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Authors: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
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the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris.
Fairly rapidly, cinema exhibition was integrated into pre-existing venues of 'popular
culture' and 'refined culture', although the establishment of venues specifically for the
exhibition of films did not come until 1905 in the United States and a little later
elsewhere. In the United States, films were shown in the popular vaudeville houses,
which by the turn of the century catered to a reasonably well-to-do audience willing to
pay 25 cents for an afternoon or evening's entertainment. Travelling showmen, who
lectured on educational topics, toured with their own projectors and showed films in local
churches and operahouses, charging audiences in large metropolitan areas the same $2
that it cost to see a Broadway show. Cheaper and more popular venues included tent
shows, set up at fairs and carnivals, and temporarily rented store-fronts, the forerunners of
the famous nickelodeons. Early film audiences in the United States, therefore, tended to
be quite heterogeneous, and dominated by no one class.
Early exhibition in Britain, as in most European countries, followed a similar pattern to
the United States, with primary exhibition venues being fairgrounds, music halls, and
disused shops. Travelling showmen played a crucial role in establishing the popularity of
the new medium, making films an important attraction at fairgrounds. Given that fairs and
music halls attracted primarily working-class patrons, early film audiences in Britain, as
well as on the Continent, had a more homogeneous class base than in the United States.
An early travelling cinema: Green's Cinematograph Show, Glasgow, 1898
Wherever films were shown, and whoever saw them, the exhibitor during this period
often had as much control over the films' meanings as did the producers themselves. Until
the advent of multi-shot films and intertitles, around 1903-4, the producers supplied the
individual units but the exhibitor put together the programme, and single-shot films
permitted decision-making about the projection order and the inclusion of other material
such as lantern slide images and title cards. Some machines facilitated this process by
combining moving picture projection with a stereopticon, or lantern slide projector,
allowing the exhibitor to make a smooth transition between film and slides. In New York
City, the Eden Musée put together a special show on the Spanish-American War, using
lantern slides and twenty or more films from different producers. While still primarily an
exhibitor, Cecil Hepworth suggested interspersing lantern slides with films and 'stringing
the pictures together into little sets or episodes' with commentary linking the material
together. When improvements in the projector permitted showing films that lasted more
than fifty seconds, exhibitors began splicing twelve or more films together to form
programmes on particular subjects. Not only could exhibitors manipulate the visual
aspects of their programmes, they also added sound of various kinds, for, contrary to
popular opinion, the silent cinema was never silent. At the very least, music, from the full
orchestra to solo piano, accompanied all films shown in the vaudeville houses. Travelling
exhibitors lectured over the films and lantern slides they projected, the spoken word
capable of imposing a very different meaning on the image from the one that the producer
may have intended. Many exhibitors even added sound effects -- horses' hooves, revolver
shots, and so forth-and spoken dialogue delivered by actors standing behind the screen.
By the end of its first decade of existence, the cinema had established itself as an
interesting novelty, one distraction among many in the increasingly frenetic pace of
twentieth-century life. Yet the fledgeling medium was still very much dependent upon
pre-existing media for its formal conventions and story-telling devices, upon somewhat
outmoded individually-driven
Fairly rapidly, cinema exhibition was integrated into pre-existing venues of 'popular
culture' and 'refined culture', although the establishment of venues specifically for the
exhibition of films did not come until 1905 in the United States and a little later
elsewhere. In the United States, films were shown in the popular vaudeville houses,
which by the turn of the century catered to a reasonably well-to-do audience willing to
pay 25 cents for an afternoon or evening's entertainment. Travelling showmen, who
lectured on educational topics, toured with their own projectors and showed films in local
churches and operahouses, charging audiences in large metropolitan areas the same $2
that it cost to see a Broadway show. Cheaper and more popular venues included tent
shows, set up at fairs and carnivals, and temporarily rented store-fronts, the forerunners of
the famous nickelodeons. Early film audiences in the United States, therefore, tended to
be quite heterogeneous, and dominated by no one class.
Early exhibition in Britain, as in most European countries, followed a similar pattern to
the United States, with primary exhibition venues being fairgrounds, music halls, and
disused shops. Travelling showmen played a crucial role in establishing the popularity of
the new medium, making films an important attraction at fairgrounds. Given that fairs and
music halls attracted primarily working-class patrons, early film audiences in Britain, as
well as on the Continent, had a more homogeneous class base than in the United States.
An early travelling cinema: Green's Cinematograph Show, Glasgow, 1898
Wherever films were shown, and whoever saw them, the exhibitor during this period
often had as much control over the films' meanings as did the producers themselves. Until
the advent of multi-shot films and intertitles, around 1903-4, the producers supplied the
individual units but the exhibitor put together the programme, and single-shot films
permitted decision-making about the projection order and the inclusion of other material
such as lantern slide images and title cards. Some machines facilitated this process by
combining moving picture projection with a stereopticon, or lantern slide projector,
allowing the exhibitor to make a smooth transition between film and slides. In New York
City, the Eden Musée put together a special show on the Spanish-American War, using
lantern slides and twenty or more films from different producers. While still primarily an
exhibitor, Cecil Hepworth suggested interspersing lantern slides with films and 'stringing
the pictures together into little sets or episodes' with commentary linking the material
together. When improvements in the projector permitted showing films that lasted more
than fifty seconds, exhibitors began splicing twelve or more films together to form
programmes on particular subjects. Not only could exhibitors manipulate the visual
aspects of their programmes, they also added sound of various kinds, for, contrary to
popular opinion, the silent cinema was never silent. At the very least, music, from the full
orchestra to solo piano, accompanied all films shown in the vaudeville houses. Travelling
exhibitors lectured over the films and lantern slides they projected, the spoken word
capable of imposing a very different meaning on the image from the one that the producer
may have intended. Many exhibitors even added sound effects -- horses' hooves, revolver
shots, and so forth-and spoken dialogue delivered by actors standing behind the screen.
By the end of its first decade of existence, the cinema had established itself as an
interesting novelty, one distraction among many in the increasingly frenetic pace of
twentieth-century life. Yet the fledgeling medium was still very much dependent upon
pre-existing media for its formal conventions and story-telling devices, upon somewhat
outmoded individually-driven
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