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Travelling Showmen and the Commissioning of Local Films in Great Britain, 1900–1902

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Travelling Showmen and the Commissioning of Local Films in Great Britain, 1900–1902 Film History, Volume 13, pp. 118–137, 2001. Copyright © John Libbey ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in Malaysia ‘Local films for local people’: Travelling showmen and the commissioning of local films in Great Britain, 1900–1902 Local films for local people Vanessa Toulmin Free Cinematograph Films of Local Sub- stream of early film history. The reasons for the jects neglect of early non-fiction titles are explained by Tom Gunning, ‘as a reasonable reluctance to wade into a All showmen are aware of the drawing power great uncharted territory, a space left blank on all of Local Subjects cinematographed in the charts’.2 The Brighton project in 1978 emphasised Town a few days before the same is visited: for fiction as opposed to non-fiction, and films produced instance, Panoramic views of the principal after 1900. ThisaccordingtoGunninghascontributed streets or Sights in the Town, factory hands to a neglect of non-fiction films in the re-evaluation leaving Work, Interior or Exterior views of vari- of early cinema. Events in the past decade have ous important Industrial Establishments. All sought to rectify the path taken from Brighton and, such subjects are highly interesting to your as mentioned, studies have appeared on non-fiction. local audience who flock to your exhibit in However, one of the most important and commer- order to see themselves and their friends re- cially lucrative types of non-fiction film produced in produced on the screen.1 the early 1900s still continues to be overlooked, and s this Warwick Trading Company catalogue that is the local film. advertisement of 1902 demonstrates, the con- Local films, more than the majority of early cept of filming local events and scenes was a non-fiction titles (particularly in the early 1900s), were A tied directly to a date or event or specific occasion highly lucrative business tool for early film exhibitors. However, film historians have to some in the history of a region, town or business operation. extent overlooked these particular films and their This date could be the opening of an electric tram- importance in the development of early filmmaking way, the local village fete or fair, or the visit of minor and exhibition. Non-fictiontitles by Lumière, Biograph royalty. But often local films were not date specific, and Edison have of course been extensively investi- and were a simple marketing venture to film as many gated by academics and scholars, and John Barnes’ faces as possible, thus providing a ready made pioneering work on the Victorian Cinema in Great paying audience, desiring to see themselves repro- Britain emphasises the importance of non-fiction duced on screen. This great filmic mass is often during this period. With the notable exceptions of the Nederlands Film Museum publication Uncharted Ter- Vanessa Toulmin is Research Director at the Na- ritory: Essays on Early Non Fiction Films, and the third tional Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield Domitor conference in 1994, very few attempts have Library, UK. been made to bring non-fiction back into the main- Correspondence to: [email protected] FILM HISTORY: Volume 13, Number 2, 2001 – p. 118 ‘Local films for local people’ 119 Fig. 1. Randall Williams’ show front. A sign advertising ‘Local Animated Pictures’ is partly obscured in the centre. [National Fairground Archive, Tommy Green Collection.] difficult to date, trace or identify, a factor Gunning Rossell classifies travelling exhibitors into four main readily accepts in his article ‘Before Documentary’. groups: fairground showmen who turned to moving However, I would propose another factor for the pictures from already existing fairground shows; in- neglect of local films. Local subjects more than any dependent travelling showmen who presented short other type of early film are directly associated with term movie shows in public venues and rented another forgotten or neglected figure in early film spaces; the theatrical exhibitor who used an agent history, the travelling exhibitor who, like the films they to present a variety of music hall bookings in fixed showed, have until recently formed part of that un- theatrical venues; and finally the eager amateur or dated mass. outsider with little experience of the entertainment Another reason for this neglect is that until the industry. Rossell writes: discovery of the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, a For the most part, travelling exhibition has comprehensive body of relevant material did not been treated by historians as a romantic inter- appear to have survived and it was therefore difficult lude in the story of exhibition, a kind of side- to link titles to particular filmmakers or exhibitions. show on the way to real exhibition in the movie This is partly because the films were perceived to palaces built after the First World War.3 have a limited shelf life, more ephemeral and not significant enough to remain on filmmaker’s back This view is often reflected in later reminis- catalogues. The aim of this study is to analyse the cences by the pioneers themselves. Hepworth re- types of films in the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection calls showmen buying his films with pennies and re-evaluate the importance and prominence of collected from fairground rides, and the showmen local subjects in the corpus of films produced in the themselves tend to paint themselves more as roman- early 1900s, thereby demonstrating a network and tic figures than professional businessmen.4 How- mode of operation which for a short period of time ever, recent research has demonstrated that by 1900 was as complex and market driven as the production the travelling exhibitors were an important factor in of fiction titles during the period. the promotion of early films.5 Types and formats of exhibition have now been investigated, with the mu- Travelling exhibitors sic hall,6 town hall and fairground showmen7 all As previously stated, the mode of exhibition most being examined in various degrees by historians in associated with these type of subjects were the the past decade. travelling shows. In a ground breaking article, Deac Notwithstanding this, the role of itinerant ex- FILM HISTORY: Volume 13, Number 2, 2001 – p. 119 120 Vanessa Toulmin hibitors in encouraging film production in the early article and an introduction to the company and its 1900s has not been previously examined. The fair- output can be found in Film History volume 10, ground showmen were associated with early film- number 1.12 The material in this collection demon- makers in three main ways: firstly as exhibitors, strates the need for a re- evaluation of the local film, secondly as commissioners of new material, and reflecting as it does a transition from news as large thirdly (and perhaps most difficult to prove, with the scale events to recording the everyday life of local exception of William Haggar), as actual producers of towns from 1900 onwards. films.8 This study aims to focus on the local film, to produce a cohesive model in which to examine the Travelling exhibitors and local films complex relationship between fairground showmen Local films both incorporated the attraction of news and the commissioning of early films. and the novelty factor of moving image, all placed in John Barnes’s pioneering work on Victorian a regional and in many cases particular local setting. cinema has demonstrated that by 1900 the leading The concept of presenting regional views was a makers of non-fiction were the Warwick Trading recognised aspect of projected entertainment in the Company and the American Mutoscope and Biog- years prior to the introduction of the cinematograph. raph Company, which both specialised in topical or A handbill in the John Johnson Collection held in the news events.9 The importance of news films in at- Bodleian Library reveals that a Mr Brooks was pre- tracting audiences to early film exhibition, is stressed senting lantern views of ‘A Trip to North Wales’ and by Cecil Hepworth, who writes: a series of seventy magnificent photographs of ‘The Castles and Abbeys of England’ in 1889.13 Magic Now dawns a significant and important depar- lantern showmen incorporated local landscapes and ture in the story of the films – the awareness of historic landmarks into their presentations. their news value – the value of news to the In the early film era Lumière and Edison cata- films; the importance of films to the news. logues included titles of major cities and events, and News pictures became and remained for very Hepworth in his autobiography recalled filming titles many years the backbone of the ‘pictures’.10 such as Procession of Prize Cattle, Tortoise Race and Events such as Queen Victoria’s Diamond Ju- Thames Panorama. Such catalogue films could be bilee (1897), the Boer War (1899–1902) and other bought and shown anywhere, but genuine local films conflicts, the Funeral of Queen Victoria (1901) and – those taken in a particular locality and then shown the Coronation of Edward VII (1910) were all occa- to the local people – were a growing attraction. sions which created a desire for topical news sub- Hepworth took local films for A.D. Thomas in Man- jects. The listing of non-fiction titles in appendix 1 of chester in 1901,14 and by 1898 Arthur Cheetham Barnes’ fifth volume reveals for the year 1900 a from Wales was also making a name for himself in familiar pattern of the filming of national and foreign this field: events, royalty, national sporting events, and many Mr. A. Cheetham, of Rhyl, North Wales, has variations on Boer war themes.11 Sources utilised by been snap-shotting footballers at Blackburn John Barnes for this extensive listing include film and has about two hundred and fifty feet cut catalogues, periodicals, newspapers and surviving out of a three hundred feet film in good condi- films.
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