Nickelodeon (movie theater)

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A nickelodeon theater in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, circa 1910

The Nickelodeon (AE: nickel = 5¢-coin, Greek: Odeion = roofed over theatre) was an early 20th century form of small, neighborhood movie theaters. Nickelodeons in competitive markets had a piano or organ, playing whatever music the pianist or organist knew that seemed appropriate to a scene (e.g. classic ragtime for a chase sequence, or what was called at the time "Eliza-crossing-the-ice" music during the scary moments). Nickelodeons declined with the advent of the feature film, and as cities grew and industry consolidation led to larger, more comfortable, and better-appointed movie theaters.

[edit] History

The name "Nickelodeon" was first used in 1888 by Austin's Nickelodeon,^[1] a dime museum located in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the term was popularized by Harry Davis and John P. Harris, who opened their small, storefront theatre with that name on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 19, 1905. Although it was not the first theater to show films, in 1919 a news article stated that it was the first theater in the world "devoted exclusively to exhibition of moving picture spectacles."^[2] Davis and Harris found such great success with their operation that their concept of a five cent theatre running movies continuously was soon imitated by hundreds of ambitious entrepreneurs, as was the name of the theatre itself. Louis B. Mayer came of age just as the popularity of the nickelodeon was beginning to rise; he renovated the "Gem Theater" in Haverhill, Massachusetts, converting it into a nickelodeon he opened in 1907 as the "Orpheum Theater", and announced that it would be "the home of refined entertainment devoted to Miles Brothers moving pictures and illustrated songs".^[3] Other well-known nickelodeon owners were the Skouras Brothers of St. Louis.

[edit] Types of "moving pictures"

Nickelodeons would show films which were typically fifteen to twenty minutes in length, and in a variety of styles and subjects, such as short narratives, "scenics" (views of the world from moving trains), "actualities" (precursors of later documentary films), illustrated song slides, local or touring song and dance acts, comedies, melodramas, problem plays, stop action sequences, sporting events (e.g. the 1897 Corbett-Fitzsimmons championship fight or the 1899 Jeffries -Sharkey fight) and other features which allowed them to compete with vaudeville houses.

The titles of a few of the films released in 1907 and distributed to nickelodeons by the Miles Brothers (Herbert, Harry and Earl C.) partially illustrate this diversity.

[edit] Decline

A nickelodeon in 1910 showing "The Heroine of Mafeking"and other films

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Though strong through the period between 1905 and 1915, Nickelodeon theaters would also face their downfall upon the wake of feature films, starting with The Birth of a Nation, in 1915. During this wake, box office attendance grew greatly and as a result, ticket prices expanded from five cents to ten cents.^[4]

[edit] See also

• Nickelodeon, a 1976 film about the early days of the silent movies business.
• The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has an exhibit, Yesterday's Main Street, which includes a working mock-up of a nickelodeon.

[edit] References

[edit] External links and sources

• The Nickelodeons, written by Joseph Medill Patterson and published in the November 23, 1907 issue of The Saturday Evening Post
• "Story films" distributed by the Miles Brothers, from the American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films