Leaders All — William E. Atkinson, Motion Picture Executive (1924) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — William E. Atkinson, Motion Picture Executive

Because of his stability and of the steadfast loyalty with which he adheres to the organization he serves; because of his thorough grounding in the business he conducts and in the principles of the industry of which he is a most efficient part.

One of the characteristics of William E. Atkinson, vice president and general manager of Metro Pictures Corporation, is his avoidance of what has come to be commonly known as personal publicity. This disinclination to talk for publication is not due to any absence of constructive ideas or of decided views as to what should be done in a given trade emergency.

Rather is it inspired by the conviction that the industry as a whole is so well equipped in silver-tongued spokesmen, in men who are able to tackle a controversy without removing any or at least much of the hide of sensitive readers, that he is content to leave the role of trade publicists to those whom he believes better qualified in the arts and practices of diplomacy.

That the foregoing is a fair recital of some of Mr. Atkinson’s convictions will be quickly acknowledged by those who best know the Metro executive. It is just another one of those cases where one senses a thing without it being definitely expressed.

Mr. Atkinson was born in England. His first position was as librarian in Lancashire. Here in spite of his duties he applied himself to text books dealing with engineering. Later he pursued the study in a technical school.

At the age of seventeen years he entered the British Army and with it went to South Africa for the Boer campaign. It was two years later when he arrived back in England.

After a year teaching school he decided to try his fortunes in the United States. He settled in Boston, where he took up the profession of electrical engineering.

Eventually he opened an office in Boston for the distribution of general electrical supplies. Then he accepted the position of business manager of the Pittsfield Electric Light and Power Company.

Here Mr. Atkinson remained four years.

It was an offer to join the Kinemacolor company that induced him to leave Western Massachusetts. That was in 1910.

Those who were interested in motion pictures in those days will recall the intense interest displayed by the trade and the public in the novel pictures in color produced by this company.

The concern enjoyed unusual success while it adhered to the policy of exhibiting pictures of great world events, occurrences now covered by the weeklies, but which then were not in existence; still life, flowers, scenics, etc.

One of the first of these subjects which aroused great interest was the portrayal of the Indian Durbar, which showed the Oriental ceremonial in all its remarkable color.

Mr. Atkinson was one of the first employees of the company and also he was one of the last.

It was in the closing days of the Kinemacolor, at which time Mr. Atkinson was general manager of the western division, that he met Richard A. Rowland, president of Metro Pictures Corporation.

This acquaintance resulted in Mr. Atkinson joining Metro in May, 1915, two months after the formation of the company. The Metro executive, it will be noted, has been affiliated with but two motion picture companies, and those connections cover a period of fourteen years.

The Metro company was an outgrowth of the Alco Company. When the latter organization ceased to do business one of the chief franchise holders was Rowland & Clark of Pittsburgh, whose jurisdiction extended as far west as Kansas City.

In conjunction with other franchise owners the Pittsburgh exchangemen organized Metro and elected Mr. Rowland president.

Mr. Atkinson’s first work with Metro was as a special representative. Much of his initial work was done in the South.

In the summer of the first year Mr. Rowland called Mr. Atkinson to New York as business manager. Then following the acquisition of exchanges by the company the latter was made general manager of distribution.

It was in the early part of 1919 that Metro took over the producing companies and Mr. Atkinson was made general manager of this corporation, which position he holds today. He became a vice president of the company in 1921.

Among Mr. Atkinson’s friends it is not unusual to refer to the Metro executive as “hidebound” to his company, to recognize the fact that he is tied to it by bonds of early and long and pleasant association.

He has followed its fortunes from the days when it was a small organization, with but four producing companies and battling with the fates to get out its weekly releases on time.

In fact, that early period is one of Mr. Atkinson’s best reminiscences, when there were to be overcome obstacles that made the later ones seem tame by comparison.

The days began at 8:30, and there was enough of the usual routine to carry the hours past those usually allotted to dinner. Then at 9 o’clock or later would begin the finishing work on the next week’s release.

It is interesting to note that in spite of the handicaps surrounding a new organization the company never missed a release, and the weekly supply continued without interruption up to the day when the reduced schedule of “bigger and better” went into effect.

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 9 February 1924

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