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Before Detroit was known as Motown or the Motor City, it was called the Paris of the Midwest. Its Parisian landscapes and architecture made it a cultural hub and a vibrant place to live in the early 1920s. The other big boom for Detroit in those days besides cars was the theater and entertainment industry. Detroit had over 100 movie houses and theaters by the 1930s and some of the most luxurious theaters and halls in the entire world, rivaling those in New York or Chicago. Big names like The Fox, The Adams, The Michigan and The United Artist theaters dominated the first-run movie business in Detroit. Other notable theaters of the day like The Alger, The Eastown, The National and the Riviera were also big players in the local theater and film industry. All of these major movie houses would not have existed if it were not for this building on the right, known as the Detroit Film Exchange.
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With such a rich musical and theatrical history, one would think that Detroit would be one of the foremost cities for the performance arts, but in the wake of scandals and class action lawsuits the industry dried up and headed west to Hollywood. The roaring 1920s, as they are often called, was a time in the movie industry for ruthless and cunning businessmen to establish empires made from film collections and the distributions of such collections. Detroit, along with Chicago and New York, was seen as the destination city for theater because of abundance of grand theaters and the infrastructure to run large, costly operations. That infrastructure started in the late 1890s when Vitascopes (early film projectors) appeared. The Vitascope was an early precursor to the film projector and was used in “Nickelodeons” (movies costing only a nickel) throughout the county in the very early 1900s. Detroit had many Nickelodeons and its vast array of theaters capitalized early on in the “talking picture” movement.
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Detroit, a town known for many early achievements, opened the second Vitascope hall in America. They soon began popping up throughout the midwestern states. This new technology used a rapid succession of negatives projected through a lens, enlarging motion and bringing once static images to life. These films were accompanied by live bands, orchestras, and Wurlitzer organs for audio and sound. However, this method was quickly growing out dated as syncopated films with sound took over the screens at theaters and Nickelodeon halls in the 1930s. One of the founders of the industry in Detroit was John H. Kunsky. He is credited for building Detroit’s first proper theater, The Columbia in Detroit, which opened in 1911. He is said to have owned over twenty theaters and more than half of the mighty “first-run” operations in town. |
Below is a short list of the movie theaters John Kunsky once owned: |
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Adams Theater (1917) 1,770 seats <--onlynDetroit |
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Kunsky, along with famed theater designer C. Howard Crane enjoyed tremendous success for many years. The two became very well known throughout the world for building some of the most opulent theaters in history. Kunsky & Crane’s portfolio of theaters ranged from small intimate theaters like the Bijou to over the top masterpieces like the Michigan and the Fisher Theaters. The Fisher Theater itself was exceptionally ornate with gold and brass as far as the eye could see. Its lobby was once dominated by a large fishpond surrounded by real banana trees. Even with all the success Kunsky felt pressured by large studios on the local market and by the 1930s Paramount Pictures was barking at his door. Kunsky was starting to feel tremendous strain from Paramount’s representative, Adolph Zukor, who had acquired Detroit’s Collaborative Bookings office, also known as The Detroit Film Exchange. The acquisition of the Film Exchange, which facilitated the rental of films to various movie houses in Detroit, began to push Kunsky out of the industry he helped to create. The takeover of the Detroit Film Exchange left Kunsky with no option other than to sell his stake in the Detroit Film houses he owned. To the right: Aldolph Zukor on the January 1929 Time Weekly Cover. |
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Kunsky turned to Michigan film lawyer George W. Trendle who was regarded as one of the best negotiators in the film industry. He negotiated the sale of Kunsky’s theaters to Zukor for a sum of six million dollars. Zukor, a shrewd businessman himself and no fan of competition, placed an amendment in the contract barring both Kunsky and Trendle from ever working in the film industry again. However, with that deal brokered Zukor realized what an asset he had in Trendle and hired him to manage his recently purchased theaters, now called the “United Detroit Artist”. That lasted only a couple years as Zukor fired Trendle over what was described as “professional negligence”. |
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George W. Trendle may have been out of work in the film industry but he went on to become one of Detroit’s most prominent sons, especially in of broadcasting. Besides being credited with building the historic Alger Theater (1935) on Detroit’s far-east side, he is also one of the creators of the Lone Ranger which débuted on WXYZ radio in Detroit on January 30th, 1933. That pivotal show helped establish WXYZ in the early radio wars in Detroit, and the successe of Lone Ranger led Trendle to create another hugely popular show, The Green Hornet. Trendle continued to be a major player in the broadcast industry in Detroit earning him the nickname the Miser of Motown. |
George Trendle (left) & John Kunsky (right) in 1933 |
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In today’s age of independent licensing and digital distribution, the notion of having a “film exchange” might seem a little burdensome, but it was a crucial element of doing business in the early 20th century. In the beginning, Nickelodeon films were purchased outright by “exhibitors” who wanted to show their films. Exhibitors often paid $25 dollars or more for a film, which could be shown a couple hundred times if kept in ideal conditions and maintained. The exhibitor then had to rent a hall and promote their films for opening. The purpose of a “first-run” showing of a movie, or opening weekend (as we know it) was to break even. The second-run and third week showings often were the weeks where actual profit would be made. The opening of the Collaborative Booking Office allowed exhibitors who put up the initial money for a new movie to rent their films through the process of exchange. After the first few weeks run of a film in one of the larger movie theaters, films would be sent to the Film Exchange and then rented to second tier, and third tier movie halls for a fee, still allowing the original owner to keep his film and make money off of it. This was the function of the offices in the Film Exchange Building on Cass Ave.
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| Renowned architect and designer C. Howard Crane built the Film Exchange Building in 1926. In the early days of its existence the CBO (Collaborative Booking Office) was full of retail space on its lower floors. Stores once lined the street on three sides of the buildings and offices belonging to the various studios, halls and exhibitors occupied the space above the main floor. The building not only provided exhibitors with distribution services but also in the storage of their vast collections of nitrate films reels. Special vaults were built just for this purpose. The vaults were designed to be climate controllable and said to have been fireproof. Racks on both sides line the room three rows high, and large vents to the roof were installed in each vault. |  |
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On a particularly warm Christmas night a few years back I had the chance to take a stroll through this historic and captivating building. It, like so many other buildings in Detroit, had been a victim of decades of neglect, though not as bad as other buildings in the area. Provisions by the owner had kept this building from massively falling apart but it too was now facing the realities of our economic and cultural depression. Scrappers had recently been hard a work removing the copper pipes and remaining wire when I came across a hole near the loading dock. It was only a foot and a half high, just enough for a single person to crawl through. Making my way inside the very dark entrance I had to get on my hands and knees and slide through on my belly. The familiar smells of abandonment permeated the entryway, along with the foul smell of urine and excrement. The area was filled with the discarded remnants of various hobo paraphernalia and the belongings of people who had had their cars broken into during recent Red Wings games. Items lay randomly scattered on the floor; evidence of the scrappers and the homeless. The bottom floor of the Exchange was pretty boring. Nothing really remained in this area other than some mirrors on the wall and some wood paneling.
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While coming up the stairs to the second floor, I was startled by the sight of a small man, bathed in green iridescent light sitting inside on the window ledge. I quickly realized the man was just a stone carving actually on the outside of the window. In daylight you can see the initials F.E.B. engraved on a coat of arms next to the small stone statue. Most of the building was pretty desolate, nothing like the usual artifacts and decay normally found in most historic abandonments. This building did, however, contain some of the most intriguing and interesting artifacts found to date. In one area I was amazed to find the remains of tattered movie posters dating back to the 40s, 50s and 60s. Films like Bourbon Street Shakedown, The Comedy of Terror (starring Vincent Price), and The Alaska Passage, just to name a few. It was remarkable to see these relics of the Detroit movie heyday still lingering around for me to gaze upon in amazement.
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The vaults on each floor were identical with the exception of the vent placement. Once I reached the roof I realized why the vents were in different positions in each vault. Each shaft had its own vent on the roof covered and protected from the weather by wooden sheds that looked like little miniature houses sitting in overlapping rows. These sheds were extremely important to the climate control process. Filters and flues on both the roof and in the shafts themselves allowed the vaults to be dehumidified, thus keeping the nitrate film in pristine condition. When a certain movie house requested a film it would have been retrieved from one of these vaults and shipped out. | |
In the late 1930s the remaining non-Hollywood and Paramount theaters consolidated into what was called the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers, or SIMPP. In an attempt to stop the massive conglomerate known as “United Detroit” (a subsidiary company of Paramount) from controlling Detroit‘s regional industry. SIMPP heads Walt Disney and Sam Goldwyn filed suit claiming that United Detroit created an artificial market with stringent booking procedures inhibitive to independent film producers. Basically, if you wanted to show movies in Detroit you had to deal with United Detroit and Adolph Zukors Cooperative Booking agency at the Film Exchange or your movie would simply not be shown. The only exception to this rule was the Fox Theater. Though not independent, it was the only other first-run movie house in Detroit outside of Adolph Zukor’s control, but it too reluctantly adhered to the CBO’s booking procedures.
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In court, the SIMPP alleged that Paramount, through its subsidiary United Detroit, had manipulated the market in Detroit and controlled a monopoly on the movie houses via the distribution network at the Film Exchange. SIMPP did not just seek monetary justice but also wanted the court to forcibly dissolve the COB and end its monopolistic practices. If the SIMPP could win the Detroit monopoly case then it was poised to take down other monopolies that existed elsewhere in the country. The suite alleged that Paramount controlled a monopoly in the most advanced form. However, the case was not so clearcut as the SIMPP first thought. The case dragged out for many years and months, delayed even by America’s involvement in WWII. After the war, time had run out for Paramount and the “Hollywood Eight” when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the independent filmmakers (SIMPP) abolishing the standard practices of “block bookings” and eventually Paramount’s theater chain was sold.
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