Leaders All — Albert E. Smith — Making Screens Initial Feature — in Miniature (1923) 🇺🇸
Leaders All — Albert E. Smith
Because due to his mechanical bent and his persistence and to the opportunity it fell to him to contribute one of the vital inventions making projection commercially possible; because he has given of his best effort and broad ability to making the motion picture the power it is today; because he was one of the first to see the great possibilities of the American photodrama abroad.
Making Screens Initial Feature — in Miniature
To be sure the subject was only 42 feet long, but it was a real riot, in 1898, and it was Vitagraph first
by George Blaisdell
Here’s a story of perhaps the first feature motion picture. It was not a long production. To be quite truthful, it was exactly forty-two feet in length, requiring less than a minute to project it on the screen.
Not only was it the first feature picture perhaps, but also it was the first one to be taken in miniature.
The period was of the Spanish-American War, the spring of 1898, and the title was “Spanish Flag Torn Down.” The makers were very dubious as to the public’s reception of it, but the dubiety faded as it was thrown on the screen for the first time before a house. At the vaudeville theatres it was a “riot.”
In the making of the picture, Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton, had taken a tiny Spanish flag and mounted it on a tiny staff. Then while Mr. Smith operated the camera Mr. Blackton took hold of the Spanish flag and removed it from the staff. Then the American emblem was placed where the first flag had been.
The effect was unexpected. The size of the hand in comparison with the flags had given a most uncanny aspect to the whole proceeding. Incidentally it was the first Vitagraph production.
The early motion picture experience of Albert E. Smith, president of the Vitagraph Company of America, is rich in incidents of a character not dissimilar to the one just related.
Mr. Smith and Mr. Blackton, for the two names are closely connected over a long series of years, began experimenting with motion pictures in the latter part of 1896.
They commenced operations in the early part of 1897, which as you probably already have estimated, is nearly twenty-seven years ago. That puts them in the pioneer class most securely.
The two men for several years were entertainers on the lyceum stage. Mr. Smith was scheduled to do a host of things — a monologue, impersonation sleight-of-hand, ventriloquism, etc., while Mr. Blackton, the artist, gave chalktalks — in other words, lectures illustrated with lighting like drawings on the blackboard.
The two young men in the course of their association traveled pretty well over the entire eastern half of the United States. When the pictures made their appearance the two bought a machine and films and added the motion picture to their entertainment.
The early machines were very crude affairs, and as Mr. Smith explained the situation in later years it was the devil’s own job to keep the film on the sprockets.
Those whose memory runs back to those days say it simply is impossible to conceive what it meant continually to battle, with twisted, distorted and warped film.
When it jumped off the sprocket it meant shutting down the show until such time as it could be replaced. The people who were beginning to throng to see the novelty were becoming disgusted — their patience was frazzled.
Mr. Smith from his boyhood had been very much interested in anything electrical or mechanical; he always had invested all his pennies in toy tools and electrical apparatus.
So it was when projection troubles came into his life Mr. Smith went to work to remedy the defects. The result was that the two men, operating under the name of Vitagraph, which they themselves had combined from the words meaning life and pictures, quickly established a reputation for ability to put on a motion picture that did not go dark at the proverbially interesting spot.
The result was a demand for their entertainment greater than they personally could supply. In the effort to comply with the requests for the putting on of shows they trained operators and put out film and machines until in a few years, there were seventy-five shows in operation.
It was in 1897 Mr. Smith secured a patent on projection machine that made the motion picture commercially practicable.
This was a film setting device, a mechanical arrangement for resetting the film after it had jumped the sprocket, and it is now used in one form or another on every projecting machine.
The two Vitagraph men had become acquainted with William R. Hearst, who invited them to be his guests on the yacht Buccaneer, being outfitted for a cruise to Cuba following the outbreak of the Spanish War.
They accepted the invitation and with their paraphernalia, which included a motion picture camera weighing about a ton, they sailed for Siboney.
It was a day or two following arrival that the young Vitagraph company fan into a real adventure, at least it was so classified at the time, and the intervening years have served more or less to solidify the impression.
All the indications were that there were “big doings” ashore. Messrs. Smith and Blackton, the former with a heavy still camera and the latter carrying one of the lighter weight, landed from the Buccaneer and strolled up the road.
They came to a point where soldiers were lying in the bushes. Mr. Smith mounted his camera and was getting ready to photograph anything that looked interesting. He was fussing around the camera and was all but “set” when a bullet ploughed through the centre of the machine.
Discovering they had stepped into the field of an argument that later was known as the battle of San Juan Hill the two men took their cameras and returned to the Buccaneer.
The big camera today occupies a post of honor in the Vitagraph eastern studio.
The negotiations for the photographing of the Jeffries–Fitzsimmons fight were satisfactorily concluded.
Back of the securing of the contract, however, there was an incident which some day will deserve a special chapter in the history of the development of the motion picture.
For it marked the first occasion on which motion picture photographs were successfully taken under electric lights.
It was another demonstration of the truth that resides in the old maxim of necessity being the mother of invention— an ancient saw with which the Vitagraph had collided in several preceding emergencies.
As a prerequisite to obtaining the motion picture rights to the Jeffries–Fitzsimmons fight it was necessary to prove that successful pictures of the mill could be taken.
With the aid of Joseph Menshen, a skilled electrician, and on the stage of a theatre under lease by Mr. Brady [William A. Brady] and loaned by him for the test, two boxers provided by the stage producer put on a scrap under the almost overpowering heat generated by fifty arc lamps burning enormous carbons especially made. This was in the winter of 1898–9.
Every one associated with the experiment followed the proceedings with ill-concealed excitement. When the bout was finished the film was removed from the camera to the developing room which had been installed in the theatre.
Careful examination of the film as it emerged from the process revealed splendid photography. Every man in the party breathed easier. They knew the contract was secure.
They knew, too, that they had seen the first successful motion picture photograph to be made under an electric light, but they could not foresee what the years would bring in the development of their experiment nor could they conceive of the millions of dollars that would be expended for “juice” in the making of other pictures.
William F. Rock, known always to his intimates as “Pop,” entered the Vitagraph combination just after the close of the Spanish-American war, bringing to an end a competition that had been sharp. Mr. Rock had purchased a projection machine from the old Vitascope Company and with its state rights for Louisiana, showing pictures in New Orleans.
Also he owned a place on 125th street, New York. He found in the Messrs. Smith and Blackton keen competitors for business, so he called at the office of the latter in 140 Nassau street — the roof of which building later served as a “studio” — to see it if would he possible to effect an exchange of films.
A deal was made whereby Mr. Rock secured the Smith-Blackton war pictures. Then when the New Orleans showman saw the business being done in New York by the partners he decided to come north.
The two men were securing $75 a week for their show from the Harlem Museum, and the new-comer cut the price to $50. Realizing that neither contender would get anywhere under such a system of doing business there was a conference the final outcome of which was the incorporation in 1900 of the Vitagraph Company.
Mr. Rock was considerably the senior in years of three, he became president. Mr. Smith was treasurer and Mr. Blackton secretary. Actually it was a partnership. Mr. Rock died in 1916, although for four years his activities in the management had been declining, and he was succeeded by Mr. Smith.
The company produced its first full-reel picture in 1904, and from that time production expanded rapidly.
In 1905 Charles Urban was given the Vitagraph agency abroad for one year, in 1905, Mr. Smith went over and opened an office in England.
This may be a good place to say that the foreign business of the Vitagraph company has been one of its most important divisions. Prior to the late war the distribution of Vitagraph product for countries other than the United States and Canada was accomplished from headquarters in France. These recently have been re-established.
As indicating the importance of the company’s foreign business it may be stated that at one time the footage of Vitagraph films distributed abroad was more than five times that of the product consumed at home.
It was about 1904 that nickelodeons sprang up all over the country. Before that theatres had rented machines, but the new-comers bought them outright. To supply these customers the Vitagraph continually expanded its facilities.
In 1906 Vitagraph produced the first five-reel subiect. It was The Life of Moses, and as Mr. Smith remarked recently “It was a good picture.”
Exhibitors were not prepared to handle it in the form designed by the producers, with the result that it was shown in one and two reel lengths.
One of the factors contributing to the success of “The Life of Moses” was the speeding up of the camera approximately to the pace maintained at this day.
Prior to that time it had been the custom to make about twelve photographs to the second, which resulted in exaggerated movement on the screen. If an actor “held” a position it was the practice to eliminate the action in the cutting room.
Messrs. Smith and Blackton scored a notable news beat in photographing the inauguration of President Roosevelt in March, 1905.
At the conclusion of the ceremony at the Capitol, when all of their film had been used, Mr. Blackton took a still camera to get a few final shots of the President, and Mr. Smith with the aid of a boy got his camera into a cab and the two men started for the station.
There a great crowd prevented their getting into the waiting room. They went around to the tracks, knocked on the door of a Pullman car and were admitted. The train began to move. A conductor punched their tickets for New York. Later another conductor came through and “properly bawled them out” for riding on a special train on an excursion ticket.
It may be said that was before the era of Pullmans for the Vitagraph. The argument came to naught, and the passengers were not molested. When the two became hungry they searched for the dining car and found they were the only ones on the train.
By some twist in orders that train had been ordered to New York without stopping, and the two men landed their pictures of the inauguration, still as well as motion, in the metropolis away ahead of any of their competitors.
The development of the Vitagraph stock company began about 1907, an organization that was destined to be the greatest aggregation of dramatic talent ever under one roof, stage or screen. It reached its height between 1910 and 1912.
When the Patents Company was formed the patents secured by the Vitagraph company, the first dating from 1897, were taken over. It had been these devices which had put the company so thoroughly on the map in the beginning of the industry, devices which as we have said made the projection of pictures commercially possible.
Mr. Smith has been a hard worker, velopment of the company’s business. He had been blessed with a sturdy constitution and always had taken good care of his health — aside from his pilespecially in the days of the rapid deing work. Until he was well past thirty years of age he was a total abstainer in the use of tobacco and liquor. He now admits the consumption of two cigars a day — one in the afternoon and one in the evening. And he emphatically denies that he is a prohibitionist.
“There was a time when Blackton and I did ten men’s work,” Mr. Smith said recently. “It was not an urusual thing for me to take home a pile of scripts, go to bed and read until 8 o’clock in the morning. Then I would rest until 8:30, get under a shower and prepare for another day at the studio.”
—
—
—
Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 15 December 1923
—
other articles from the Leaders All Series
—