Leaders All — John B. Rock, a Chip Off the Old Block (1924) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — John B. Rock

Because the enthusiasm with which as a boy he started in the business has never waned; because he has wide experience in the physical handling of film, not only in the exchange but in the theatre and in the projection booth as well; because in the few years that he has been actively out of the industry he has demonstrated his ability to administer with success large affairs of a nature entirely different from that of the film business.

It was as a boy sixteen years old that John B. Rock made his entry into the film business. The young son of the president [William T. Rock] of the newly organized Vitagraph company — we are now back in 1899 — asked no odds on account of the relationship. He went out to pick up the ropes as a rank outsider would be forced to do, not expecting to sit in at the officers’ mess until qualified by experience.

The company maintained quarters in the Morse Building in Nassau street, New York, at that time and was producing pictures — very short ones, to be sure. Among these were “His First Cigar,” pretty nearly fifty feet in length; another was “The Magician.”

A third subject was “The Hotel Windsor Fire,” which had been made in miniature, perhaps the first attempt of this kind. It was during the photographing of this subject that what was intended to be a small explosion proved to be a large one. J. Stuart Blackton, who with Albert E. Smith, the present president of Vitagraph, was staging the “production,” was badly burned as a result. But the picture was shown at Tony Pastor’s on the evening of the same day.

The Vitagraph Company had a contract with Bostock’s Circus to show pictures in a black top. When the members of the old Vitagraph triumvirate, Messrs. Rock, Smith and Blackton, arrived on the ground it was learned the operator had not put in an appearance.

Young Rock, who was in the party, volunteered to pinch hit. His father was more than skeptical, not knowing the youngster had accumulated quite a bit of experience by accompanying J. B. French at showings m churches and at banquets.

A try-out demonstrated that the lad could fill the bill, and he was duly installed as operator. As a result he accompanied the circus to Richmond, Va. There among other pictures he projected was “A Bullfight in Spain,” several hundred feet in length. Young Rock continued with the show until it finished its tour in Newark, N. J.

Mr. Rock began work with the Vitagraph company as office boy at the Morse Building headquarters, passing through all departments. Among these were the developing and printing room — and “room” is right, in speaking of those days.

Then the young man went on the road, playing Vitagraph pictures at a vaudeville theatre in Waterbury, Conn., followed by a stay in New Bedford, Mass. He was two years in the Music Hall in Boston and for three seasons in Atlantic City.

In 1906 the company determined to open a general office in Chicago, and the young man was called to New York and told he had been appointed sales manager, with a territory extending from a point a goodly distance east of Chicago right through to the west coast.

It was October 13, 1906, when he took charge of the office. He was not superstitious as to the date. Just at that time a Cohan play was making much of the figures “23.” Mr. Rock noted with interest his telephone number in his new quarters was 5238, the outside figures of which represented 13, leaving 23 as a remainder. When this was called to his attention he laughed, but said he would take the chance.

The young Vitagraph executive sold the first bill of goods to Carl Laemmle following the purchase by the future Universal chief of the White House Theatre in Halsey street, in Chicago. At their first meeting Mr. Laemmle had complained of his inability to secure a product in Chicago from the so-called exchanges.

Mr. Rock fixed him up, among the product which Mr. Laemmle bought outright being Automobile Thieves, a Vitagraph product. Also it was one of the first sales Mr. Rock made.

Other customers in those days were Robert Lieber, now president of Associated First National, who was buying for the exchange of H. Lieber & Co. of Indianapolis, and John Freuler and Harry E. Aitken of Milwaukee.

It was with a representative of the Pathé company that Mr. Rock visited the last two named to interest them in the purchase of film. Both after became prominent in the film industry, especially in the days of the Mutual Film Corporation. Mr. Aitken is now as active as ever, with Tri-State Pictures.

Eugene Cline in Chicago made one purchase that in those days was considered large, a bill of $30,000. And there are exchange men who today would consider it sizable if they were making the purchase.

Mr. Rock was an active part of the development of the Vitagraph company and of the General Film Company.

After the formation of the Vitagraph-Lubin-Selig-Essanay in 1914 he moved to the new offices as manufacturer’s agent.

In 1915 A Million Bid was put on by the Vitagraph at the Criterion Theatre, then known as the Vitagraph. and made a hit. Mr. Rock was called to New York and given instructions to make a tour of the company’s exchanges and give advance showings.

In each territory exhibitors were invited to the exchange to witness a trade showing. Representatives of the newspapers also were invited. The tour was successful in every way. By the time Mr. Rock was back in New York several other manufacturers had men on the road on similar errands. The “innovation” had caught on.

Mr. Rock retired from active connection with the company upon the death of his father, in 1916. He has, however, kept in close touch with Vitagraph activities by reason of his membership on the board of directors and attendance at meetings.

Between 1916 and February 15 last, when he assumed the office of general manager of the company, succeeding the late John M. Quinn, Mr. Rock has devoted the major part of his time to taking care of the estate of his father.

When Mr. Rock took charge there was a large amount of unimproved property in the inventory. Sensing the shift in the market due to approaching hostilities Mr. Rock changed the property to improved apartment houses, with the result that the large fortune left by William T. Rock has been substantially enhanced.

The new general manager has received many messages of congratulations following his return to the company. There was another from Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors, to Mr. Smith.

“Mr. Rock, I know, stands for real betterment, not only in pictures from an artistic standpoint,” said Mr. Hays, “but for more sound and solid business relations among all branches.”

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 8 March 1924

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