Matinees On Main Street: A Movie History Podcast

Episode 100: A Look At Early California

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 7 Jan 2025 10:34:01 +0000

While California was already starting to take on movie people in 1910, Americans saw the start as someting much more exotic than that. Well look around at tht California on this episode.

100th Episode! Extra!

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 7 Jan 2025 10:12:31 +0000

I just want to let everyone who listens to this podcast to know that we have reached milestones. One hundred episodes are now available, and I'm about to achieve 2500 downloads on those episodes. So, I'll jabber on about myself for about ten minutes and then you can move on to the latest episode: THE WAY PEOPLE LOOKED AT CALIFORNIA IN 1910. Thank you!

Episode 99: The Biographers and the O'Kalems

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 14:55:22 +0000

The early movies were moving out of the studios and into the outlying areas. This includes the development of westerns, movies had in foregn lands, and comapnies starting to eye California as a place to work.

Episode 98: The Jack Johnson Fight

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:37:40 +0000

Episode 97: The Roosevelt Safari

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:13:02 +0000

When President Theodore Roosevelt retired from the Presidency, he immediately traveled to Africa to hunt big game in the name of the Smithsonian Institute. In the wake of this expedition, movies were made both with his permission and without it.

Episode 96: The French Come to America

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:10:06 +0000

In the middle of the Trust War, and the indie rebellion, The French eye the American market and start establishing branch companies in the US.

Episode 95: Upgrading Movie Theaters

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 10:39:25 +0000

Theater operator Roxy Rothephal started a drive to create a better movie watching experience by promoting better looking and larger movie theaters with the kind of amenities found in theater and high class department stores.

Episode 94- The "Do-Gooders" Effect

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 12:37:14 +0000

The moralist attitudes of Victorians was starting to focus its attention on the movies, and the Trust was responding in kind.

Episode 93 - The Westerns Look for a Home

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 1 Oct 2024 12:31:28 +0000

As the movie companies become interested in making western themed movies, a shift takes place as some ofthe companies start making westerns in the west.

Episode 92: How The Edisons Made Movies

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:08:03 +0000

The Edison Company was one of the few early movie companies to leave some historical record about how it made movies. We'll take a bit of a look at the work process.

Episode 91: D.W. Griffith and his Early Biograph Movies

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 3 Sep 2024 11:29:26 +0000

A look at D.W. Griffith's early work at Biograph Studios.

Episode 90: Little Mary Pickford

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 11:44:59 +0000

In the shadow of Florence Lawrence's success at Biograph, another young actress appeared - MAry Pickford. This is her early story.

Episode 89: The Biograph Girl

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Wed, 7 Aug 2024 15:02:36 +0000

Not very long after the studios started hiring actors on a permanent basis, on of those actors suddenly became popular - The Biograph Girl.

Episode 88 - The Rise Of The Independents

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 10:55:05 +0000

The attempt to organize the founding fathers of the movie industry into a Patent Trust soon led to the appearance of the first independent film companies that would have nothing to do with the Trust companies. This was the beginning of the Patent War.

Episode 87: THe Do-Gooders React

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 9 Jul 2024 18:20:39 +0000

The Do-Gooders start to leverage their power over the movies taking advantage of the political chaos in the movie industry.

Episode 86: The Establishment

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:18:24 +0000

The growing atraction of the movies grabbed the attention of America's power structure, not just the money men, but the moralists who were of two minds concerning the movies. On this episode we look at who they were.

Episode 85 - The Patent Trust Flexes It's Muscle

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 10:58:31 +0000

The Patent Trust was now completely organized, so they set out to force the film distributors and movie exhibitors to operate according to rules devised by the Trust. Good luck!

Episode 84: The Merger Of the Patent Trusts

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 28 May 2024 10:56:38 +0000

After a year of political gamesmanship, the two different patent groups, one headed by Edison Company, and the other headed by the Biograph Company, merged to create the official Patent Trust.

Episode 83 - Movies Of 1908

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Wed, 15 May 2024 20:28:21 +0000

A glance at some of the movies from 1908.

Episode 82: D.W. Griffith Appears

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 14:30:14 +0000

At the bginning of 1908, Biograph Company was on hard times. Then they hired D. W. Griffith, and everything changed.

Episode 81: Kalem Company Makes Ben Hur

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:48:59 +0000

In 1908, Kalem was a brand new film company focused on making quality films. One of ther first projects was to make a movie from the best selling novel Ben Hur.

Episode 80: Chicago Looks To The West

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 2 Apr 2024 17:47:30 +0000

The two Chicago movie companies, Essay and Selig, were making westerns by the end of 1907, and started to explore the American West as a backdrop to those movies.

Episode 79: Starting The Patent Trust

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 18:05:28 +0000

It's 1907, and the movie business is growing rapidly. In an attempt to control it, the Edison Company attempts to organized a patent trust with the other old guard movie companies.

Episode 78: The Panic of 1907

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 5 Mar 2024 15:55:09 +0000

Did the Panic of 1907 affect the movie business?

Episode 77: The NIckelodeon Problem

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:43:53 +0000

By 1907, NIckelodeon movie theaters were spreading across America. There were problems with the concept as it existed at the time, and there were people who were not going to let those theaters get away with those problems.

Episode 76: Movie-Mania

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 6 Feb 2024 17:48:21 +0000

In 1907 and 1908, the movies became a part of our lives, and with it came issues.

Episode 75: The Big Change

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:55:32 +0000

In 1904, the movies were a novelty. By 1907, the movies had become a national obsession. It time to look at the bigger picture as it concerns the big change.

Episode 74: The First Actors

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 9 Jan 2024 19:29:29 +0000

When the first movie companies started to make studios, and then hiring technicians to work in them, it was also time to start hiring actors.

Episode 73: The First Cameramen and Directors

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 17:04:11 +0000

By 1907, every company in the movie machine business was now focused on making movies, and that required cameramen, camerawomen, and directors. This episode takes a look at who they were.

Episode 72: EARLY MOVIE STUDIOS

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 17:02:09 +0000

The movie business really started to take off around 1907, and as it did, the first movie companies started building studios.

Episode 71: Movies From The Middle Of The First Decade Of The Twentieth Century

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 17:28:48 +0000

A look at the movies from the middle of the first decade of the Twentieth Century, from Parsifal to The Moon Lover to The Little Girl Who Didn't Believe In Santa Claus.

Episode 70: Chicago, The Second City

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 16:41:16 +0000

New York was not the only city to develop a film industry at the beginning ofthe twentieth century. Chicago also developed a strong film industry that not only made films, it distributed them. Was Chicago going to be the new leader in film making?

Episode 69 - The Thaw - White Murder

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 13:49:11 +0000

The murder of architect Stanford White by millionaire Harry Thaw was a scandal that made national news. And, in the end, the movies attemptedto cash in on the crime's notoriety.

Episode 68: Australia and the Ned Kelly Gang

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 17:42:26 +0000

The very early history of Australian cinema is told through the success of the legendary movie THE STORY OF THE NED KELLY GANG. The movie's success also allowed a group of men to create an entertainment monopoly down under, a monopoly that suffocated film making for a time.

Episode 67: Films of the San Francisco Earthquake

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 3 Oct 2023 18:05:56 +0000

After an earthquake hit San Francisco in April of 1906, a series of short documentary movies were released that drew a lot of attention to the movies just as their were becoming a rage among the public.

Episode 66: England and Cecil Hepworth

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 16:12:17 +0000

While America and France were both aggressively marketing movies, England's efforts seemed rather anemic with Cecil Hepworth proving to be more ambitious than the rest.

Episode 65: The Invisible Network

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 5 Sep 2023 14:06:31 +0000

By around 1906 or so, an invisible network of movie exhibition existed which has not been well researched up to this time. We'll try to take a look at this places if we can.

Episode 64: Pathé Changes The Game

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 15:20:26 +0000

As America's film market rapidly grows, the movie makers ignore the expanding market, and dawdle in making movies. French Pathé, hoping to conquer the American market, rushes in to fill the void.

Announcement

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 15:19:58 +0000

Episode 63: Harry Davis' Nickelodeon

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 8 Aug 2023 18:25:27 +0000

Looking at the legend of Harry DAvid's Nickelodeon theater on Pittsburgh, as it would soon be considered America's first movie house.

Episode 62: Hales Tours

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 22:06:33 +0000

America discovered amusements after the Chicago World's Fair and Coney, and thanks to that, George Hale devised a amusement ride that involved stationary train cars and travel movies.

Episode 61: The First Film Exchanges

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 15:59:54 +0000

Once the price for buying movies increased, the film exchanges became a very important reason why the movie market continued to expand.

Episode 60: Chase Films and the movie Personal

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:48:24 +0000

Chase movies become a genre in themselves thanks to the success of the movie Personal.

Episode 59: Chicago's William Selig

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 22:55:29 +0000

William Selig was one of Chicago's major filmmakers and he now enters into the story of the movies.

Episode 58: The Great Train Robbery

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 30 May 2023 20:07:21 +0000

This episode is about America's first great movie, as we look at the events that led to it, the paly it was based on, how the movie was made, and the influence it had at that time.

Episode 57: Early Movie Industry Chaos

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 16 May 2023 19:40:21 +0000

Edison's legal threats to the rest of the movie companies of the time put the entire industry into chaos. Its at this time that PAthé decided top market films in America, which in some ways made things worse. But, isn't that the way it ususally is with the film industry?

Episode 56: Pathé Frères

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 2 May 2023 18:47:59 +0000

Charles Pathé starts a phonograph and movie company with his brothers. With the help of Incorporation, Pathé Freres becomes a powerful company in Europe, and then invades the American market, leaving the Edison Company to try adn figure out how to deal with this laterst competitor.

Episode 55: Laughing At Very Early Comedies

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:05:59 +0000

At the beginning of the 20th century, simple comedies, many of them inspired by other sources, became a popular movie trend. On this episode, we'll take a look at some of them.

Episode 54: The First Moving Picture Theaters

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 4 Apr 2023 18:49:26 +0000

Episode 53: A Trip To The Moon

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 16:00:59 +0000

George Méliès released A TRIP TO THE MOON (Le Voyage dans La Lune), so lets take a look at the movie and it's history.

Episode 52: The Philadelphia Company - Lubin

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 7 Mar 2023 16:34:12 +0000

Siegmund Lubin, a Philadelphia optician, starts a film company and starts making early fight films.

Episode 51: The Beginning Of The Patent War

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 17:07:09 +0000

From the beginning, the Edison Company had a grudge against the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and over time, the Edisons set out to destroy that company through a legal war.

Episode 50: The Rise of the Traveling Exhibitors

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 7 Feb 2023 16:33:42 +0000

After the movies settled into vaudeville houses in the big cities, traveling exhibitors took the novelty into the smaller cities and towns, and even into the coutnry side.

Episode 49: Oh, The Stories We Could Tell

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 20:03:58 +0000

The first person to experiment with the idea of using moving pictures to tell stories was French filmmaker and magician Georges Méliès, and that was soon followed by Gaumont filmmaker Alice Guy.

Episode 48: Cinematic Odds And Ends-1900-1902

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 16:55:59 +0000

Stories and observations about the movies at the beginning ofthe Twentieth Century.

Episode 47: A Time Of Newsreels

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 20:58:34 +0000

After those years where the moving picture was a novelty, the public saw the movies as a news service. Here are some of the news events of that time and the people who filmed them.

Episode 46: Jeffries-Sharkey Fight

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:21:17 +0000

The first important movie of the twentieth century was the championship fight film between Jim Jeffries and Tom Starkey. it was a film that finally proved you could make an exciting indoor fight film with the help of a lot of lights.

Episode 45: A World Of Cinema in 1900

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 16:55:41 +0000

We take a look at how cinema was spreading around the world in 1900.

Episode 44: A Look at 1900

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:27:45 +0000

Episode 43: Cinema Comes To Japan

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 1 Nov 2022 18:05:05 +0000

Through Inabata Katsutaro, Japan has a connection to the Lumieres, as he brings projected moving pictures to Japan.

Episode 42: England and the Movies

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 18:25:28 +0000

Episode 41: Train Films and Phantom Rides

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 4 Oct 2022 19:35:31 +0000

At the end of the 19th century, one of the most popular type of films was moving images of trains, as well as the British version, known as the Phantom Ride.

Episode 40: The Spanish-American War (Part 2)

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 12:31:59 +0000

The actual war between America and Spain in 1898 was remarkably short. The fighting took place between June and September. During that time a lot of movies about the war were made, and they were all very successful. On this episode, we'll look at a number of them.

Episode 39: The Spanish-American War (Part 1)

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 6 Sep 2022 17:10:47 +0000

The break out of the Spanish American War in 1898 gave the American film industry a great opportunity to show the public that it was more than just a novelty. In Part One we look at the beginnings of the conflict, the explosion on the battleship Maine, and the early films of the war.

EPISODE 38: Leon Gaumont and Alice Guy

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:48:59 +0000

In this episode, Leon Gaumont ends up owning a company that makes movie machines, and on her down time, his secretary, Alice Guy, starts to make movies for the company.

Episode 37: The Beginning of The Patent War

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 9 Aug 2022 22:11:13 +0000

By 1898, Thomas Edison's production manager, William Gilmore, as well as Edison's lawyers, starting sizing up the people who were exploiting the patent that the electricity wizard lay claim to, and threaten those people with lawsuits in an attempt to coerce them to shut down or to pay a percentage to Edison. This scheme was only partially successful, but it would go on for years.

Episode 36: Vitagraph

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 17:46:01 +0000

We look at how two Brits living in America, and working in vaudeville, started the Vitagraph Company of America.

Episode 35: Actualities And Other Things

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:25:16 +0000

The novelty of seeing pictures move was no longer such a marvel to some people, so the moving picture people started making movies that created their own novelty. These films were were slices of life, now called actualities, but the movie people also started experimenting with comedy, magic tricks, and other types of novelties to get peoples' attention.

Episode 34: Georges Méliès

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 17:59:50 +0000

Georges Méliès now enters the picture. He will be the first person to take the idea of movies and do something creative with them. it is through the work of Melies that we get early movies about devils, witches, haunted houses, magical orchestras, fairy tales, and even a trip to the moon.

Episode 33: What People Thought Of Moving Pictures

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 17:03:39 +0000

So, after the first projector appeared, and after the first movies were shown in the theaters, what was on the public's minds about this interresting new novelty?

Episode 32: The Passion Plays

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 31 May 2022 17:53:15 +0000

The very first movies that attempted to expand the length at which movies could be shown were Passion Plays, which was the narrative about the last week in the earthly life of Jesus Christ. These were made by two independent groups outside of the three main New York movie companies of that time. A lot of conflict arose over the propriety of filming religious stories, especially ones involved major religious figures.

Episode 31: The Paris Charity Bazaar Fire

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 17 May 2022 22:52:44 +0000

In May of 1897, a year after projectors were introduced to the public, a terrible fire alerted the public to the dangers of the cinema, even though it was not the movies themselves, but a accompanying lantern that sparked the tragedy.

Episode 30: The Corbett - Fitzsimmons Fight

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 3 May 2022 19:57:51 +0000

In 1897, a film of the Corbett Fitzsimmons fight showed that movies could last more than forty seconds. This is story of how the fight came to be, the way the movie was filmed, and its success.

Episode 29: 1897

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:39:33 +0000

Now that the seeds of early cinema have been planted, let's take a look at the world of cinema at that time.

Episode 28: Cinema Begins In Chicago

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 5 Apr 2022 18:00:21 +0000

After the first movie projectors spread across America, A two people in Chicago, William Amet and George Spoor, develop a projector and start making movies.

Episode 27: New York, New York

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:45:35 +0000

So why did New York City become the first home of the movies? This episode will explain why that happened.

Episode 26: America Discovers Projected Movies

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 8 Mar 2022 21:29:47 +0000

The arrival of the Edison and Lumiere projectors in New York vaudeville houses proves to be and introduction of these movie machines into America. Investors start buying and promoting Edison films, while itinerant mechanics attempt to build their own projectors. Through this mishmash of mechanical creativity, the American public gets it first taste of movies.

Episode 25: Koopman, Dickson, Casler and Marvin

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 05:17:47 +0000

Once William Kennedy Laurie Dickson left the Edison Company, he joined friends who had been developing a desktop viewing machine known as the Mutoscope, and the foursome organized a company known as American Mutoscope and Biograph, a company that attempted to avoid confrontations with the Edison Group, but at the came time directly challenged them in a number of ways.

Episode 24: Vitascope Stars: May Irwin and Cissy Fitzgerald

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 8 Feb 2022 18:15:15 +0000

The very first stars in the projector era were two young ladies whose film shorts proved to be quite popular: May Irwin and Cissy Fitzgerald.

Episode 23: Cinema Goes Global

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:33:24 +0000

Louis and Auguste Lumiere are ready to sell their cinematographe worldwide. Lumiere cameramen and salesmen take the machine to the various cities of the world and promote the idea of moving images to places that never saw them before, including Russia, China, Japan, India, South America, Mexico and Australia.

Episode 22: Edison Introduces The Vitascope

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 22:39:05 +0000

With projectors being introduced to Americans in vaudeville houses, the Edison Company brings out it's own projector, known as the Vitascope. This was the machine based on the projector devised by Thomas Armat and Charles Francis Jenkins.

Episode 21: Vaudeville

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 19:39:25 +0000

For several years, the primary place to watch movies was in vaudeville houses. This episode give you a brief history of live public entertainment in America in the 1800s and how it led to vaudeville. Vaudeville's sudden rise, it popularity, its exhibition scheduling, and it moral influence all had an effect on the movies at its birth.

Episode 20: Cinema Arrives in London

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 18:27:29 +0000

Through the efforts of the Lumiere brothers and London scientific instrument maker Robert Paul, projectors start to appear in London.

Episode 19: The First Public Movie Exhibition

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 19:59:53 +0000

Merry Christmas. A few days after the Christmas of 1895, the Lumieres showed a series of film shorts in a small basement salon in downtown Paris. A number of people who had seen Lumiere films at private showings attended this post Christmas exhibition, as well as others. around thirty or so people attended this first showing, but the size of the crowds were grow a lot as the Lumieres continued to exhibit their films.

Episode 18: The Original Star: Annabelle Moore

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:42:19 +0000

The star performer of the first movie clip to be wildly popular was Annabelle Moore Whitford, a dancer who became popular in Chicago at the time of the city's Columbian Exposition and World's Fair. Her dances, known as the Butterfly Dance, and the Serpentine Dance, were influenced by another Chicagoan, Loie Fuller, who turned skirt dancing into an artform, and launched the Modern Dance movement. This is the wild story of both of them.

Episode 17: The Lumieres

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 2 Nov 2021 21:14:07 +0000

While Edison continues to market a peephole machine, in France, the Lumieres develop a projector of their own.

Episode 16: The Poisonous Partnership

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 18:45:37 +0000

Thomas Armat and Charles Jenkins, two men from the Washington DC area, develop America's first movie projector. This machine will be very important in film history, as its the first projection machine that Thomas Edison would market, but it is the damaged relationship between the two men that makes this an intriguing story.

Episode 15: Laurie Dickson's Problems

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 5 Oct 2021 21:00:00 +0000

William Laurie Dickson worked with Thomas Edison to build the kinetoscope. Unfortunately resentment, as well as pressure from others to help build machines for them is putting him in a very difficult position. What's he going to do?

Episode 14: The Early Kinetoscope Films

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 17:00:00 +0000

Episode 14 looks at some of the stars of the first kinetoscope films. These people were primarily vaudeville stars, including those who had become friends of Edison developer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. These people include the bodybuilder Samson, Little Miss Sure Shot, Annie Oakie, and the Spanish dancer Carmencita.

Episode 13: Kinetoscopes Appear in Europe

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 7 Sep 2021 20:00:00 +0000

Two groups of men, one of them being Greek Americans, and the other being the investment group of Maguire and Baucus, both introduce the kinetoscope to Europe. There, they will inspire Robert Paul and Birt Acres in London, the Lumiere brothers in France, and possibly Max Skladanowsky in Berlin.

Episode 12: And The Winner Is...The Lathams Exhibit Boxing Films

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Otway and Gray Latham join with a few friends to convince the Edison Company to make a boxing film. The film will be show in their kinetoscope parlor set up in lower Manhattan, and would prove to be a success, at least for a time. This would be the first of a number of successes for the movies and boxing as they ally with each other for the mutual success of both. This episode includes a brief history of boxing up to this time.

Episode 11: New York City Sees It's First Moving Pictures Through a Peephole Machine

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 18:00:00 +0000

The Edison Company starts to sell kinetoscopes through a outside distribution group formed by the Holland Brothers of Toronto, Ontario, and Norman Raff and Frank Gammon. The foursome establish a kinetoscope parlor on Broadway in the old theater district and are surprised by their immediate success.

Episode 10: Looking At The First Kinetoscope Clips

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 18:00:00 +0000

Thomas Edison's lab is readying the kinetoscope for the world to watch. But before it's ready, test films have to be made, as well as films that will become available to customers once the kinetoscopes are available. On this episode, we'll take a look at the Edison lab's readying process, the bugs they have to work out, and these first Edison films, including DICKSON GREETING and FRED OTT'S SNEEZE.

Episode 9: Edison Devises A Peephole Machine Called the Kinetoscope

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 19:00:00 +0000

Thomas Edison, with a lot of help from his assistant manager, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, starts to explore the idea of making pictures that move. He'll investigate the idea of linking the moving images to sound by designing a machine that will work with a phonograph, before finally making a peephole machine that shows moving pictures but doesn't have any sound.

Episode 8: The Paths Not Taken

pvodick@gmail.com (Patricia Vodick) — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 21:00:00 +0000

This is an episode dedicated to some of those people not considered when discussing the the line of influence that leads to the movies. Some of them were just too early to count. Some of them, like Ottomar Anschultz and Auguste Le Prince, should be at least considered. In all five cases, more efforts should be made to research the lives and potential influence of these men.

Episode 7: From Muybridge to Marey to Edison

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 20:00:00 +0000

This is how one idea, the idea of moving images traveled from Eadweard Muybridge to both Etienne Jules Marey, who would develop a moving picture camera, and Thomas Edison, who would pursue Muybridge's idea of creating a machine to produce both moving images and sound at once. Edison would then discover the machine that could capture those images, when he visited Marey in Paris. These are the meetings that would bring together the idea of moving pictures.

Episode 6: George Eastman and Kodak

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 1 Jun 2021 23:00:00 +0000

George Eastman, and frustrated amateur photographer looks for a way to simplify the photographic process and ends up developing a camera film that would finally allow the first inventors of movie making machines to progress in their ideas.

Episode 5: Muybridge Photographs Racehorses

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 18 May 2021 17:00:00 +0000

We follow the trials and tribulations of Eadweard Muybridge and Gov. Leland Stanford after their first horse photograph sessions in Sacramento. Muybridge faces a murder trial and Stanford leaves Sacramento for San Francisco, and the two men eventually spend two years shooting pictures of racehorses at Stanford's horse farm at Palo Alto.

Episode 4: The Curious Path Of Young Tom Edison

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan Linquist) — Tue, 4 May 2021 16:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we follow young Thomas Edison as he develops his interest in telegraphy, and uses it to develop his career in inventing communications systems. We see how telegraphy eventually leads to the telephone, how the early telephone led to Edison's experiment with the phonograph, and how all of this effects the way he views his investigations into moving images.

Episode 2: Muybridge and Stanford

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:00:00 +0000

A British emigrée to America attempts to make a career out of selling books and artwork during the Gold Rush, before heading back to Europe just as the civil War breaks out. Once there, he discovers the joys of photography. He turning to America after the war, he makes a name for himself in the West as a landscape photographer, before being approached by one of America's richest men to make a glamour photograph of his prize horse.

Episode 3: Etienne Jules Marey And His Animals

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:00:00 +0000

After failing the test for his Doctor's license, Etienne Jules Marey decides to start studying the motion of animals instead. While doing so, he develops a camera that can take multiple pictures on a glass slide, at a fast rate.

Episode 1: Snapshot-The Development of Photography

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 19:00:00 +0000

After a brief introduction about the movies and our culture, the early ideas that lead to photography pass from the ancient Greeks to the scientists of the Enlightenment. From there, we watch as three men, Nicephore Niepce, Louis Daguerre, and Henry Talbot experiment with light sensitive chemicals as they struggle to find a way to capture images of the real world using those chemicals.

Introduction to Matinees On Main Street

pvodick@gmail.com (Alan) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 19:00:00 +0000

This is a short introduction to Matinees On Main Street, as I explain who I am, how I want to explain this story, as well as the nuts and bolts of the podcast.