The Electric Theatre: first motion picture theater

Intolerance, 1916

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On April 2, 1902, the first motion picture theater announced its entrance into the world. The Electric Theatre, 262 South Main Street, Los Angeles, told the citizens of that city, which later was to become the motion picture capital of the world, that for the price of ten cents it would be glad to provide an hour's amusement in "a vaudeville of moving pictures" including "Capture of the Biddle Brothers" and "New York in a Blizzard." Business was so good on the opening night that matinées started the next day. In less than twenty-five years, there were to be more than 20,000 motion picture theatres in this country.

"The Electric" was the project of Thomas L. Tally of Los Angeles, the showman who many and many a year later was to figure again in screen history as one of the founders of First National Exhibitor's Circuit, now the world famous First National Pictures, Inc.

There were other tentative beginnings of a screen theater. So far, the career of the motion picture had been as a component of the bills of the variety theaters which were becoming more elegantly "vaudeville." One of the earlier theaters was opened in 1903 in Newcastle, Pa., by the Warner Brothers, due subsequently to figure conspicuously in the motion picture story.

Meanwhile the peep show motion picture continued to flourish in the penny arcades, of the sort that linger still in the congested regions of the greater cities. These arcades, trivial as they seemed, were to prove mighty agencies of the future, drawing to the picture a personnel that was one day Photos by C. P. Cushing, from Ewing Galloway Two studio scenes in the early days of motion pictures.

Thanksgiving week in 1905, Harry Davis, then a real estate operator in Pittsburgh, decided to put a movie projector, a piano and some film into a vacant storeroom, along with ninety-nine seats, and see what he could do as a showman, with a five-cent admission. The show was The Great Train Robbery. The experiment was a world-shaking success. The admissions poured through as fast as the one-reel show could be ground out. The East caught fire with the idea and five-cent motion picture theaters swept the country. Every week saw hundreds of new "nickelodeons" opened. By 1907 there were five thousand of them, all new customers for motion pictures, and making for the pictures a new public. Among the newcomers on this wave was Carl Laemmle, now president of Universal Pictures Corporation and a leader in the industry. He opened the White Front Theater on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago's West Side and there employed a bright messenger boy by the name of Sam Katz to play the piano.

The Great Train Robbery was a worldwide sensation

"The Great Train Robbery," in which Mr. Porter built upon his technique in "The Life of an American Fireman," is generally regarded as the screen's first effort to tell a story in pictures. It was made by the Edison studios in 1903. Edison was fathering the evolution of the art from the seed of his peep show pictures.

"The Great Train Robbery" was a worldwide sensation. It gave rise to a great development in making pictures with stories. Showmen took to the road with it in black tents and made converts to the motion picture entertainment all over the world. It was followed by "The Great Bank Robbery," by "Raffles--The Amateur Cracksman," and by "Trapped by Bloodhounds, or a Lynching at Cripple Creek."

"The Great Train Robbery" also, by chance, gave the screen world its first star-- Max Aronson, known presently as G. M. Anderson and later as Broncho Billy. From his day on, the star has been in the ascendant. The motion picture public demands its favorites and whatever can be said for or against the system, the public, as final arbiter, decides the issue.

Cinema: Industry's Early Days

Meanwhile a secret race to the screen was taking place. Probably the first to project, outside the Edison laboratories, was the late Major Woodville Latham, a hero of the Confederacy, from Virginia, who opened a flickering show at about 140 Broadway in May of 1895. Meanwhile in France, Louis and Auguste Lumière of Lyons, and Robert W. Paul of London achieved the screen, and in Washington, Thomas Armat brought forth a projector commercially shown in Atlanta in September, 1895. All of these machines were based on Edison's peep show Kinetoscope and used his films primarily.

Communication was slow then. When the showmen of New York began to demand a screen machine, the Edison agents, Raff & Gammon of New York, investigated Armat's invention, named it the Vitascope, and made a deal at West Orange to have it manufactured and offered as an Edison device--because the market looked to Edison, who was indeed the father of the motion picture.

The first showing was announced for April 20, 1896. The Vitascope was to be the last act on the variety, or vaudeville, program at Koster & Bial's Music Hall at Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street, New York. Delays, however, were to postpone the opening until the evening of April 23rd. The latter date is, therefore, recorded as the real birthday of the motion picture as a form of public entertainment.

It is a fine evening and the house is packed. Silk hats and evening clothes are plentiful. Some of the bloods of the town are here. Thomas Armat is at the projection machine. Thomas Edison sits quietly in a box, acclaimed by the crowd as he was to be acclaimed thirty years later when he modestly visited the opening the great Paramount Theatre, ten blocks north of Koster & Bial's, but now, as on that later occasion, he is silent.

At last the pictures are thrown upon a twenty-foot screen which has been set in a gilded frame. There is the finale of Hoyt Milk White Flag, a dash of a prize fight, Annabelle Moore--the dancer--waves rolling in on Manhattan Beach. Marvelous! gasps the audience. Bravo! shouts the gallery boys. As the waves roll in, the first-night audience --at least those in the front rows--jump from their seats and move back through the aisles to avoid being deluged, thus paying involuntary tribute to the reality of motion pictures. Sheepishly they return to their seats to applaud.

Praise! Words of congratulations! Excitement! Newspaper comment! Everybody is speaking of the Vitascope.

The moving picture had arrived. It was now a form of public amusement. Empty stores, holes in the wall, were soon to become alive with moving pictures. A good working machine was put on the market. The public was interested and intrigued. Traveling Vitascope showings aroused the country to eager interest in the new invention. Men, women, and children flocked to see pictures that moved. It was thrilling, exciting--something new under the sun. Farmers left their plows, farm wives their chores, to see Edison's new wonder. An interest was aroused that was to spread to the smallest hamlet, encircle the globe, enlist more people than any other instrument of entertainment the world ever knew.

And with the increased interest came a demand for more films. From far and wide came the call. People would gladly pay to see moving pictures, but they soon tired of seeing the same pictures over and over again. Novelty in pictures was needed. The first picture makers had been able to induce some of the Broadway stars and some of the athletic heroes of the country, notably the prize fighters, to appear before the camera.

Female Star of Tomorrow: Abigail Breslin

Her fave food is pizza. She loves to shop at Abercrombie's. Her favorite book is "Anne of Green Gables." She is pretty good with a vacuum. And she "hates, hates, hates" math.

Breslin, 11, is so adorable that even the sea lions on her latest film, "Nim's Island," fell for her. "The sea lions come up to you and give you kisses," she reveals. "They smell like fish."

The animal-lover in Breslin, however, really prefers the big critters. "I collect elephants," she says. "Stuffed animals -- everything. My grandma gave me this ark that has elephants on it. It's hanging in my bedroom. I like to write poems about pets and stuff like that. And, at the moment, I'm making sock monkeys. I use different color buttons for the eyes. It looks good."

And the big news is Breslin's most recent acquisition. "I got a kitten," she says. "His name is Blou Reed and he's a blue Siberian." But she doesn't take her kitten to work. "People are always coming in and out of the trailer. I don't want him to run away," she explains.

Animals aside, what Breslin enjoys most about making movies is fairly typical for a girl her age.

"In 'Nim's Island,' I got to wear a lot a clothes," the star says. And she dons a blond wig in the upcoming "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl."

So, what did she think about her blond locks? "I looked very different," Breslin says. "Some people didn't recognize me -- like my Uncle Kevin, who said, 'Who's that girl?' And my mother said, 'That's Abby.'"

Clothes and unusual hair color also figure big into her most-admired list. "I like Margaret O'Brien and Meryl Streep," Breslin says. "I liked 'The Devil Wears Prada.' She gets very angry in the movie but she doesn't yell. And I loved all the clothes."

Brand new Abigail Breslin movie: Nim's Island

Nim's Island

Anything can happen on NIM’S ISLAND, a place where imagination runs wild and adventure rules. Here, a feisty young girl named Nim (ABIGAIL BRESLIN), surrounded by her exotic animal friends and inspired by legends and books, leads an amazing tropical existence that mirrors that of her favorite literary hero: Alex Rover, the world’s greatest adventurer. When her island is threatened she reaches out to her hero for help.

But what Nim doesn’t know is that the acclaimed author of the Rover books is, in fact, Alexandra Rover (JODIE FOSTER), a retiring, fainthearted recluse locked away in a big city apartment. Now, as Alexandra nervously ventures forth into the world and Nim faces the biggest challenge of her exciting young life, they must both draw courage from the fictional gallantry of Alex Rover,and find strength in one another to save Nim’s Island.

An adventure comedy, NIM’S ISLAND is about becoming the hero of your own story -- as a girl who thought she was alone and a grown woman who thought she was scared of the world discover they can be so much more than they ever dreamed. The film features Academy Award® nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) in the spunky title role; Academy Award® winner Jodie Foster in a rare comic turn as Alexandra Rover; and heartthrob Gerard Butler (300, P.S. I Love You) in a dual role as Nim’s real father and valiant fictional idol Alex Rover.

NIM’S ISLAND is directed by husband-and-wife team Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett(Little Manhattan) from their own screenplay written with Paula Mazur and Joseph Kwong, based on the acclaimed novel by Wendy Orr. The producer is Paula Mazur (Corrina, Corrina) and the executive producer is Stephen Jones (Superman Returns).

Nim's Island Full Production Notes