 1923, Page 170.
[8] “Seattle Enforces Storage of Film in Cans,” Motion Picture News, 4 August 1923, Page 516.
[9] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 18 July 1925, Page 329.
[10] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 10 July 1926, Page 155.

The primary business for any film exchange was to contract with various exhibitors to deliver pictures to their houses on a pre-determined schedule. In the early nickelodeon period, when films were short in length, this meant that the exchange usually did business based on quantity and frequency. In other words, film contracts involved delivering a specified number of reels (or feet) of film on certain days of the week; under this arrangement, more emphasis was put on the manufacturer or film genre than the actual titles. With films not yet marketed on the strength of individual subjects or stars, exhibitors and audiences tended to identify with certain types of motion pictures. Foremost in the exhibitor’s mind when negotiating for a film service would have been the type of pictures available to him. If he could afford to do so, he might pay more to get the newest releases. Or he may recognize that his core audience preferred westerns or the comedies of a certain manufacturer, so he might contract for a regular supply of those pictures. Successful managers listened to the audience and gauged their opinions, then made programming changes with shifts in movie tastes. At the other end of the spectrum were exhibitors with limited funds who could only afford to show second- or third-run films, and took whatever they could get for the right price. Many lower-wrung urban nickelodeons and rural houses fell into this category.

Around 1910 there was a gradual move from shorter films toward “features” that put greater value on individual titles and, eventually, the films of certain performers. Moreover, as the original exchange system, which allowed nickelodeons to show films from a variety of makers, moved towards a distribution system based on studio-operated exchanges, exhibitors began negotiating for the product of only their chosen releasing companies. Both these factors impacted the cost of rentals, which were rising along with production budgets. While an issue for every exhibitor, the trend impacted small and rural venues the most. Longer films with any kind of marquee value – a star, a story, an expanded production – typically commanded the highest rental prices, something that put those pictures out of reach for smaller theatres, at least during the film’s initial run. But the problem for these venues went even deeper. By the mid-teens the film exchanges were actively gaming the system, since they knew they’d get more rental income from booking a picture for its fourth run in Bellingham rather than its first run in Blaine. As such, films tended to linger in urban and suburban areas for longer periods before being made available to Washington’s smaller markets, leaving some rural theatres unable to play big pictures for as much as a year or more. The small theatre owner could wait on availability or a lower rental price, of course, but by then much of the initial hoopla was gone – audiences may have already moved on to the next big thing. “Several factors influenced the kind and quality of film service that different rural theaters received,” noted George Potamianos, “including geographic proximity of a small town to a film exchange; the number of theaters in a town or county; the size of the town; and the region of the United States in which the town was located.”^[1] Even the small-town manager who ran the city’s only venue felt the pinch. “…[T]he market power [some small theatres] gained from possessing a movie monopoly in a town of two thousand people was very limited,” observed Eric Hoyt. “Distributors wanted to waste as little time as possible with them.”^[2]

The 1920s eventually saw the rise of block booking, a distribution practice that further eroded the leverage of small-town exhibitors. With block booking a manager could choose to contract for certain titles or stars, but the privilege came with strings. To book a prized picture, the exhibitor would also have to sign up for a specified number of additional films, often pulled from a list of titles supplied by the exchange. Thus, the manager wanting to show the latest Dorothy Gish release might also have to pick up seven additional features, often program films with minor stars, unknown directors and miniscule budgets. Block booking gave the exchanges (and thereby the studios) a way to force cheaply-made product onto the market, and that was often done onto smaller theatres who lacked the ability to reject them.^[3] Block booking impacted exhibitors of all sizes, so the practice wasn’t just an issue for rural areas. But it highlighted the fact that moviegoers in Washington’s largest cities, who had a wide range of theatres to patronize, had an embarrassment of riches when it came to motion picture entertainment. Small-town audiences, on the other hand, didn’t have the opportunity to see every film release, and were often limited to what the local manager could afford to book – and that included titles that were literally being forced upon him.

The Seattle exchanges did more than just distribute pictures and advertising materials –they also got involved in issues affecting the business. They were keenly attuned, for example, to transportation matters in the Pacific Northwest. Film Row was a hub of activity, with materials and equipment going in and out on a daily basis. Multiple parties were involved in that effort, including the express delivery services that transported items to and from railroad depots, trains that carried shipments to their intended destination and, in some cases, water services that ferried men and materials to locations along Puget Sound. Even public transportation was a concern – a disruption in taxi or streetcar service in any of Washington’s larger cities made it difficult for patrons to get downtown for shows, which in turn impacted box-office returns.

When a potential railroad strike threatened to shut down parts of Washington in the fall of 1916, for example, the Metro exchange supplied their contract houses with prints and advertising materials well ahead of scheduled play dates, fearing an extended walkout.^[4] Similarly, when Seattle express carriers went on strike for three weeks in July 1917, it left Film Row in a lurch when it came to deliveries. Universal was the only exchange that owned a truck, but there was no way it could handle the needs of everyone along Film Row. So the exchange managers cobbled together a makeshift service using their personal vehicles, making deliveries not only for their own firms but also for rival exchanges. They had little choice; shipping through the U.S. Postal Service was out of the question. For one, it was too slow, but more importantly it would have required the exchange to prepay the cost. Transportation fees were usually paid by the exhibitor receiving the film, and the exchanges weren’t about to set a precedent by paying that cost themselves, even on a temporary basis.

Transportation disruptions were such a persistent issue that at one point the Northwest Film Board of Trade, an organization of exchange men, flirted with the idea of starting their own trucking business. In the summer of 1918, the Board set up the Film Transfer Company, with plans to run motor delivery routes from Portland to the Canadian border, and as far east as Yakima. In places like Seattle and Tacoma, Film Transfer was designed to cut the express companies right out of the equation, shuttling film prints and materials directly from Film Row to local theatres, trains or boats. There were also discussions around creating film “depots” in strategic parts of Washington. The idea was to have these locations stocked with a rotating supply of prints that exhibitors could access on short notice if a scheduled film didn’t arrive on time – depots were proposed for Aberdeen, Bellingham, Centralia, Everett, Yakima, Spokane, Pasco, Tacoma and Walla Walla.^[5] In the end, however, the Film Transfer Company was more bark than bite. Instead of an elaborate network operating throughout western Washington, the company peaked with a single truck that only ran within Seattle city limits. But even that was better than the film depot idea, which never made it beyond the proposal stage.

Some transportation issues weren’t at all predictable. Inclement weather was always a factor, with seasonal storms or flooding that impacted rail and ferry service. In January 1918, flooding in and around Seattle necessitated that Film Row ship materials down to Tacoma by boat, where they could be put aboard trains and dispersed throughout the region. But if Tacoma also went down (given conditions, a possibility), then a good number of Northwest movie theatres would go dark.^[6] At least weather delays could be explained. Many express shipments left the exchange for the train station, only to be held there (or at another stop) because a train somewhere along the route was either delayed or cancelled – and this was on top of incidents involving simple human error. When these things occurred, the exchange typically only learned of the problem when frantic exhibitors telephoned the office, leaving the movie men angry and frustrated because they had no ability to resolve the issue. In 1918, through the Northwest Film Board of Trade, the Seattle exchanges tried pressuring local rail companies for better communication around service delays, but the conversation didn’t get very far due, in part, to their approach. The exchanges did a lot of business with rail, ferry and express delivery services, and often used this as leverage. On this and related business issues, the arguments put forward by the Seattle exchanges (at least as reported in the trade papers) frequently had a “you owe this to us” ring that probably wasn’t appreciated.

Even small issues could be of great importance. In 1917 the Board of Trade negotiated an extension to the 4 p.m. express delivery deadline, giving local exchanges additional time to ready shipments at the end of the workday. Two years later they were weighing in on upgraded shipping containers for film prints. The proposed containers were of good quality, but they were also much heavier, which drove up the shipping cost for exhibitors. The Northwest Board of Trade, along with similar organizations around the country, played a role in getting the Interstate Commerce Commission to stall the changeover until more a more cost-effective solution could be identified. The exchanges were also focused on issues within their immediate business circle. The Board of Trade created an internal group, the Committee on Credit, to keep tabs on Washington exhibitors who had, for example, written a check with insufficient funds. No penalties were assessed, but the Committee made that information available to member exchanges so there was a general awareness when certain exhibitors were unable (or unwilling) to pay their bills. Yet another internal group, the Committee on Grievances, heard disputes between exhibitors and exchanges, usually around contractual issues. Later, in the 1920s, after the Board of Trade opened membership to both exchange men and exhibitors, this effort morphed into the Board of Arbitration, a more formal process that looked to settle contract disputes outside the court system.^[7]

Above all the exchanges were in the business of serving their clients, and liked to cast themselves as the good guys in the white hats. There were many instances when an exchange rescued the exhibitor in need – exploits that would inevitably be shared with the nearest trade paper correspondent. Many silent era exhibitors were small businesses people without formal training, so they occasionally got themselves into difficult situations. Those were opportunities for the exchange to step in and perform miracles on their behalf.

There were times, for example, when the exchange operated as a de facto business consultant. R.K. Dunham entered the exhibition business in 1911; he was a former deputy sheriff in Skagit County who left the force after getting bitten by the movie bug. He bought an old saloon in Mount Vernon, then refurbished it into a 250-seat movie theatre. Things were progressing nicely until he journeyed to Seattle for projection equipment and to procure film service. “‘What type of [electrical] current you got there in [Mount] Vernon, alternating or direct?’” asked A.T. Lambson of the General Film exchange when discussing projectors. Dunham paused, somewhat bewildered. “‘I don’t know,’” he stammered. “‘What’s the difference…?’”^[8]

Thankfully, Lambson had experience onboarding green exhibitors, offering to come up to Mount Vernon so Dunham could show him around. Based on that visit, Lambson recommended a Powers No. 6 Cameragraph projector, which he personally delivered on a return visit, staying in town to assist Dunham with the opening of his Rex Theatre on July 29, 1911.^[9] Similarly, when newcomer C.V. Basom was getting ready to open the Sumner Theatre in 1918, he signed up for film service through the Artcraft-Paramount exchange in Seattle. They also offered their business expertise, dispatching A.J. Kennedy to Sumner to look over the venue and recommend the best way to advertise. Basom and Kennedy settled on a program featuring two 24-sheet posters, two six-sheets, three two-sheets and 10 one-sheet posters, changing everything three times a week, or each time a new feature arrived at the Sumner Theatre. In a town of just over 1,000, this was literally papering the town, but the process worked and C.V. Basom’s venue was a success out of the gate.^[10]

Exchanges were also helpful during emergencies. If you’re going to have a projection room fire, for example, it paid to work with a resourceful distributor. When the Mary Pickford film Tess of the Storm Country played Seattle’s Blue Mouse Theatre in 1922, two reels were damaged in a small fire one afternoon, but the United Artists exchange simply drove over with a new print so the screenings could continue. And two years later, they did it again. This time a fire occurred in the projection room at the Strand, where two reels of the Pickford feature Rosita, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, were destroyed in a similar accident. Although one screening was cancelled, the exchange had a new print sent over so the picture could continue its run (virtually) uninterrupted.^[11] These prompt actions were great publicity for the United Artists exchange, of course, but did nothing to explain why the films of America’s Sweetheart were apparently more flammable than others.

Another type of emergency occurred in February 1916, when an estimated 21 inches of snow fell on Seattle, a city not known (much less prepared) for that kind of winter weather. The entire city was paralyzed, and until the snow melted, business, government and public transportation was disrupted. Movie houses were forced to close, but eventually reopened despite the weather, playing to whatever crowds braved the elements and turned up at the box office. Seattle’s film exchanges, however, had a different problem. Their business relied on local express companies to shuttle films and materials to local movie houses, train stations or ships at the waterfront, but the streets were largely impassable. For them, the snowfall not only impacted operations in Seattle, but also at their client houses throughout Washington state, since little could get in or out of town. But the conditions also gave Tom North, manager of the V.L.S.E. exchange, a smashing idea. North placed a few calls and located an experienced dog racer, who just happened to have a sled team handy. Whereas other exchanges struggled with their deliveries, the V.L.S.E. exchange made theirs in style, zipping through the city streets like they were competing in the Iditarod.^[12]

These “rescues” got even more thrilling when the distances increased. When a print didn’t arrive at Bellingham’s Weir Theatre in 1918, Mike Rosenberg of the De Luxe Film Company went to his vault, took a second copy of the picture and tossed it and the back of his car. He then motored the entire way from Seattle to Bellingham (in the days before an interstate highway, a feat), pulling up to the Weir minutes before the evening show was about to begin. That same year, a Tacoma exhibitor telephoned L.J. Schlaifer Attractions wondering where his film print was, only to discover that he’d made a mistake – he wasn’t scheduled to receive the picture in question, and had nothing lined up to show. No matter; someone from the exchange drove the film down to Tacoma. But the winner of this contest may have been B. Wallace Rucker, who drove through the night from Portland up to Seattle’s Roycroft Theatre in 1926, arriving just in time for the Saturday morning matinee. The difference for Rucker was that his exchange wasn’t handling the venue’s feature film – he made the entire drive just to deliver a short comedy. “‘Just a part of our service,’” he exclaimed, in aw-shucks fashion.^[13] Of course, not all these stories ended well. When it fell to J.R. Cummock of the Progressive Moving Picture Company to motor a print down to the Liberty Theatre in Tacoma, he left Seattle knowing he had plenty of time to make the drive. Only, he didn’t. Cummock blew a tire on the way down, then made up for lost time by flooring it when he got back on the road. Liberty management would have approved of that decision, but local police did not. Cummock was arrested for speeding and never made it to the theatre.^[14]

Exchange managers weren’t the only ones who rose to the occasion. In 1917 Edna Craig, a shipping clerk at the World exchange in Seattle, was expecting a print from an out-of-town booking. Ideally, the film would arrive in the early afternoon, get inspected, then ship out the following morning to its next destination. But the film didn’t arrive. The next train was due at 7 p.m., so Craig left the World office and went down to the station, hoping to intercept it – if a full inspection wasn’t possible, then it would at least get a cursory one. But the print wasn’t on the 7 p.m. train either, which meant that the film couldn’t be inspected for damage. Undaunted, Craig went home, had dinner with the family and took a short nap, then rousted herself at midnight so she could be at the station for the next train. Still no film; now it became a question of whether she could even get it to the next theatre in time. So Craig went home again, got a few hours of sleep, then went back to the station for a third time in 12 hours, where the picture finally arrived on the 6:30 a.m. train. There was no time to spare – Craig grabbed the cannisters, went from train station one to train station two, got the film packaged up and outbound on the last run that would get it to the next destination.^[15] Assuming, of course, the train wasn’t somehow delayed along the way.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] George Potamianos, “Movies at the Margins: The Distribution of Films to Theaters in Small-Town America, 1895-1919,” in Gregg Bachman and Thomas J. Slater (editors), American Silent Film: Discovering Marginalized Voices (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press – 2002), Page 12.
[2] Eric Hoyt, Ink-Stained Hollywood: The Triumph of American Cinema’s Trade Press (Berkely: University of California Press – 2022), Page 81.
[3] Potamianos, Page 11.
[4] “Local Metro Notes,” Moving Picture World, 14 October 1916, Pages 282-283.
[5] S.J. Anderson, “Solves Film Transportation Problem,” Moving Picture World, 19 October 1918, Page 409.
[6] S.J. Anderson, “Warm Winds and Rain Isolate Seattle, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 12 January 1918, Page 271.
[7] See S.J. Anderson, “Northwest Film Association Gets to Work,” Moving Picture World, 15 December 1917, Page 1672; “Washington Exhibitors Object to New Cases,” Moving Picture World, 21 June 1919, Page 1808; and “Movie Men Convene in Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 9 August 1919, Pages 787-788.
[8] A.R.M. Sutton, “From $25 a Week to $568 for One Day,” Motography, 2 June 1917, Page 1141.
[9] See “Seattle,” Moving Picture World, 19 August 1911, Page 470; and A.R.M. Sutton, “From $25 a Week to $568 for One Day,” Motography, 2 June 1917, Page 1141.
[10] “Basom Doing Big Advertising,” Moving Picture World, 14 December 1918, Page 1224.
[11] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 9 February 1924, Page 658.
[12] “Tom North’s Latest,” Moving Picture World, 8 April 1916, Pages 253-254.
[13] S.J. Anderson, “Service Spelled in All Caps,” Moving Picture World, 5 October 1918, Page 116; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 20 November 1926, Page 1969.
[14] “Broke Speed Law to Deliver Film,” Moving Picture World, 29 May 1915, Page 1461.
[15] “A Glimpse Into the Exchange Business,” Moving Picture World, 27 October 1917, Page 573.

By the mid-1910s most studio films were released through their own network of regional exchanges. But not all motion pictures were distributed that way. Some features – often special subjects, independent or “prestige” films – were put on the market through a state rights distribution system. Under this model, the producing company made a certain picture available to buyers who bid on the right to show it in specific states or regions. The winning bidder paid a base fee, then held the exclusive territorial rights for that picture, organizing one or more road companies to take the film into individual theatres. In its simplest iteration, the box office take would be split amongst three parties – part going to the host exhibitor, part to the state rights holder and part to the production company. Under a more complicated arrangement, the purchaser of a state rights film might turn around and sell those rights to another party, or sell the rights for certain areas within the territory while keeping others for himself. Every time the rights changed hands, the accounting got more complicated, and more people took a piece of the box office pie.

When a state rights film went out to bid, it was a decision by the producing company to lock in a chunk of their profits up front through the sale of those rights. While these arrangements also gave the company a share of the eventual box-office, the sale of rights put a financial foundation under the picture to which their back-end percentage only added. For the studio, a picture that did well in theatres could pay handsomely; a picture that underperformed, on the other hand, limited its losses thanks to the sale of rights. The state rights buyer, on the other hand, not only had the burden of making an initial payment but had to organize roadshow companies to exhibit the film as a special attraction, then ensure those engagements paid. If he could not drum up enough bookings, or if the film did poorly with the public, he was going to bear the brunt. For that reason, the state rights holder who sold some or all of his rights to another party was himself putting a foundation under his own investment, locking in a guaranteed base amount before the box-office returns were even tallied. Obviously, state rights distribution was an arrangement where the financial returns got a little smaller (and the risk a little greater) the later an individual came into the process.

State rights distribution was the standard way prizefight films had been distributed for years; most narrative films were shorter and didn’t have the same marquee value (or built-in audience) as a boxing match. Nonetheless, by the early teens there were a growing number of story films marketed in a similar fashion, and a few state rights companies popping up to handle the emerging market. One was the Rainier Valley Feature Film Company in Seattle, which was operating in mid-1911. Rainier was marketing several films at the time, and their business practice was to create separate corporations for each individual picture – for example, for the Italian production Dante’s Inferno they established the Dante’s Inferno Company of the State of Washington. When that film finished its original tour in January 1912, they held a “corporate meeting” in North Yakima where the company took an accounting of gross receipts, declared a dividend and promptly dissolved. This was a formality; Rainier Valley eventually set up a new corporate entity for a second tour of Washington, which would go into the smaller communities they passed over the first time.^[1]

Famously, the success of 1915’s The Birth of a Nation, released on a state rights basis, had a huge impact on film production and distribution. That picture was so big, and so successful, that many state rights holders (not to mention the producing studio) reaped huge windfalls. The profits for Birth were so great, in fact, that other producers began creating their own motion picture epics, attempting to cash in by selling the territorial distribution rights to investors. One of those was the 1915 Thomas Ince film Civilization, where the Washington state rights were sold to the Sutton Feature Film Company, which also purchased the rights for at least nine other states in the western U.S. Organizing under the name The Western Civilization Company, the Sutton forces, based outside the Northwest, set up branch offices in Seattle, San Francisco and Denver to coordinate bookings across the region.^[2]

In the Northwest the De Luxe Feature Film Company, run by Mike Rosenberg, was the most prominent state rights firm, operating from the teens into the late 1920s. De Luxe was essentially an independent exchange, but when it came to state rights features their business model appears to have been twofold. On the one hand they themselves bought the rights for certain films, then took those shows through a network of Northwest venues with which they had business connections. On the other, De Luxe was sometimes hired by state rights holders to organize their roadshows, taking a cut of the profits before the money flowed back to the owner (and then, eventually, the production company). For example, they handled distribution for the 1916 Audrey Munson film Purity, booking the film into theatres across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. For Purity, De Luxe organized three touring shows across four states, then sent salesmen on the road to drum up bookings. One of their representatives, for example, was dispatched from the Seattle office to Montana, where he looked to place not only Purity but some of the firm’s other pictures under management, including The Spoilers, Neptune’s Daughter, Cabiria and The Christian.

For the exhibitor, booking a state rights feature was somewhat of a package deal. The road company usually provided their own advertising and print materials, might coordinate promotion for some or all the engagement, and sometimes even decorated the venue for the occasion. The host theatre, of course, would have helped with all this, but large parts of the publicity campaign and preparations were done by the roadshow organizers. For the exhibitor it was a little like handing over the theatre to someone who did a lot of the heavy lifting, though they gave up a little at the box office for the privilege.^[3] C.R. Coulter, an experienced state rights promoter in the Northwest, felt the experience flipped the usual exhibitor/exchange relationship on its head. Normally the exhibitor worked to sell the exchange’s film, but with state rights features Coulter found the opposite to be true. “By this method the exchange man does everything in his power to bring money to the exhibitor; and the exhibitor does everything in his power to increase the returns of the exchange man.”^[4]

The value of companies like De Luxe was that they were attuned to conditions in the local market. As C.R. Coulter explained, it helped to know which towns had a strong religious element, for example, in case a show had to work around certain areas or its advertising had to be adjusted. In addition, an experienced showman knew not to book shows in Wenatchee or Yakima during harvest season, hitting those areas when the timing was better.^[5] That was a much different approach than the Sutton Feature Film Company used for Civilization, where they opened temporary offices and staffed them with employees who may not have been experts on the territory.

The problem with The Birth of a Nation as a state rights film was the fact that there were no other motion pictures that could match its success. Numerous “big” releases were shoved onto the state rights market, some dubious candidates to play at advanced prices, because a gold rush mentality had developed amongst investors. In addition, the production companies often drove hard bargains. By 1917, according to C.R. Coulter, producers estimated the value of a state rights film based on an area’s population, then charged fees that secured nearly all their profits up front. These fee calculations, Coulter felt, typically reflected the best-case scenario, leaving state rights holders like himself with razor-thin margins. “I for one am thoroughly disgusted with the state right[s] conditions,” said I.A. Rosenthal of Seattle, a competitor of Coulter’s. “I cannot see any money in it. We have always overpaid for [the] territorial picture rights…”^[6] And that was a problem, even for experienced folks such as Coulter and Rosenthal. Thanks to Birth, the scent of big money attracted a host of newcomers to the field, and they (along with the exhibitors who booked their shows) sometimes paid a price for that inexperience.^[7]

State rights distribution became less prevalent after World War I, but a changing landscape in the 1920s brought a derivative form. By the middle of that decade some of the major studios were organizing their own roadshows, giving moviegoers the opportunity to see certain films before they went into general release. Here the studios were banking on the fact that there were movie fans in urban areas willing to pay a premium to see their big releases in advance, allowing the studio to siphon money off the top. (Obviously, this was a development that angered large exhibitors, who normally would have been first in line to show these pictures in any given location.) The first few films shown under this arrangement did well in the Northwest – MGM’s Ben Hur, for example. But the process didn’t work every time. When Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings, his take on the life of Christ, turned up at Seattle’s Metropolitan Theatre in February 1928, it completely bombed. Films like The Passion Play and From the Manger to the Cross demonstrated the value of religious pictures, but The King of Kings was playing at $1.65 per seat; even the faithful had their limits. “[The film] failed to draw the business, with the exception of week-end matinees. The film is scheduled for twelve days here, under Pathé auspices, but it seems to be the same old story of patrons waiting for regular price engagements,” said Motion Picture News. “There seems to be very little interest in [The King of Kings] among regular show-goers.”^[8] That assessment seems to have held up when the picture arrived for its regular engagement, at the Columbia Theatre, about six months later. While there was a line to see The King of Kings on opening day, most of the time it played to small audiences and continued into a second week only because the Columbia was contractually obligated to show it. The same thing almost happened when Wings turned up at the Metropolitan in June 1928, doing only moderate business while charging the same $1.65 ticket price. Only the show’s extensive promotional campaign made the engagement halfway successful; without it, Wings would have fared poorly.^[9] In this case, however, indifferent public reaction to the roadshow wasn’t a reflection on the film itself. When Wings came back to Seattle five months later and played a general run at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, it far outpaced every other movie in town that week.^[10]

Despite a changing field in the 1920s, survivors like the DeLuxe Feature Film Company (which was eventually sold to Western Film Corporation in 1927) managed to adjust their business strategies to remain profitable. The company’s heyday was its early years, but their deep connections in the Northwest film market allowed them to stay around much longer than independent operators like C.R. Coulter or I.A. Rosenthal, or the fly-by-night investors who got in over their heads.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] See Louis L. Goldsmith, “Seattle, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 27 January 1912, Page 322; and Louis L. Goldsmith, “Seattle, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 17 February 1912, Page 602.
[2] A.R.M. Sutton, “Northwest News,” Motography, 5 August 1916, Page 338.
[3] See “What Individual Methods Accomplished in the Northwest,” Motion Picture News, 30 December 1916, Page 4216.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] I.A. Rosenthal letter in “Rosenthal Says Programs are too Cheap,” Moving Picture World, 27 April 1918, Page 543.
[7] C.R. Coulter, “Conditions in the Northwest are Deplorable,” Motion Picture News, 10 March 1917, Page 1547.
[8] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 18 February 1928, Page 569.
[9] See “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 9 June 1928, Page 1966; and “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 16 June 1928, Page 2034.
[10] “Seattle,” Motion Picture News, 10 November 1928, Page 1471.

Exchanges tended to dominate the Film Row landscape, but they weren’t the only movie-related businesses in the neighborhood. Exhibitors not only required new pictures, but also a variety of supplies to equip their houses. On the most basic level, film supply companies provided the hardware for doing business: projectors, tools and associated parts, as well as the expertise to handle optical or mechanical issues. William Harbeck, a pioneer cameraman in the Northwest, operated a small film supply store on James Street in 1903 that not only specialized in equipment and parts, but sold second-hand film prints and trained potential operators. His was a small business – at the time, he was catering to the city’s family-style vaudeville houses – but it was nonetheless an important local resource. Parts and equipment could be sourced out of San Francisco, of course, but that involved time and money. A local shop like Harbeck’s was invaluable to have, especially in a pinch.

William Harbeck’s store was a niche business in 1903, but less than four years later, as the nickelodeon boom came to the Northwest, newer and larger supply houses sprouted up to meet day-to-day operational needs. One of these companies was the Northwestern Amusement Supply Company, owned by former exchange man William Bell, who got his start in Chicago before relocating to Spokane. In 1910 Northwestern was the new breed of supply company, positioning itself as one-stop shopping for the region’s movie theatres. This included the sale of projector equipment, tools and replacement parts, an in-house repair department and access to general equipment like chairs and screens. Like Harbeck, Bell offered training for prospective operators, but also offered a program that brought pictures into churches or public meeting halls for special gatherings, as well as a placement service for projectionists and illustrated singers. Bell even claimed to have experience brokering theatre sales.^[1]

By 1912 Seattle also had a branch of the Northwestern Amusement Supply Company, while the Film Supply Company out of Portland opened an office there as well.^[2] The H.A. Johnson Seating Company was a key supplier for film and stage theatres, but eventually dropped “seating” part of their name and diversified into other kinds of theatre-related installations. In the spring of 1919, for example, the company sold a few Powers 6-A projectors to theatres in Seattle and Aberdeen, helped upgrade the projection booth at the Victory Theatre at Camp Lewis and sold 2,000 seats to the Mercy Amusement Company in Yakima.^[3] Other businesses serving Northwest picture theatres included the G.A. Metcalfe Company, which specialized in projection equipment, sales and repair, and eventually had offices in Seattle, San Francisco and Phoenix. The Seattle Stage Lighting Company installed lighting schemes for both film and legitimate theatres while Ray Kelsall, a former employee at H.A. Johnson, broke away in 1920 to form his own outfit, the Theatre Equipment Company.

Like its film exchanges, Seattle’s various supply companies had a regional reach. It wasn’t uncommon for a local supply house to provide equipment or furnishings to venues in Oregon, Idaho, Montana or even Alaska, often going head-to-head with similar businesses based in other locales. (Though not Canada. The international border seems to have been a hard stop for both exchanges and supply houses alike – U.S. firms served U.S. clients, and Canadian firms served Canadian clients.) For the most part these supply companies provided the necessary materials to equip and operate a modern movie theatre, but they were also showrooms for the latest technologies and sometimes employed creative marketing to land prospective buyers. When the Theatre Supply Company got their first shipment of 1918 De Luxe Motiograph projectors, for example, they set one up in the window of their store along Seattle’s original Film Row. But that, by itself, wouldn’t get the kind of traffic they wanted, so they came up with a secondary plan. In this case they went to a printing company and ordered a set of engraved invitations, like those for a wedding, and sent them to exhibitors throughout Washington with a recommendation that they come by the office for a personal demonstration.^[4]

Not all new technologies revolutionized movie exhibition. In 1917 J.W. Huber, manager of John Danz’s Colonial Theatre in Seattle, installed what he considered to be a forward-thinking, labor-saving device, which he obtained through the Theatre Supply Company. Called the “Vogelson Pay As You Enter System,” this was a coin-operated machine placed in front of a theatre entrance, whereby the patron could pay their way directly into the venue and bypass both the ticket booth and doorman. It’s not clear how long this device lasted but, to be sure, it didn’t last – not at the Colonial and not at the Little T Theatre, where one was also installed. This contraption was so finicky that there was almost always a backup of patrons waiting to do battle with it. Additionally, although designed to be self-sufficient, the Vogelson unit required exact change, which many patrons didn’t have, so a separate Colonial employee had to sit on a nearby stool dispensing coins and instructing the clueless on how to operate the machine.^[5] Thanks to the Vogelson system, cashiers and doormen throughout Seattle slept peacefully knowing that their jobs were entirely safe.

When it came to the Northwest supply business, there was no bigger name than Ben F. Shearer. Shearer hailed from Illinois but spent much of his youth in Montana; he first came to the Northwest during World War I, while attending Officer’s Training School at Camp Lewis near Tacoma.^[6] He eventually returned to Billings, where he started working for Western Theatre Equipment, then came back to the Northwest in 1919 when Western opened a branch office in Seattle. Shearer was young and personable – and very ambitious. By 1920 his Western office bought out the Seattle Stage Lighting Company, as well as Service Film & Supply Co. in Portland. Apparently Western Theatre didn’t know what they had, because eventually Shearer managed to commandeer the Seattle office for himself. Within a few years that location changed its name to the B.F. Shearer Company, and went on to become the Northwest’s largest and best-known theatre supply company, operating well into the 1960s.

Not that there weren’t speedbumps. As with other parts of the movie business, the 1920s was marked by industry consolidation. This hit the supply business in 1926 with a $5 million dollar merger that brought together some 35 supply companies around the country under a new entity known as the National Theatre Supply Company.^[7] Along Seattle’s Film Row the move swept up Shearer and a rival, Theatre Supply Company, under the same banner. Shearer became manager of the company’s Northwest territory, helping kick off a new deferred payment plan that allowed theatre owners to upgrade their venues immediately, on credit, rather than fall behind the times. “Out-of-date and badly worn equipment is a serious drain on your box office intake,” trumpeted one of National’s ads. “…[New e]quipment that will not only increase the efficiency of your service and the prestige of your house, but will actually pay back its original cost while you use it.”^[8] National had a deep well of resources, and Shearer managed local operations that included workshops specializing in custom draperies and upholstery, fabricated light fixtures and a showroom that featured the latest Heywood-Wakefield theatre seating. All of this was in addition to service offerings around interior design, equipment and lighting.

Shearer remained with National Theatre Supply Company for just over a year before leaving to form his own company again, taking the entire West Coast Heywood-Wakefield business with him. This new iteration of the B.F. Shearer Company spent six months in temporary quarters while new offices were built on Seattle’s second Film Row, in the Belltown neighborhood. This new building was at 2318 Second Avenue and occupied three whole floors, including a series of showrooms that replicated the interior of a modern theatre and allowed buyers to see the latest décor features in an authentic setting. The Heywood-Wakefield chairs aside, many of these items were made in-house; the entire second floor of the building was given over to the production of drapes and curtains, while the cabinet and upholstery shops were located in the basement. The main floor included the showrooms, business offices and, out back, shipping and receiving.^[9]

In short order the B.F. Shearer Company once again became the preeminent supply house in the Northwest. When John Hamrick opened his Music Box Theatre in 1928, for example, he tapped Shearer to outfit the entire venue, top to bottom, since the company had the capability to handle every detail. This included the auditorium seating, projection booth and stage equipment, drapery, carpeting, furniture and wall hangings.^[10] Not even the Depression could stop Ben Shearer. By the late 1930s he was able to expand outside the Northwest market, operating branch offices in Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.^[11]

The film supply business changed substantially over the years, but the B.F. Shearer Company remained an active player in the local field. When the Seattle Opera House was built for the Century 21 World’s Fair in 1962, Shearer won the contract to provide seating. The following year the company did work on the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Seattle, but by that time they had also diversified into theatre ownership, having a total of 11 suburban venues under their belt (including the Varsity in the University District and the Green Lake Theatre). B.F. Shearer continued working in the business until his retirement, in 1968. He passed away in 1972.^[12]

The film exchanges and supply firms populating Seattle’s Film Row(s) powered the Northwest movie business from behind the scenes. Movie fans would have remembered the silent era’s popular theatres – places like the Coliseum, Liberty, Blue Mouse or Fifth Avenue in Seattle – and perhaps the managers who owned and operated those venues. But none of them could have functioned without the infrastructure provided by these associated businesses. To an audience, going to the movies was about sitting in their preferred theatre, watching a screen story unfold before them. But it took a variety of other companies to build and maintain that space, all of them working in unison to create the collective movie experience.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] “A New Spokane Industry,” The Nickelodeon, July 1910, Page 40.
[2] Edward N. Weinbaum, “Oregon,” Moving Picture World, 28 December 1912, Page 1312.
[3] “Supply Business Booms in Northwest, Moving Picture World, 31 May 1919, Page 1370.
[4] S.J. Anderson, “New De Luxe Motiographs on View,” Moving Picture World, 2 March 1918, Page 1265.
[5] See S.J. Anderson, “J.W. Huber Will Manage the Colonial,” Moving Picture World, 27 October 1917, Page 570; and S.J. Anderson, “Seattle Supply House Selling New Box Office Equipment,” Moving Picture World, 24 November 1917, Page 1221.
[6] Peter Blecha, “Seattle’s Film Row and its Renezvous Café and Jewel Box Theater,” HistoryLink (https://www.historylink.org/File/20456), accessed 26 June 2022.
[7] “$5,000,000 Equipment Merger Set; Affects 35 Dealers,” Motion Picture News, 25 September 1926, Page 1163.
[8] See National Theatre Supply Co. advertisement, Motion Picture Record, 8 January 1927 (Vol. 4, No. 2), Page 14.
[9] “Less Than a Year Old, Shearer Company Shows Remarkable Progress as its Home is Moved to Fine, New Building,” Motion Picture Record, 23 June 1928 (Vol. 5, No. 25), Page 4.
[10] “Hamrick Awards Shearer Complete Job on New Music Box Theatre,” Motion Picture Record, 9 June 1928 (Vol. 5, No. 23), Page 23.
[11] Blecha, accessed 26 June 2022.
[12] Ibid.