Leaders All — William Edgar Shallenberger, From Medico to Independent Distributor (1923) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — William Edgar Shallenberger

Because from his first entrance into the industry he has backed his faith in the possibilities of the independent market by adhering to that division; because he was one of the first to see the future of the serial form of photoplay entertainment and for eight years has released on an average of one serial every twelvemonth

From Medico to Independent Distributor

Dr. W. E. Shallenberger called temporarily into film ranks likes business so well he stays right on

From many quarters of the world and from many professions come the men who make up the motion picture industry. Not many of these, however, hail from the medical profession. So far as known William Edgar Shallenberger, president of Arrow Film Corporation, is the sole representative of that school among the producers and distributors.

The Arrow chief has been known among his motion picture familiars ever since 1915 as “Doc.” Some of his friends of more recent acquisition have been under the impression more or less vague that there was perhaps something tangible behind the title, that he may have been a druggist or something, but their knowledge of the authenticity of the title ends there.

Actually Dr. Shallenberger was a practicing physician in Chicago for eleven years.

But let’s begin at the beginning, which was in Lancaster, Ohio, to which place the Shallenbergers removed from a town of the same name in Pennsylvania in 1801.

The family in 1803 took over a grant of land from the government. Part of the original property still is in the possession of Dr. Shallenberger and his brother, Wilbur, who between them purchased the farm in recent years.

The Shallenbergers are of Swiss origin. The family has been traced back to the fifteenth century. The name is reminiscent of early battling Swiss, a literal translation being Men of Echo Mountain or Men of Sound Mountain.

If the latter term be the correct one very likely it will point to the conclusion that the doctor’s predilection for thorough exploitation is a matter of heredity rather than of later development.

Young Shallenberger went to school in Lancaster, and at the age of seventeen years entered the institution now known as Valparaiso University, in Indiana.

In the regular academic season he studied medicine and in the summer devoted his time to acquiring a knowledge of pharmacy. At the age of twenty-one he was graduated in both departments.

With dreams of thirty dollars a day as the ultimate, as a peak at which he was sure his ambition for wealth would be fully attained, he went to Chicago and opened an office.

Eleven years later his practice was bringing him in the substantial sum of $35,000 annually. That was in 1914.

In the preceding years together with his brother he had been seeking desirable investments.

Among his friends was Charles J. Hite, one of the coming men in the independent ranks of motion picture producers and distributors. Mr. Hite was raised in Lancaster, on a farm adjoining that of the Shallenbergers.

So the brothers joined issues with Mr. Hite, with the latter having interests in the Thanhouser company of New Rochelle, one of the best independent producing units of its day; the Mutual Film Corporation, the Majestic and Reliance Companies, the New York Motion Picture Corporation, and the American Flying A.

Mr. Hite’s promising career came to a tragic end in August, 1914, when an automobile driven by the Thanhouser president developed steering gear trouble and crashed across the sidewalk on one of the Bronx bridges and through the railing.

Dr. Shallenberger left Chicago temporarily to come to New York to straighten out the affairs of his late associate. As treasurer of the Thanhouser company he took active charge of the affairs of that organization and so continued until the liquidation of the concern in 1915.

In the same year the Arrow Film Corporation was organized as a producing company. The doctor had taken a strong liking to the business into which he had been so tragically brought and had finally decided to retire from the profession on which he had been so successfully launched.

For a year the Arrow company released through the Pathé. Then came the decision to distribute direct to the independent market, in which division of the industry the company has been a prominent factor ever since.

The first subject to be produced was “The Deemster,” an adaptation of the novel by Hall Caine. The story was of the Isle of Man.

Derwent Hall Caine, son of the author, played the leading role, a part which he had portrayed on the stage 800 times. The picture was photographed in a New York studio and at Block Island.

The length of the subject was nine reels, which with very few exceptions was one of the longest made up to that day. As a matter of fact it was a little in advance of its time.

The production was released on a basis of $100,000. Every territory in the United States was sold and practically every foreign country. It was shown in many of the prominent theatres of the Union.

Later Arrow produced Crime and Punishment and a serial entitled Who’s Guilty? with Tom Moore and Anna Q. Nilsson, which were released through Pathé.

Dr. Shallenberger was one of the pioneers in the serial field.

While head of Thanhouser the doctor produced the Million Dollar Mystery, which was physically distributed by Mutual. Thanhouser maintained in the Mutual exchanges a separate sales force of seventy men for the serial.

The subject, which was written by Harold McGrath, and for which by the way the author was paid $10,000, grossed $1,700,000, a figure which it is doubtful ever has been reached by a subsequent serial.

Zudora, another serial, came next. Indications were for another record breaker, the advance bookings reaching over a million. While the subject did not hold up to the mark in appeal as had been expected, nevertheless the comparative “flop” scored a record of $600,000.

In connection with the Chicago Tribune the Thanhouser company had conducted a competition for a serial story, with a prize of $10,000 for the winner. The judges awarded the verdict to Roy McCardell for his story entitled “The Diamond of the Sky.”

The preparatory work had been done by Thanhouser, but the production was taken over by the American company, which made the picture in Santa Barbara.

Mr. McCardell removed to Santa Barbara with his family, and remained in close contact with the producer until the completion of the serial.

The first serial under the Arrow banner was Who’s Guilty? and as has been said, was released by Pathé.

Since Dr. Shallenberger formed the Arrow company there have been released eight serials under its banner. Just to show that interest in this form of entertainment is in no wise flagging it is stated that the bookings on “The Santa Fe Trail” in the New York exchange distributing it have doubled over those of its predecessors.

In the first year of the Arrow’s existence its collections in the independent field totaled $100,000. In recent years the figures for the same division of the industry totaled approximately twenty times that sum.

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 27 October 1923

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