THE FIRST MOVING PICTURE SHOW

ARIZONA'S FIRST PICTURE SHOW

They came on foot, on horse-back, and in wagons, not exactly sure what they were about to see. But they'd read newspapers hailing the new form of entertainment as a kind of magic, a wonder to behold. Even at the steep price of a dollar a show, few could restrain their curiosity about a newfangled contraption that actually made pictures move. The first lengthy movie tour in Arizona Territory began in July, 1897, and continued into February, 1898. Audiences found the new technology so real that at one venue the pictures sparked a panic. Traveling movie entrepreneurs C.L. "Valley" White, a former Globe telegraph messenger, and his second partner, Charles M. Clark, pulled in to Fort Apache on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in January, 1898. White was nearing the end of a wild ride, consisting of 50 show dates in 22 locations, from isolated farmhouses to hearty ranch towns. He hauled with him an incomprehensible machine, called a projectoscope, that gave life to scenes most frontiersmen had never before witnessed and probably would never see again. No matinees were scheduled at the fort, but White and Clark agreed to an afternoon showing at the request of an officer curious to see how the Indians would react. Runners were sent to notify the Apaches that, in Clark's words, "The Great White Father had sent a couple of his sons to show the Indians how his people lived." They began arriving at the post hall about 2 P.M. on January 31. But blankets had been hung over the windows to darken the room, and the frightened Apaches refused to step inside. Only after an interpreter was stationed at the door, assuring them that there was no danger, did they consent to enter.

The show was a hit, especially the comedy shorts. But to fill time while changing spools, White played a film of the New York City Fire Department racing to a conflagration. It showed a smoking engine drawn by three enormous horses, galloping straight into the camera from six blocks away.

Clark banged a gong and blew a whistle during the run, adding to the realism that proved too much for the row of Indian women sitting on the floor a few feet from the screen.

"When the big fire engine had reached the first cross street from the camera, with a howl of terror, the whole row went over backwards, squaws, papooses, blankets, and all," Clark wrote in his memoir, now at the Arizona Historical Society, a group he went on to head for 14 years. "Right there we had a riot on our hands."

White dove to protect the films that weren't in use, while Clark yanked the blankets from the windows to let light into the hall. It didn't help.

"Those Apaches fought and scratched, climbed over one another to get to the door," Clark remembered. "We finally got the hall clear without any fatalities. That was some matinee, believe me."

White and his first partner, a shadowy gambler known only as Kennedy, had begun their historic tour at the Bisbee Opera House about July 10. They next traveled to Nogales; Tucson; Silver City, New Mexico; and Tombstone.

"The Kissing Scene put our devil [apprentice] in ecstasy of delight," reported the Tombstone Epitaph for September 12,"... as he pictures the last act when the kisser settles down upon her lips like a carrier pigeon coming home to roost."

From Tombstone White and Kennedy picked up and went to Florence, Phoenix, and Prescott before landing in Jerome in November.

The high-flying copper camp proved too rich for Kennedy, who lost his portion of the business at the gaming tables. In his place stepped Clark, an assayer who'd been White's boss at the Globe telegraph office. He accepted Kennedy's $400 debt in exchange for a half interest in the enterprise, and the shows continued to play across northern and eastern Arizona for another two months.

Few details are known about the first part of the White-Kennedy tour. The only information comes from newspaper blurbs trumpeting the showmen's arrival in a particular town and accompanying ads, as one published in the Arizona Daily Citizen, of Tucson, for July 29: "At Reid's Opera House the animated Projectoscope with an entire change of program, including the great Spanish bull fight. The pictures are all the latest and must be seen to be appreciated."

The Florence Tribune, dated October 9, offered more substance. The paper called the picture exhibition "a mysterious combination of electricity and mechanics" that allowed "animated, realistic, and entrancingly beautiful scenes" to be projected onto a screen 16 feet square.

"These pictures are marvels of photographic and scientific achievement," the Tribune raved. "Over 25,000 separate and distinct photographs were taken, at the rate of 2,700 a minute, on a celluloid ribbon, or film, over one mile in extent."

The film was propelled through the projectoscope by a hand-turned crank. The machine, invented by Thomas Edison, was first displayed before paying audiences in New York, eight months before White and Kennedy set up shop at the Bisbee Opera House, according to Tucson movie historian George C. Hall.

Hall noted that even that early exhibition wasn't the first moving picture shown in Arizona.

That occurred a couple of months earlier, May 10, 1897, when the Buckman comedy company opened at the Elks Theater in Phoenix.

The troupe brought with it a similar machine called the "wonderful Magniscope." In his research, Hall found that Buckman made only two other stops in Arizona, in Phoenix and Tucson, before leaving the Territory in early June.

(RIGHT) This working reproduction of the projectoscope is used in living history shows to re-create the ambience of an early cinema performance. BOTH FROM THE GEORGE C. HALL COLLECTION "In the Buckman tour, the movies were really only a sideshow," says Hall. "They added the magniscope when they stopped in El Paso and used it as a filler between acts. So in a sense, White's tour was the first because it was strictly movies."

The second portion of White's tour was well-documented in Clark's memoir. About mid-November, after a week of shows in Jerome, Clark wrote that he and White departed for Ash Fork, west of Flagstaff. The showmen rented a one-room schoolhouse and hired a boy to distribute flyers to every house in town. That night 60 customers, including rail-road men laying over for the night and Harvey House waitresses, packed into a room designed for 30. The show included such exciting titles as The Morning Bath, May Irwin and John Rice Kissing Scene, Skirt Dance by Sissy Fitzgerald, and Surf at Long Beach.

White turned the crank and operated the calcium light, a substitute when electricity was unavailable, while Clark handled the door. The crowd was so delighted at the show that members of the audience unanimously requested another night of entertainment. But the movie men had to leave for a booking in nearby Kingman.

"Much to my surprise," wrote Clark, "when we counted our receipts for the night, we had taken in $64 in a town that did not appear to contain more than 50 people."

Kingman was a standing-room-only success, too. Then it was on to Needles, California, and back to Arizona for engagements in Williams and Holbrook. Shortly after Christmas, Clark and White got permission to put on shows at Fort Apache.

But getting there over bad roads in the heart of winter was tough. They hired a driver to handle a four-horse wagon team to haul their precious picture machine through the White Mountains. "There was a foot of snow on the ground, and it was very cold riding," Clark wrote.

PICTURE SHOW

At Fort Apache, the men put on four shows that drew 864 paid admissions. Among the films presented was a heavyweight boxing match between John J. Corbett and Peter Courtney.

But White and Clark owned only the first, fourth, and sixth rounds of the bout. The showmen expanded on their offering by running the first and fourth rounds, then showing the same two rounds in reverse. Then they loaded the sixth round, which showed Corbett's knockout.

"We got away with this without criticism," wrote Clark, "except for one soldier, who remarked as we ran the reversed rounds: 'Gee, look at Corbett work his right hand!'" Actually it was Corbett's left hand that clobbered Courtney.

By the time White and Clark gave their final showing, on the night of the nearly calamitous fire engine matinee, the Apaches had enough of the white man's genius. Not a single Indian stood at the door peeking in and jabbering, as they had through the previous exhibitions.

But Hall said episodes of severe fright were common among white audiences, too. "When footage of surf roaring toward the camera was shown to Eastern audiences in those days, people ran out of the theater," says Hall. "They thought they were going to get drenched."

White's historic tour continued at Concho, St. Johns, Springerville, and again at Snowflake and Holbrook. The end came in February, 1898, when White boarded a train at the Holbrook depot headed to the next show in Gallup, New Mexico. Some equipment had failed, and Clark agreed to stay behind to await replacement parts.

As the train rolled away, White stepped out to wave good-bye to his partner. He lost his footing and fell under the wheels. The Holbrook Argus for February 12 reported that one of his legs was badly mangled, and the toes of his other foot were severed.

"His cries attracted the attention of several parties who rushed to his assistance," reported the Argus. "A rude stretcher was hastily procured and sympathetic hands carried him to the hotel. His sufferings were horrible in the extreme, and his heartrending cries could be heard all over town."

White underwent two hours of surgery but died without emerging from the chloroform. The man who gave the Territory its first extended look at the magic of moving pictures is buried in the Holbrook cemetery.

After an exhibition in Snowflake, the pair stopped in Show Low at the home of George and Martha Adams. Martha served a meal and afterward pressed White and Clark to put on a show. "Well, hardly," White replied, "there are no people to patronize us and no place to show."

But Martha had already spread the word that the movie men were coming and offered the use of her dining room and kitchen as a theater. "You can just as well use them if they will do," she said, "because everybody will be here in an hour to see the show."

Her sons emptied the rooms of furniture while White and Clark unpacked their gear. "Before we were entirely ready for them," Clark remembered, "the people began to arrive, coming on horseback, in wagons, and sleighs. By the time we had the machine set up... there were quite enough to fill the seating capacity of the dining room."

As each neighbor arrived, Martha said, "It will be a dollar for each person. Those are the showmen over there."

White operated his projectoscope for almost five hours. As he and Clark packed up, thinking they were done for the night, they overheard a young woman, thrilled at experiencing her first moving pictures, say, "Hank, didja fetch yer mouth harp?" "Betcher life," replied Hank, who reached into his vest pocket and brought out a harmonica. He hit a lick or two against his left hand to knock out the wheat grains and chaff, took a long breath, and struck up a lively tune As Hank huffed and puffed on his harmonica, Clark said, the young woman teetered on her toes and exclaimed, "Bully!" Then she approached a man named Tom and asked if he'd brought his fiddle. Tom said no. The inquiring lady was mighty disappointed and kept pestering Tom until he agreed to ride his horse four miles through the snow to fetch it.

The party lasted until 7 o'clock the next morning, when Martha Adams cooked a huge breakfast of fried chicken and gravy, baking-powder biscuits, homemade butter, and strong coffee with thick cream.

Clark said the show, dance, and sumptuous feast were the talk of Apache County for months. "I don't know just how many chickens the Adams family originally had, but I do know they had quite a number less after that breakfast was over," he wrote.