Leaders All — William W. Hodkinson — Meet the Original Extended-Run Exhibitor! (1923) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — William W. Hodkinson

Because sixteen years ago he sensed what was wrong with the motion picture of that day and boldly entered the lists to correct the more glaring faults and with large success; because he was one of the first to seek better pictures, longer runs and advertising of shows; because consistently he has adhered to his initial policies.

Meet the Original Extended-Run Exhibitor!

W. W. Hodkinson made the fight sixteen years ago for improved houses and shows and quickly conquered

Meet the original better pictures, long run and higher admission man — yes, and newspaper advertising advocate, too: William W. Hodkinson. Sixteen years ago Mr. Hodkinson became an exhibitor to prove out an idea, a belief that the motion picture in 1907 was running on the wrong track, one that would lead ii nowhere.

It was in Ogden, Utah, in that year that he looked in on a motion picture show, but decided the interior was too forbidding to justify him also in taking in his companion — forbidding in physical appearance of the store itself and in those who made up the gathering.

Mr. Hodkinson bought the place at a low price. When he took it over school benches and kitchen chairs provided seating capacity for 160 persons. The program was one reel of film and one song, for which five cents was charged, with change of pictures every other day.

The new owner made arrangements for three reels and two songs, so that the performance would last an hour, and increased the admission to ten cents. Also he announced in the local newspapers that the show would run a full week, changing each Monday.

By utilizing space behind the screen the seating capacity was increased to 205. The overhead was increased from $140 to $175 a week, and the house showed a profit almost from the first. Two other places were bought and similar changes made.

In 1909 up-to-date motion picture theatres were erected, each house equipped with two machines motor operated, and the precedent was established that there should be no break in the shift from one picture to another.

In March, 1910, Mr. Hodkinson in an article appearing in the Film Index, the official organ of the General Film Company, made this significant remark:

“Consider Ogden, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, with their 25,000 inhabitants each, and New York City with its millions. A play makes a great success in New York and runs six months or a year. Later it goes to Boise or Ogden and stays one night.

“Biograph, Selig, Essanay, Pathé or some other manufacturer makes a wonderful film, a masterpiece, a work of art. It runs a week in Ogden and it runs one day in New York City.

“Could anything under the sun be more inconsistent? I have stopped trying to figure out why it should be so.”

Another point he registered was that the motion picture cannot die, but it may be killed, and he expressed the view that it would work into the hands of men broad enough to save it. He added that the five-cent shows must go, except in the poor localities.

The foregoing demonstrates the soundness of Mr. Hodkinson’s first impressions of the motion picture.

The head of the W. W. Hodkinson Corporation was born in Kansas, “along with Arthur Kane,” as he explained to a friend not long ago. Until ten years ago he lived the greater part of his life in Colorado, Utah and California.

His first experience m the workaday world was in Pueblo, Col., in the telegraphic department of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.

He had left this service and was in Utah selling text books dealing with engineering and technical subjects when he entered the nickelodeon to which reference was made in the opening.

The educational possibilities immediately appealed to him. There was an element of curiosity in his approach to his new work, a determination to find out whether the business had to be conducted on such a cheap scale. He believed the pictures could be so developed as to afford entertainment for the discriminating.

Almost simultaneously with the taking over of his theatre he secured the distributing agency for the Twentieth Century Optiscope Company, of Chicago, opening one of the first branch offices. Mr. Hodkinson realized the necessity of instituting some more selective process for securing product than obtained in following the conventional lines of that day. In 1907, it may be stated, distribution of film, was largely centered in Chicago.

Within four months Mr. Hodkinson so thoroughly demonstrated the correctness of his belief that better entertainment properly advertised would be approved by the public that he had the local business “sewed up” for his company and he was called to Chicago as the general manager of the new concern.

At the end of 1908 came plans for the formation of the Patents Company. Mr. Hodkinson bought out the Ogden office he had established, which had not prospered after his departure, and arranged to be supplied by General Film product. Also he went into the theatre business on a larger scale.

In 1910 Mr. Hodkinson disposed of his Ogden and Salt Lake interests and went to Los Angeles to take over the business of the concerns that were standing out as competitors to General Film, later going to San Francisco.

From 1911 to 1913 Mr. Hodkinson was engaged in building up the business of General Film west and along uniform lines of his earlier experiments, longer runs, higher admissions, etc.

in 1913 President Frank Dyer of General Film brought Mr. Hodkinson to New York as general manager. Here the “selective” policy proved unpopular among producers who found some of their product on the shelf, Mr. Hodkinson insisting a picture should be worth ten cents admission.

Consequently he went back to the coast, but when he got instructions that would break down the constructive work he had done he decided to form his own exchange.

The Progressive Motion Picture Company was the first concern ever steadily, continuously to offer feature pictures in that territory and perhaps in the world.

Mr. Hodkinson soon found he was dependent for pictures on interests in the east that were not particularly in sympathy with what he was doing. He came to New York to work out plans for obtaining product for his offices, which extended from Seattle to Los Angeles.

As a result the Paramount Pictures Corporation was formed. This organization extended nationally what the Progressive had been doing locally.

The problem of the Progressive and later of Paramount was the construction of a type of service which did not exist for a type of house which did not exist, but there were men on each side who were making strong efforts toward improvement.

The object was to merit support which other producers and other exhibitors who wanted to do worthier things might set up between them a force unbiased enough, disinterested enough, powerful enough to co-operate along fair lines.

Mr. Hodkinson was president of Paramount for two years, throughout its development and establishment, when there were many problems to be solved.

More Patrons Necessary

Following his retirement from Paramount Mr. Hodkinson formed his present organization. It has been built along lines its president deemed essential to the support of the first theatre, he owned, a type of machinery not controlled by the producer.

The head of the Hodkinson company is very keen on the point that maintenance of a proper balance between producer and exhibitor is not an ideal but a necessity without which the industry cannot permanently endure.

In conversation the other day Mr. Hodkinson said that though being a student of conditions he tries to see the picture as a whole. To him there is nothing theoretical in the answer to the question the industry is asking: “What are we going to do?”

His answer is that there is only one thing necessary, and that is producer and exhibitor must mutually support each other in increasing the attendance at the box-office.

The distributor also is a firm believer in the statement that you can’t produce worthwhile pictures wholesale, especially if the mind of the producer is distracted with problems of distribution.

It will be recalled that in the old days it was customary to sell film to exchanges at a flat price, say 10 cents a foot, practically regardless of the quality from the entertainment side of the subject. It may be interesting to note a comment made in 1910 by Mr. Hodkinson when pleading for better pictures:

“When this is done it will force exchanges to place the true valuation on real feature films and not regard each film as just a ‘reel’ as is done at present.

“The present system of distribution prevents either exchange or exhibitor from placing the true value on the unusually good film, which must be discouraging to a manufacturer to see it handled in exactly the same manner as really worthless matter.”

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H. MacGowan Married

The news leaked out in film circles during the past week that Claude H. MacGowen, the other half of the Ernest Shipman organization, was married early this month.

Though one of the executives in the motion picture business, Mr. MacGowan is a veteran of the film industry.

Before he became associated with Mr. Shipman, he was general manager for Universal.

Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 8 December 1923

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other articles from the Leaders All Series

see also W. W. Hodkinson — Who’s Who (1920)