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Edison Screens
By early 1896, it was clear to Norman Raff and Frank Gammon, the entrepreneurs controlling the North American sales rights of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, that the Wizard of Menlo Park’s invention was quickly losing its commercial value in the face of competition from movies that were projected onto a screen. It was obvious that, not only were projected movies the way forward – they also spelled the death sentence for the Kinetoscope. Just as obvious was the fact that, if they didn’t jump on the bandwagon fast, competitors from both Europe and the States would quickly gain an unassailable advantage in this new market.
In January, they entered into a contract with Thomas Armat to market his Phantoscope projector. Then, on the 15th January, they negotiated with Edison and William Gilmore, the Vice President and General Manager of Edison’s manufacturing company for the machines to be constructed by Edison’s outfit from an Armat prototype. The inventor would also supply the films. Realising that they needed the influence of Edison’s name Raff and Gammon persuaded Armat to agree to the projector being renamed and marketed as “The Edison Vitascope”. Having received Armat’s approval (he received 25% of gross receipts from sales of exhibition rights, and 50% of income (less cost of manufacture) from other aspects of the business), they then embarked on a brief but intensive media campaign centred around New York (for which Raff & Gammon had negotiated sole exhibition rights), as any major events in the city would quickly be reported throughout the country.
On the 23rd March 1896, Raff and Gammon approached Albert Bial and booked his Koster & Bial’s Music Hall on 34th Street and Broadway for the sum of $800 per week. That same week, on the 27th, Edison attended a private screening of the ‘Vitascope’ and declared himself satisfied with the projector. He then gave a press conference at his West Orange laboratory on the 3rd April 1896 to unveil ‘his’ new invention, and the press reports that appeared in the national press aroused huge interest.
The premiere of Edison’s Vitascope took place at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall on Thursday the 23rd April 1896, and was an unqualified success. The New York Times reported:
The ingenious inventor’s latest toy is a projection of his Kinetoscope figures in stereopticon fashion, upon a white screen in a darkened hall… there flashed upon the screen the life-size figures of two dancing girls, who tripped and pirouetted and whirled an umbrella before them. The representation was realistic to a degree. The most trifling movements could be followed as accurately as if the dancers had been stepping before the audience in proper person. Even the waving undulations of their hair were plainly distinguishable. The gay coloring of the costumes was also effectively shown.
The New York Dramatic Mirror announced the evening was:
…a success in every way and the large audience testified its approval of the novelty by the heartiest kind of applause.
Six films were shown on a gilt-framed screen at the Vitascope’s premiere on two projectors working in tandem (and operated by their co-inventor, Thomas Armat), thus reducing the waiting time between the screening of each film. The show opened with Umbrella Dance (1895), a hand-coloured film featuring the Leigh Sisters, Edna and Stella, performing a dance under a large umbrella. Next was Rough Sea at Dover (1895), a British film – and the only actuality - made by Acres and Paul The New York Herald described it thus:
The whirr of the machine brought to view a heaving mass of foam-crested water. Far out in the dim perspective one could see a diminutive roller start. It came down the stage, apparently, increasing in volume, and throwing up little jets of snow-white foam, rolling faster and faster, and hugging the old sea wall, until it burst and flung its shredded masses far into the air. The thing was altogether so realistic and the reproduction so absolutely accurate, that it fairly astounded the beholder. It was the closest copy of nature any work of man has ever yet achieved.
Of the films shown that evening, the only one not filmed in Edison’s Black Maria turned out to be the most impressive.
The third film was Walton & Slavin, a burlesque boxing bout between tall and skinny Charles Walton, and the rotund John Slavin. Next was Band Drill (1894) featuring Frank Baldwin as the leader of a band in an excerpt from The Milk White Flag. The Monroe Doctrine, the fifth film of the evening, was a burlesque version of an editorial cartoon which showed John Bull taking a licking from Uncle Sam over the British threat of force in Venezuela, and reportedly provoked cries of ‘Hurrah for Edison’ from the audience. The final film was a Serpentine dance featuring a performer whose identity is unknown.
The premiere of the Vitascope was a huge success, and created an immediate demand. Unfortunately, as with initial manufacture of Edison’s Kinetoscope, production of the Vitascope was beset with problems that delayed their distribution to owners of ‘state rights’ until the middle of May. These guys, who had invested heavily in the new invention were not pleased; lucrative contracts were slipping away because of the delay, and rival showmen were stealing an edge over them.
The first batch of projectors were shipped in mid-May, and more problems were immediately encountered: only Thomas Armat and his brothers, Edward Murphy, James White and a few others knew how to operate the machines, and had to race from locale to locale to train the new owners and their staff. Another problem was electricity supply: the machines were wired to run on DC, but many of the locations were wired for AC. Entrepreneurs arrived at these towns and either found themselves unable to present their show because of the different electricity supply, and thus severely out of pocket, or had to resort to ingenious methods, such as pulling electricity from tramlines (and risking painful shocks from the overloaded projector), or using a huge amount of batteries. In Canada, Andrew Holland even resorted – with little success – to pedal power. Films were also expensive, and their quality was often poor, regularly lasting for only a few shows. In the sticks, the population were disinterested in the new invention, and even treated it with suspicion. For all its novelty value, few states rights owners of the Vitascope managed to turn a profit.
Nevertheless, despite all these problems, shows were held in Boston, Hartford, Atlantic City, Philadelphia and New Haven before the month of May was out. By the end of June, the projector was captivating audiences as far apart as San Francisco, Coney Island and New Orleans. The Edison company had completed construction of a portable camera in May, and so were able to offer street scenes similar to those shown by the Lumieres. As summer drifted into autumn, demonstrations of the Vitascope were being held in any town large enough to have its own electrical system. The swift pace of these openings severely strained Raff and Gammon’s resources, and Norman Raff suffered a nervous breakdown.
No doubt, Raff’s tattered nerves were soothed by the sound of money pouring into the company coffers by the autumn of 1896. Having completed a four-month run at Koster & Bial’s in August, the Vitascope re-opened at Proctor’s two New York vaudeville houses the following month. It has been estimated that Raff & Gammon made as much as $40,000 from the Vitascope business before the year was out. Thomas Armat also profited handsomely (around $10,000) as, of course, did Thomas Edison’s Manufacturing Co. (at least $25,000 plus royalties from Raff & Gammon). Only the little man – the hard-working entrepreneur dashing from town to town with ribbons of poor quality film – lost out.
However, despite the early profits, the writing was also on the wall for the boys sitting on top of the pyramid. Competition was quick to grow: the Eidolsoscope company soon faltered and fell by the wayside, but Lumiere’s Cinematographe and, later, American Mutoscope’s Biograph picked up the slack and began giving Edison a run for his money. Both their projectors were technologically superior to the Vitascope and, while the Lumieres offered European alternatives to Edison’s American scenics, metaphorically (and anachronistically) speaking, American Mutoscope offered the audience a ride in a Rolls Royce, while Edison could only offer a Ford. The Vitascope might have found a niche at the lower end of the market, had Edison possessed the patents to prevent independent exhibitors from working with his 35mm, four sprocket format and stealing that market using projectors and films made by an ever-widening range of manufacturers. Inevitably, the entire house of cards came crashing down and, while he would remain in the motion picture industry for another fourteen years, Edison would increasingly involve himself in a lengthy series of patents litigation that would divide the industry until he finally threw in the towel. [ADD]
Further Reading: Charles Musser’s article,: Introducing Cinema to the American Public: The Vitascope in the United States, 1896-7 from Moviegoing in America (Gregory Waller), from which, together with other sources, some of the information for this article was taken.
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