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They were known by many different names at the time, some borrowed from legitimate theaters or famous monikers to give them style -- the Bijou Dream, the Tivoli, or the Edison. Some were dank holes that crawled with roaches and reeked with disinfectant. Others were well-kept, orderly establishments were women could spend a relaxing hour after an afternoon of shopping. Newly arrived immigrants, who didn’t know a word of English, could pay a nickel and be entertained -- the pantomime transcending all language barriers.
While every one of these establishments were different, all had two things in common. All showed moving pictures and most of them charged five-cents admission. These were America’s first legitimate movie theaters. These were the nickelodeons.
At first films were exhibited in Kinetoscope parlors. The patron dropped a penny into a slot, then peered through an eyepiece to see a minute’s worth of action -- maybe a parade. Then he would go to the next machine, deposit his penny, and see another bit of action.
The public soon tired of the novelty. In the meantime, inventors had perfected the movie projector and the same short Kinetoscope films were shown back-to-back in darkened storerooms, a sheet for a screen, and wooden benches to sit on. As more of these storeroom theaters opened, films became longer -- sometimes five minutes or more. Then, in 1903, Edwin S. Porter produced “The Great Train Robbery”, the first western film to tell a real story. Patrons flocked to see it and fell in love with the movies.
Film studios popped up everywhere in spite of Thomas Edison’s claim that he had ownership of all the patents on the movie camera and projector. But not even the powerful Edison could stem the tide. New films came twice a week from Biograph, Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig -- then powerful studios, all but forgotten today. The stars of the time were Florence Lawrence, John Bunny, Mary Pickford, Arthur Johnson, and others.
Most films were no more than one reel in length (about 12 minutes). Some were even shorter. The audience didn’t know the names of the actors on the screen. The studios reckoned that if the actors became well-known and developed a following, they would have to pay them more than $5 a day, the standard wage. Stories were simple -- melodramas, comedies and farces, and short versions of the classics.
For a time, many people looked down on the movies and the theaters in which they were shown. Movies were considered to be the entertainment fit only for the lower classes. And some actors -- even out-of-work actors -- would rather have starved than be forced to appear in them. But the biggest complaint of all was the converted storerooms, in which movies were sometimes shown, were dank holes, alive with lice, roaches and other vermin. Furthermore, some people -- especially women -- thought being in total darkness in the middle of a crowd frightening. If the movie industry was to continue to prosper, suitable places had to be provided to show them -- not jerry-rigged storerooms.
On November 26, 1905, John Harris and Harry Davis of Pittsburgh opened the first theater exclusively created for the showing of motion pictures. Located in their penny arcade on Smithfield Street, Harris and Davis partitioned off a portion of the building, They installed a screen, projection booth and 96 folding chairs. Their first attraction was The Great Train Robbery . Admission was a nickel. The theater proved extremely popular and, before long, was open from 8 a.m. until Midnight.
Word got around quickly and other entrepreneurs followed suit. Nickelodeons sprang up all over the country. At first, they were mainly patronized by the working class. There was still a lot of resistance from the gentility. But the reputation of the movies was improving. Theater owners, like the Warner brothers of Pittsburg and Louis B. Mayer of Haverhill, Massachusetts, worked to make their places acceptable to all. Floors and seats were swept and cleaned every night. Some owners went whole hog and even put cushions on the seats.
Nickelodeon programs were changed twice a week and consisted of about five different films -- a drama, a comedy, an adventure, a novelty and maybe even a documentary -- with a combined running time of about an hour. Since the films were silent, accompanying music was provided by a piano or accordion.
Each time a film ended, the show would stop while the projectionist changed reels. Some nickelodeons would provide sing-a-longs between reels, accompanied by illustrated song slides flashed on the screen. Usually the son or daughter of the theater owner would lead the singing. Jack Warner, later the head of Warner Brothers, led the singing in his family’s Nickelodeon in Pittsburg.
The heyday of the Nickelodeon lasted less than 10 years. When the studios began making feature-length films, theaters were charged higher rentals. Admission prices climbed to 10-cents or more. Larger, more ornate theaters were built, complete with balconies, carpeting and even proscenium arches. One by one, the nickelodeons either went out of businesses or were renovated to accommodate larger, more sophisticated crowds.
The movies had come of age and so had theaters.
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