The impact of sound on film style

This post is the last of three draft papers that apply statistical analysis to questions of film style. This I focus on the impact of sound technology on shot length distributions by examining the change in the median shot length and the interquartile range. You can access the pdf here: Nick Redfern – The impact of sound technology on Hollywood film style, and the abstract is presented below.

Quantitative analyses of the impact of sound technology on shot lengths in Hollywood cinema have claimed that, with the coming of sound, the mean shot length increased from ~5s to ~11s, and that this indicates a major change in film style as cutting rates slowed. However, the mean shot length is not a robust statistic of film style due to the positive skew of the data and the presence of outlying data points in shot length distributions. The median shot length is shown to be a more robust statistic unaffected by shape of shot length distributions, and the impact of sound technology on Hollywood is analysed through looking at the median shot lengths of silent films produced between 1920 and 1928 (n = 20, median = 4.4s [95.86% CI: 3.7, 5.1]) and sound films produced from 1929 to 1931 (n = 30, median = 6.9s [95.72% CI: 5.9, 8.7]). The results show that there is an increase in shot lengths in the early sound era (Mann-Whitney U = 32.5, P = <0.0001, PS = 0.0542), but that this change is much less than that described by studies using the mean shot length (HLΔ = 2.9s [95% CI: 1.8, 4.1]). Looking at the interquartile ranges of the silent films (median = 4.8s [95.86% CI: 4.3, 5.7]) and the sound films (median = 10.7s [95.72% CI: 8.8, 12.1]), we see that there is an increase by HLΔ = 5.6 seconds (95% CI: 4.1, 7.1), indicating that shot lengths in sound films show greater variation than those of the silent era (Mann-Whitney U = 4, P = <0.0001, PS = 0.0067).

As before, I’ll leave this up for a while before submitting it to a journal (if I can find one), so feel free to comment.

Shot Length Distributions in the Chaplin Keystones

This week I have another draft of a Cinemetrics paper, this time looking at shot length distributions in Keystone films starring Charles Chaplin and directed by Chaplin, Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, George Nichols, and Henry Lehrman. You can download the pdf here: Nick Redfern – Shot Length Distributions in the Chaplin Keystones, and the abstract is given below.

Cinemetrics provides an objective method by which the stylistic characteristics of a filmmaker may be identified. This study uses shot length distributions as an element of film style in order to analyse the films by five directors featuring Charles Chaplin for the Keystone Film Company. A total of 17 Keystone films are analysed – six directed by Chaplin himself, along with others directed by Henry Lehrman, George Nichols, Mabel Normand, and Mack Sennett. Shot length data was collected for each film and then combined to create data sets based on the studio style and for each director. The results show that for the distribution of shot lengths in Keystone films starring Chaplin (1) there is no significant difference between films directed Chaplin and the overall Keystone model; (2) there is no significant difference between Chaplin’s films and those of Lehrman, Nichols, and Sennett; (3) there is a significant difference between the films of Normand and the Keystone model but the effect size is small; and (4) there is a significant difference between Normand and the other Keystone filmmakers but the effect size of these differences is again small. This study shows that the distribution of shot lengths can be used to identify how the style of an individual filmmaker relates to a larger group style; and that, in the specific case of the Keystone Film Company, it is the studio style of fast-paced, slapstick comedy that determines the distribution of shot lengths with little variation present in the films of individual filmmakers.

As before, any comments and suggestions are welcome (as is the pointing out of glaring errors).

The raw data was collectde by examining the films frame by frame in my editing software, and can be accessed in a Microsoft Word Document here:

For Microsoft Word 97-2003 (x.doc): Nick Redfern – Shot length distributions in the Chaplin Keystones – data

For Microsfoft Word 2007 (x.docx): Nick Redfern – Shot length distributions in the Chaplin Keystones – data

Shot scales in Hollywood and German cinema, 1910 to 1939

This week’s post presents a first draft of a piece on shot scales in Hollywood and German cinema from the 1910s to the 1930s. The methods applied have been discussed on this blog before, but this paper presents a more systematic use of a regression than has previously been the case. The file is available as a pdf here: Nick Redfern – Shot scales in Hollywood and German cinema, 1910 to 1939, and the abstract is presented below.

Shot scales in Hollywood and German cinema, 1910 to 1939

Statistical analysis is an important part of an inductive programme of research into film style enabling large groups of films to be analysed, identifying key trends, and identifying changes in film style between groups of films from different countries and time periods. In this paper, the use of shot scales in Hollywood and German cinema between 1910 and 1939 is analysed using linear regression of rank-frequency plots and nonparametric analysis of variance. The results show that Hollywood and German cinema underwent a similar change in the use of shot scales but that this change occurred at different times. The shift from a non-linear to a linear distribution of mean relative frequencies and the increased use of close-ups and medium close-ups for Hollywood cinema in the 1920s may be explained by formal and stylistic changes as the ‘classical’ Hollywood cinema superseded a more ‘primitive’ style, with the analysis of space through continuity editing replacing the distant framing and staging of an earlier film style. A similar change occurs in the style of German films but not until the 1930s, and this supports the argument that the development of film style in German cinema was influenced by that of Hollywood.

The results of this paper demonstrate what a simple and effective method the use of linear regression of rank-frequency plots can be: changes in film style over time and differences in nation style between Hollywood and German cinema were identified precisley where historical research said they should be.

I still haven’t solved the problem of the most consistent model from a nonlinear distribution of the mean relative frequencies of shot scales. One possibility suggested by the results presented here is that different models may work for different periods or groups of films.

One of the things I’m most concerned with here is analysing groups of films. Film scholars tend to focus on individual films (in the way literary scholars or art historians focus on individual paintings). This is fine but I think it is a limiting approach if not accompanied by the analysis of large groups of films, and statistics can make this process much quicker and easier by identifying patterns of film style. In the words of André Bazin from (‘La politique des auteurs’):

The American cinema is a classical art, but why not then admire in it what is most admirable, i.e. not only the talent of the this or that filmmaker, but the genius of the system, the richness of its ever-vigorous tradition, and its fertility when it comes into contact with new elements …

The same also goes for German cinema.

Feel free to point out any typing errors (I am the world’s worst typist).

Any suggestions on further research or where to get this published are also welcome.

Claude Hamilton Verity

This post introduces some facts and resources about the life and work of Claude Hamilton Verity, and engineer from Leeds, whose work on synchronous sound in the cinema deserves far greater mention that it gets (in histories of British cinema in particular). Included are some basic facts, some references to where Verity does appear in research on film, patents to Verity’s sound technologies, and some contemporary pieces that refer to Verity’s work.

Claude Hamilton Verity was born at Leeds in May 1880, the youngest child of Edwin and Ann Verity. Edwin Verity was an ironmonger with a workshop at . Edwin was one of the Verity Brothers who had a large premises on The Calls by Leeds Bridge. Edwin later took premises round the corner at 168 & 169 Briggate as a hardware merchant. It was these premises that Claude was later to use as his workshop, and are now Bar Fibre. These premises are also located approximately 200 metres from the building at Leeds Bridge, where Le Prince shot his footage of traffic at the Corner of Briggate, Swinegate, and The Calls.

Claude was brought up in Roundhay in the north of the city – an affluent part of Leeds that was also home to Louis le Prince and the Whitley family in the 1880s. The 1901 census has Verity listed as a student at a College of Agriculture and resident at Downton, Wiltshire. He also seems to crop up in Seacombe, nr. Liverpool, as an engineering draughtsman c.1910, and there is an engineer called Claude Hamilton Verity living in Scarborough in 1912, who is presumbaly the same person. He later moves to Harrogate (where his mother’s family were from), and then Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

Verity held many patents, including improvements to stoves, revolving doors, electric radiators, clouderising coal dust, low-temperature carbonisation, and ‘apparatus for the inhalation of medicated vapours.’ All of this suggests that he was a skilled engineer, who could turn his hand to many different things. There is also a book published in 1928, titled Industrial Prosperity, and authored by a Claude H. Verity, but I have not yet confirmed the identity of the author. It is Verity’s patents in the synchronising of sound and pictures that are of main interest to film scholars, and the following is a chronological list of the relevant patents:

• The synchronisation of machines for recording and reproducing sounds & movements. GB103407, Verity, C. H. May 11, 1916.
• Synchronization of Machines for Recording and Reproducing Sounds and Movements. Claude Hamilton Verity, of Leeds, England.  No execution date.  Filed May 23, 1917, Serial No. 170,531.  Classification 352/23. This is a US patent.
• Synchronisation of machines for recording and reproducing sounds and movements. GB165489, Verity, C. H. Jan. 28, 1920.
• Improvements in or relating to gramophones and like sound reproducing machines. GB207222, Verity, C. H. July 21, 1922
• Synchronisation of machines for recording sounds and movements and for reproducing such sounds and movements by phonograph and kinematograph. GB318847, Verity, C. H. June 5, 1928.
• Apparatus for reproducing synchronously recorded disk records and kinematograph films. GB318688, Verity, C. H. June 19, 1928.

Figure 1 Verity’s registration marks for resynchronising cut sound film (GB318688)

• Means for the synchronisation of broadcast wireless sounds and kinematograph films. GB320881, Verity, C. H. July 23, 1928.
• Improvements relating to the synchronous reproduction of picture films and disk sound records. GB321624, Verity, C. H. Aug. 13, 1928.
• Improvements relating to phonograph disc recording & reproducing machines and means for driving and synchronising same with kinematograph apparatus. GB322561, Verity, C. H. Sept. 24, 1928.
• Improvements relating to electric pick-up supports for gramophones and means for indicating the position of the needle in the record groove and to facilitate synchronous reproduction with picture projection. GB324411, Verity, C. H. Oct. 22, 1928.

Most of these patents relate to sound-on-disk systems, but Verity’s appears to have adopted an approach that is less dependent upon the technology and focuses more on the operator’s problem of keeping sound and image together. It’s a very human approach to a technological problem : for example, the 1920 patent for the  Synchronisation of machines for recording and reproducing sounds and movements uses two rows of lamps to indicate when the operator has achieved the union of sound and image by manipulating motors to bring the projector and the sound mechanism together, and which will tell the operator when they start to go out of synch.

Verity’s work attracted international attention: one newspaper report from 1922 talks about a German patent, but I haven’t been able to find this; while Verity was crossing the Atlantic to work with the Vitapgraph Company in New York. Altman (1992) mentions Verity’s arrival in New York and his demonstration of the synchronisation of music and talking pictures

Figure 2 The Ellis Island register shows Verity was met by the vice-president of the Vitagraph Co. as he disembarked from the Aquitania in 1923.

From reports in the local Yorkshire press, Verity’s system worked well and was popular. Verity apparently first demonstrated his talking pictures at the Royal Hall Theatre in Harrogate on 30 April 1921, before moving to London in June/July 1921, and then at the Albert Hall, Leeds in the first weeks of April, 1922.

A contemporary description gives an indication of how image, music, and dialogue were brought together.

Leeds Mercury, 27 June 1921

‘TALKING’ PICTURES

LEEDS MAN’S SYNCHRONISM INVENTION

The latest development in singing and talking pictures was explained at a demonstration on Saturday at the Philharmoinc Hall, London.

The inventor, Mr. Claude Verity, of Leeds, claimed to be able to synchronise perfectly the spoken word and the lip movements by the players shown on the screen.

By Mr. Verity’s system it is claimed to be possible to synchronise speeches, sounds, music, or anything that is at present being done at any of the London theatres – opera, drama, musical comedy, or revue. The inventor does not do away with the orchestra; his object is to synchronise the spoken word or song, the orchestra accompanying the gramophone while the movements are thrown on the screen.

The two productions shown on Saturday, ‘A Cup of Beef Tea’ and ‘The Playthings of Fate,’ proved that the invention has great possibilities.

The public interest in talking pictures can be gauged from this announcement of Verity’s 1922 shows in Leeds, which gives the size of the audience for the initial Harrogate run.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 3 April 1922

FILM AND GRAMPOHONE

PROGRAMME TO DEMONSTRATE A LEEDS MAN’S INVENTION

Mr. C.H. verity, the inventor of the apparatus which has made the synchronisation of film and gramophone a practical proposition, is the head of a Leeds firm of hardware manufacturers and merchants. He is presenting his talking and singing pictures at the Albert Hall, Leeds, this week. Entertainments will be given each evening, and on three afternoons. The programme consists of the first film productions under the Verity system of synchronisation.

Mr. Verity claims that the cost of these productions will be no greater than that of the majority of silent films, because it is cheaper to help out scenes and actions by words than by the multiplication of dumb show. There are interesting possibilities in the production of talking pictures in these days when the demand is all for novelty and originality in entertainment. Four performances recently given in Harrogate attracted over 5600 people.

As another report indicates, the road to the synchronisation of sound and image was long and expensive, and it is important to remember that Verity was not a research scientist for a large corporation but ran a hardware manufacturers in the centre of Leeds.

Yorkshire Evening News, 1 April 1922

SPEAKING FILMS

LEEDS MAN’S SYSTEM PATENTED IN GERMANY

SYNCHRONISATION ACHIEVED

Mr. Claude H. Verity, the Leeds inventor, is making a bold bid to enlist the sympathies of the public in his talking and singing pictures. He claims that he has definitely and absolutely solved the problem of the synchronisation of the voice with the picture on the screen.

For over three years he has been perfecting his idea, and so fa it has entailed a cost of £7000, but now to quote his own words: ‘With my system of synchronisation I can guarantee to keep this relation of sound and lip movement under synchronous control to within one-twenty-fourth of a second for any length of time.’

Next week at the Albert Hall, Leeds, the local public will have its first opportunity of judging the merit of the invention.

The solving of the problem of synchronisation was proved and admitted by the critics at Mr. Verity’s first trade show in Harrogate. There was criticism, Mr. Verity says, not in regard to the question of synchronisation, but in regard to the sound productions of the gramophone used.

CLAIM ADMITTED

Mr. Verity has given many trade shows in various parts of the country, and never once has his claim to have solved the synchronisation problem been doubted. The only thing he needs he points out, is what might be termed a super-gramophone, and in this connection it may be stated, Mr. Verity has gone some way to meet this need.

By the means of electric amplification and a new design of gramophone horn, the inventor ensures that the spoken word is clear and easily distinguishable.

Very shortly a company is to be formed, and with the necessary financial backing the invention should not fail to succeed.

Mr. Verity claims that everything in the way of singing or speaking can be synchronised by means of his method. He also wishes to make it clear that he does not intend to work on the lines of a monopoly in regard to his invention.

PATENTED IN GERMANY

Mr. Verity does not suggest that the whole programme in all the countless picture-houses should be entirely devoted to ‘talking pictures;’ he introduces the idea with a view to an enjoyable variation in the programme.

The ‘Yorkshire Evening News’ is able to add that Mr. Verity has now had his ‘talking-picture’ idea patented in Germany. This is itself proof that he has not encroached on any previous idea on this point. The German system of granting patents is different to the British system.

Here a patent is granted after a search through British patents only; in Germany the patents of all nationalities are first scrutinised.

For all this effort, Verity does not get much of a mention in histories of British cinema, but he is mentioned on occasion. As noted above, Altman (1992) mentions Verity’s visit to the US and he features in The New York Times Encyclopedia of Film (1984),  which suggests that there are references in the New York press to the demonstrations of the Verity system. There is also a reference to Verity’s trip to New York in Gramophone in October 1926, albeit a reference that is inconclusive (I haven’t found the original report):

The problem of synchronizing films and records has been solved if we are to believe the reports of the demonstration of the Vitaphone in New York. There is an excellent and full account of the problem and of the solution in the Wireless World for September 15th. Three years ago we reported the departure of Mr. Claude Verity, who was experimenting in the subject, for America ; but it is not said whether he is at the bottom of the Vitaphone. It is the Western Electric Co.’s patents which have made the synchronization possible, worked in conjunction with Warner Brothers’ Pictures Inc (22).

Verity is also mention by M. Jackson Wrigley (1922: 115-116), who refers to the ‘invention of a synchronizer by Mr. Claude H. Verity, a Harrogate engineer, enables the operator, by simply sliding a knob, quite independently of observing the screen, to work synchronization to 1-24th of a second.’

References

Altman, D. (1992) Hollywood East: Louis B. Mayer and the Origins of the Studio System. New York: Carol Publishing Group.

Jackson Wrigley, M. (1922) The Film: Its Use In Popular Education. London: Grafton.

The New York Times Encyclopedia of Film, edited by Gene Brown New York: New York Times Books, 1984

Improvements relating to electric pick-up supports for gramophones and means for indicating the position of the needle in the record groove and to facilitate synchronousreproduction with picture projection

United Kingdom GB324411, Published 1930-01-22, Claude Hamilton Verity
324,411. Verity, C. H. Oct. 22, 1928.

Film Distributors in Leeds, 1927 and 1940

In a comment on The Bioscope I mentioned that I had some information on film distributors in Leeds from the first half of the twentieth century. This post follows up that comment with maps of the location of film hirers/renters listed in Kelly’s directory for Leeds in 1940 and 1927. This information is much needed I think due to the lack of studies of the film rental business in the UK, where I think that exhibition and the cultural geography of exhibition is now recognised as an important topic. Nicholas Hiley, Stuart Hanson, and Mark Jancovich have made substantial contributions in this area, although there is still much to do. Distribution is rather overlooked in film studies in general, lacking the excitement of production or the experience of exhibition -  an unfortunate state of affairs for a distribution-led industry.

The maps used here are from the Lonely Planet online guide to Leeds, which has a good interactive guide to the city. The maps show modern Leeds, and the location identified are approximate to their position in the year shown.

Figure 1 shows the location of film hirers/renters in Leeds in 1940, and the clustering around the railway station is very clear. In the 1940s there were numerous railway yards in Leeds and so this area would have a much greater density of lines and stations than can be seen today, particularly running alongside Wellington Street where the concentration of distributors is greatest. It would be worth comparing the clustering of distributors in Leeds around the railway station with distributors in other cities to see if the same pattern is observed: what role the railways played in the distribution of films in the UK is a question worth pursuing.

On this map I have also included two other items of notice indicated by the red numbers: 1 is the location from which Louis le Prince shot his footage of Leeds traffic in 1888, and 2 is the location of Claude Hamilton Verity’s workshop at which he developed synchronised sound for motion pictures in 1917. Verity was brought up in Roundhay, where le Prince lived during his time in Leeds and although I’ve never seen any evidence that the two would have met (Verity was born in 1880 in any case) it is possible that an inventor and engineer like le Prince would have known the Veritys, owners of a large iron working factory in Leeds and who lived nearby. Read the abstract of Verity’s 1917 patent here. These two major events in the history of cinema occur 29 years and just 200 metres apart. In fact, le Prince’s footage of the traffic on Leeds Bridge faces towards the end of Briggate and just cuts off the railway bridge next to which Verity’s workshop was located.

Figure 1 Film hirers/renters in Leeds in 1940

Key:

A. Associated British Film Distributors, Ltd: 58 Wellington Street.

B. Associated British Picture Corporation, Ltd: 17 Wellington Street.

C. General film Distributors, Ltd: 15 Wellington Street.

D. LH Beahan & Co.; Empire Cinemas (Leeds) Ltd.: 14 Wellington Chambers, City Square. RKO Radio Pictures, Ltd.: Wellington Chambers, City Square.

E. Columbia Pictures Corporation, Ltd.: 9 Mill Hill; John Briggs (Films), Ltd.; Pathé Pictures, Ltd.; Wellington Film Service, Ltd.: 10 Mill Hill.

F. British Lion Film Corporation, Ltd.: King Street Chambers, 1 King Street.

G. Clifford Kemp: 15 Cavendish Chambers, 91 The Headrow (the G on the right), and 28 Park Cross Street.

H. Paramount Film Service, Ltd.: 48 Wellington Street.

I. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Ltd.: 34 Wellington Street.

J. Charles Thompson: 93A Albion Street.

K. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Ltd.: 54 Aire Street.

L. (not on map, but only approx. 1/2 mile down Whitehall Road from railway station) Electrocord Ltd (equipment manufacturers): Domestic Street, Holbeck. Although separate from the other locations mentioned here, this location would still have been very well served by the railways.

M. Warner Bros. Pictures, Ltd.: 3 Cabinet Chambers, 20A Lower Basinghall Street.

N. White’s Sound Film Service (distributors), 23 York Place.

O. (not on map) First National Distributors, Ltd.: 3 Alfred Street (I can’t find Alfred Street on modern maps of Leeds or the 1906 map of the city centre so this one’s a mystery).

If we compare the 1940 with the 1927 map (Figure 2) we can see that as well as being located around the railway yards, there are a number of distributors based in the city centre around Queen’s Arcade and Briggate. These clusters have disappeared by the 1940s, while the overall number of distributors has fallen from 29 in 1927 to 24 in 1940. Interestingly, by 1940 these distributors are sharing more offices and so how the different companies interacted is worth investgating further.

Figure 2 Film hirers/renters in Leeds in 1927

Key:

A. Three distributors are based next door to one another in Queen’s Arcade: Allied Artists’ Corporation, Ltd.: 20A, Balcony; Mercury (Booth Grange) Film Service, Ltd,: 22A, 24A, 26A, Balcony; H.A. Whincup, Ltd.: 16A, 18A, Balcony.

B. Astra Films (Yorkshire), Ltd.: 15 & 17 King Charles Croft; Charles P. Metcalfe, 21 King Charles Croft.

C. Beahan Film Service, Ltd.: 7 New Station Street.

D. Buthcher’s Film Service, Ltd.: 66 New Briggate.

E. Famous-Lasky Film Service, Ltd.: 48 Wellington Street.

F. Jury Metro Goldwyn, Ltd; New Century Pictures, Ltd.: 34 Wellington Street.

G. The European Motion Picture Company, Ltd.; Universal Films European Motion Picture Co, Ltd.: 17 Wellington Street.

H. Wardour Films, Ltd.: 11 Wellington Street.

J. First National Pictures, Ltd: Bardon Chambers, King Street.

K. Fox Film Co. , Ltd.: Trinity House, Trinity Street.

L. The Gaumont Co. Ltd., (Albert Bayley, Manager): 12 Lands Lane & 12 Albion Place.

M. Ideal Films, Ltd.: 22 New Briggate.

N. William Leverton; Wellington Film Service, Ltd.: 10 Mill Hill.

O. Pathé Frères Cinema, Ltd.: Wellington Chambers, City Square.

P. Phillips Film Co., Ltd.: 10 Cabinet Chambers, 20A, Lower Basinghall Street.

Q. Producers’ Distrbuting Co., Ltd.: Post Office House, Wine Street.

R. The Rose Film Co, Ltd.: Greek Street Chambers.

S. Stoll Picture Productions, Ltd.: 121 Vicar Lane.

T. Charles Thompson, 97 Albion Street.

U. Warner Bros. Pictures, Ltd.: 4 Cross Belgrave Street.

V. Western Import Co, Ltd.: 39 Albion Street.

W. (not on map) W & F Film Service (Yorkshire), Ltd.: 1 Upperhead row (Having checked the 1908 map of Leeds city centre this now part of what is simply The Headrow, but as the road configuration has changed completely where Eastgate is now there is no way to mark it a contemporay map).

Note that of the four companies based around New Briggate/Vicar Lane in 1927, only Warner Bros. survives to 1940, by which time they have moved across twon to be near City Square.

The distribution of picture halls in Leeds, 1910 to 1939

The Cinematograph Act, 1909, placed the regulation of the exhibition of motion pictures in the hands of local authorities. In Leeds (as in many other British cities), the Watch Committee of the City Council was responsible for licensing and regulating places of exhibition in the city. The proceedings of this committee and the Council in general provide a great deal of information on the development of exhibition in the city, including data on the location of theatres, the licensees. Here, data from the council proceedings is used to map the development of motion picture exhibition in Leeds from 1910 to 1939 (see Preedy 2005 for an overview). By looking at the income from the issuing of cinematograph licenses we can follow how the size of the exhibition market in the city changed over time, and this information is presented in Figure 1. The development of motion picture exhibition after the introduction of the Cinematograph Act, 1909, in Leeds can be divided into three phases: a period of rapid growth from 1910 to 1913; a first wave of expansion from 1913 to the early 1920s; and a stable period from 1921 to the beginning of World War Two. Changes in the distribution of picture halls are examined by looking at four years – 1914, 1922, 1931, 1939 (see Table 1) – that are (roughly) evenly spread across the three decades covered.

Figure 1 Revenue from licenses issued under Cinematograph Act, 1909 (Source: Leeds City Council Accounts)

The first phase in the development of motion picture exhibition in Leeds after 1909 is primarily comprised of the licensing of existing premises. The first picture hall to be licensed was the Coliseum on Cookridge Street. It is interesting to note that an early decision of the Watch Committee was to license premises that had been exhibiting moving pictures prior to the passage of the 1909 Act without requiring them to meet the safety measures specified, particularly the need to isolate the projector from the auditorium. For the most part these premises were the larger theatres in the city (including the Empire, the Hippodrome, City Varieties, and the Queen’s), and so were already subject to licenses for music and dancing. Also among this group were public halls (e.g. Salem Central Hall, Albert Hall).

Although some purpose built theatres were opened prior to 1913, the majority of the licensed premises are converted premises. The Cottage Road Cinema, Headingly, opened in 1912 (and is arguably the oldest continually operating theatre in the world) at the site of a former stable (and later garage) built in 1835. The Palace Cinema at Eyres Avenue, Armley, was opened as a cinema following the decline of the skating rink in the same premises – although the rink did not entirely disappear, and the site appears to have been dual use for a number of years. Early demands of the Watch Committee focus on the safety aspects of the new entertainment, with routine demands for fire extinguishers, panic bolts, improvements to ventilation and lighting, and the clearing of all aisles – all subject to the inspection of the Chief Constable and the City Engineer. Occasionally, licenses were granted on the submission of plans; and the whole business of licensing theatres appears to have taken up a significant amount of the committee’s time: on 22 October 1912, the minutes of the Committee show that nine resolutions were passed, all of which related to the exhibition of motion pictures.

Early cinema proprietors were also converts: the Cottage was operated by Owen Brooks and George R. Smith, the former being a photographer; and Allan Nield, another photographer, ran the Malvern Picture House in Beeston and the Hill Crest in Harehills at one time or another. In fact, Brooks and Nield appear to have lived close to one another in the Beeston/Dewsbury Road area, along with other proprietors such as the confectioner Frederick S. Brier. Another cluster of proprietors develops on the other side of the city in Roundhay (once home to inventor of the cinema, Louis Le Prince), including the lithographic printer Charles Lightowler who opens a theatre in Hunslet near his print works; Arthur Cunningham, a household furnisher; and Harry Bagges Hylton, a builder. Other trades of proprietors include a rag merchant, a ladies’ tailor, Pattern makers, a city councilor and the secretary to the City Council, and a number of estate agents. Typically, then, in this early phase the proprietor of a Leeds cinema was a local businessman with the funds to spend on exhibiting motion pictures. The large theatres in the city centre were already part of existing entertainment chains or already had in place a management structure that could be easily adapted, and the licensees of these shows are more often managers than proprietors.

The boom in picture halls in Leeds takes off in 1913, with a surge in the number of new builds and this is reflected in the increase in license fees collected by the council. That a second increase follows in 1921 suggests that the First World War interrupted the growth of the exhibition market in the city. The distribution of picture halls in Leeds in January 1914 is presented in Figure 2. The high number of licensed premises in the city centre is unsurprising; but it should be noted that this number includes premises used for alternative entertainments (i.e. theatres, public halls, church halls, etc.) and these ‘other use premises’ account for approximately half of the picture halls in this part of the city. The number of licensed premises in the city centre in which the exhibition of motion pictures is the primary purpose of the building is then no greater than in other parts of Leeds. Attending the cinema in the city can be associated with other leisure activities that are not present in the single-use theatres in areas outside the civic centre. It is outside the city centre that purpose-built cinemas are to be found, while in the centre premises are adapted and converted, but these picture halls are distributed unevenly across the city. Hunslet and Holbeck are both densely populated areas comprised primarily of back-to-back housing and industrial premises, but the former has a substantially greater number of theatres. Over time, the distribution becomes more even (see Figures 3-5) and by 1922, Holbeck has gone from three cinemas to six while Hunslet has gone from nine to six.

Clues as to why the distribution of picture halls in the city adopted this pattern shortly after the introduction of the Cinematograph Act in 1909 can be found in the trade directories for Leeds. What this comparison reveals is that the distribution of picture halls is – to a significant extent – a matter of convenience for the proprietors. For example, the Imperial Picture House at 79 Kirkstall Road opened by William Ogden and William Fielding in 1913 is located next door to the workshop (at 77 Kirkstall Road) of William Ogden, tinplate manufacturer. Kelley’s 1911 directory for Leeds lists 10 Alpha Street, Hunslet, as the premises of Harry Rodger, estate agent; while the council minutes reveal that the conversion of this property for the purpose of exhibiting motion pictures under license to Rodger was approved (subject to modifications) on 10 February 1911. Joseph Battersby, a marine store dealer at Place’s Road in Cross Green in 1911 is listed as the licensee of the East End Picture Hall at the same location in 1914. Clifford Lax, owner of a building company and estate agent based on Harehills Lane, opened the Harehills Picture House at the corner of Roundhay Road and Harehills Lane. Lax built a number of cinemas in Leeds, and appears to have entered the picture trade after building theatres for others.

What is also notable comparing the distributions of 1914 to 1939 is the overall consistency in the distribution: the exhibition market in Leeds is remarkably stable, and it is only towards the end of World War Two that closures become common. Even then, most areas of the city continue to have at least one theatre until well into the 1960s. The transition to sound had no impact on the distribution of theatres in the city. The years surrounding the introduction of sound show much less variation in license income (Figure 1), but this appears to be a short-lived phenomenon. The majority of the theatres open in 1922 are open in 1931. The costs of converting to sound may have been high – as many historians of the cinema have noted (see, for example, Jancovich et al. 2003 and Hanson 2008) – but this does appear to have perturbed exhibitors in Leeds: comparing the list of licensed theatres from 1927 and 1931 we see that one site has disappeared from the list while two have been added. In fact, of the fifty seven picture halls in Leeds licensed in 1914, 33 are still operating in 1939. In the latter phase, there is also the spread of motion picture exhibition into areas of the city away from the main metropolitan core (such as Meanwood, Middleton, and Moortown), accompanied by an expansion of the city boundaries that can be seen to contribute to the increase in council revenue from licensing.

Most the cinemas in the city in 1914 are individually controlled, and many cinemas remain independent until well after World War Two. Overtime, the presence of theatre chains becomes more marked. Some are national circuits (Provincial Cinematograph Theatres, Gaumont British), with several smaller, local chains. By 1911, Charles P. Metcalfe and Thomas Thompson own two cinemas – though they soon break up their partnership. Goldstone Cinemas Ltd operate a number of picture houses in the South and East of the city, opening the Victoria in Burmantofts in 1912 (replaced by the Star in 1938), the Wellington Picture House in 1920, and the Regal in Hunslet after 1927. John Robert Sharp runs two picture halls under the name Atlas in Sheepscar and Kirkstall, although he finds himself frustrated by the demands of the Watch Committee in refusing his applications changes to his auditorium (although the precise nature of the requested changes are not made clear). Often, when the decision of the Committee is not to the applicant’s satisfaction, a solicitor is brought in to argue a case, but this appears to have been a largely unsuccessful strategy.

More prosperous areas (e.g. Roundhay) have no theatres, although this should not lead us to assume that there are no middle class patrons. It appears likely that working class audiences attended the cinemas in their area of Leeds, while middle class audiences attended the larger theatres in the city. Parts of modern day Leeds that do not appear here (e.g. Horsforth, Otley, etc) were also well served with cinemas, but did not come under the control of Leeds City Council until much later.

Table 1 Premises licensed by Leeds City Council (Annual licenses) under the Cinematograph Act 1909

Figures 2 to 5 chart the change in distribution of licensed picture halls in Leeds from 1914 to 1939. In each case, data was taken from the annual renewal of licenses list published by the Watch Committee of Leeds City Council in January of each year.

Figure 2 Distribution of premises licensed by Leeds City Council, 7 January 1914

Figure 3 Distribution of premises licensed by Leeds City Council, 4 January 1922

Figure 4 Distribution of premises licensed by Leeds City Council, 7 January 1931

Figure 5 Distribution of premises licensed by Leeds City Council, 4 January 1939

KEY: ARM – Armley; BEE – Beeston; BRA – Bramley; BUR – Burmantofts; BUY – Burley; CHA – Chapel Allerton (including Chapeltown); CRG – Cross Gates; CRN – Cross Green; HAR – Harehills; HEA – Headingly; HOL – Holbeck; HUN – Hunslet; KIR – Kirkstall; LEE – Leeds; MEA – Meanwood; MID – Middleton; MOO – Moortown; SHE – Sheepscar; STA – Stanningley; WOO – Woodhouse; WOR – Wortley.

References

Hanson, S. (2008) From Silent Screen to Multi-screen: A History of Cinema Exhibition in Britain since 1896. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Jancovich, M., Faire, L., and Stubbings, S. (2003) The Place of the Audience: Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption. London: BFI.

Preedy, R.E. (2005) Leeds Cinemas. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd.