Nontheatrical Film
Catalogs and their cover art were key for nontheatrical film distribution.
While film in the 20th century came to dominate media, culture, and scholarly study, films outside of the Hollywood theatrical space have often been left behind. In particular, nontheaterical film was present in the daily life of Americans since the early 1900s, yet these films have been given less recognition and resources than theatrical films.1 Nontheatrical films are a broad grouping of motion pictures with four key aspects: a sponsor, a targeted audience, the intention of multi-sited exhibition, and the ability to reapply the film to different functions.2 Due to their perceived lesser status, many nontheatrical films have significant preservation challenges or have been completely lost to film history.
Comparing theatrical film to its nontheatrical counterpart creates a clearer understanding of nontheatrical film. Theatrical film is the classic type of film known to most people. These are films created for mass market appeal, often to the generalized public or large subsections. When created, theatrical films, especially motion pictures by large production houses, are easily duplicated and distributed to thousands of movie theaters across the United States and the world through centralized distribution systems.3 Major marketing budgets are spent in advertising the film to the public for maximum ticket sales and focus on getting audiences to come into the theater specifically to watch the film itself. Moreover, audiences, critics, and filmmakers consider the film to be a work of art, discussed and analyzed deeply.4 Success is often measured in the hundred of millions or even the billions of viewers and dollars. Movie theaters are also well-stocked with regular releases of upcoming theatrical films from large studios, with fresh films every few weeks.5 Once outside of the initial run in theaters, theatrical films may get some value as sporadic re-releases or within the home market via the likes of DVD or, later, digital streaming, but the focus and success mainly stems from its limited run within theaters with the public eye switching to the next new release.
Nontheatrical film distributors would gain selling rights for a wide variety of content, including this page showing listings for Soundies now moved from specialized machines to 16mm film. What's a Soundie? Check out our other exhibit all about Soundies!
On the other hand, nontheatrical films offer a different conception of film purpose, presentation, and distribution. To begin with, nontheaterical films are sponsored efforts, often by small or large businesses, governmental entities, or charitable and nonprofit causes, directed to a targeted audience for a specific function. These functions varied widely from serving as an aid in selling women’s garments, to helping educate American farmers on animal disease prevention.6 This category of film was seen as serving a purpose and often not as a form of art, which could have contributed to many nontheaterical films not having credits.7 Films, an expensive investment, could only make fiscal sense in the nontheaterical world if the film would serve a maximum shelf life. With this in mind, many films stayed away from timely references and could be seen as effective for years of reuse.8 If an entire film could not fit a purpose, a common practice was the re-editing of films or the reuse of shots in new releases to fit new objectives or updates to ease cost concerns.9 Some nontheatrical films even lacked release dates entirely, which contributed to issues of preservation and archiving.10
Receiving the message was also quite different from a theatrical film. Nontheaterical films were often held outside of movie theaters. Common presentation sites included city parks, schools, businesses, and even projected onto the sides of buildings.11 When nontheaterical films were shown in theaters, the financial dynamics differed greatly from theatrical cinema. Nontheatrical film sponsors would rent the theater or pre-purchase tickets to ensure revenue to the theater operator.12 Additionally, these films were often shown alongside other presentation materials and events, including handouts, speeches, slide presentations, knowledge checks, and demonstrations given before, during, or after playing the film. The entire event could routinely be double the length of the film shown, which could vary widely from less than 30 minutes to over an hour depending on the subject and goals of the film.13 Attendance was often free, to attract the largest amount of people interested in the topic. Clearly, nontheaterical film viewing differed from the traditional theatrical experience, with decentralized viewing, a larger presentation experience, and targeted patronage.
Large corporations, like Ford Motor Company shown above, could manage their own private distribution efforts. Even so, few centralized and all-encompassing distribution networks existed for nontheaterical film.
Gaining rights to distribute theatrical films was a lucrative business for many distributors. Having some classic westerns never hurt to draw interest.
Finally, the distribution system for nontheaterical film contrasted with theatrical cinema. Supplying movie theaters with theatrical releases consisted of a centralized network of film distributors, often with direct integration with major Hollywood production houses. The large scale allowed for a steady stream of new releases directly to the many theaters across America. Instead, nontheatrical film distribution was sporadic and relied on regional or local repositories.14 Public distributors were often universities while private for-profit distribution businesses also operated under rights holding agreements.15 Relying on interested parties connecting with the distributor to sell or rent nontheaterical films, these distributors needed a way to keep interested parties aware of their changing film holdings. Key to distribution was the film catalog, a guide to the film listings a distributor possessed, often organized by film subject. Less centralized and providing greater power to the clients, nontheatrical film distribution charted a distinct path.
Nontheatrical film history dates back to the earliest days of moving images. The term “nontheatrical” first made appearances in industry sources by the 1920s, and films that would fall under this label were made even earlier.16 Examples of early nontheaterical film date back to the late 1890s, including a film for Adminal Cigarettes made by the Edison Company in 1897.17 Early nontheaterical film saw the pioneering use of film techniques such as camera panning when capturing the intricate workings of industrial machines in industrial and training films.18 Both nontheatrical and theatrical film began with the use of 35mm nitrate film and transitioned to using acetate film when it was introduced as a nonflammable alternative. The release of 16mm acetate film in 1923 and later introduction of 8mm in the 1930s made nontheatrical moving images diverge from its cinematic counterpart. The smaller film stocks were beneficial for nontheaterical film as it was more affordable. Moreover, smaller film standards made for smaller, lighter projection equipment, a distinct advantage for the film category reliant on frequently transporting equipment between sites.19 This time period, through the end of the 1930s saw an marked increase in nontheatrical film adoption, especially by churches, educational institutions, and private businesses.20 Far from the centralized growth based from large production houses seen by theatrical film in this period, nontheaterical film grew sporadically and independently until World War II.21 During this period experimentation in filmmaking and profitability created the basis of corporate, industrial, travel, and other nontheaterical film categories. Distribution systems for both types of film were solidified, with theatrical film having a centralized circulation based in New York and Hollywood through the major film studios.22 In contrast, nontheatrical film grew in more independently and sporadicly, relying on regional and local film distributors to make films available.23
Although market conditions for nontheaterical film were declining, many successful distributors continued operations into the 1980s, like this catalog by legendary nontheatrical distributor Kit Parker Films.
A marked shift in nontheaterical film happened as the United States became involved in World War II. The large hurdle of nontheaterical film creation, the costs of production, was solved during the war as US government funding for nontheaterical film surged.24 The plethora of wartime films on instruction and training for factory workers and soldiers provided proof of the effectiveness of film to private industry and other entities after the war was over as well.25 In particular, public education institutions increasingly adopted moving images after the war as a key teaching tool.26 Moreover, the trend of smaller film gauge adoption continued.27 With these advancements, the nontheaterical film market expanded greatly from the 1940s to the 1960s, including the marked rise in film distributors.28 By the 1960s several hundred distributors were connected with an excess of 2,500 libraries.29 This era saw the growth of nontheaterical film companies specializing in one or more genres. Regional distribution networks also benefited from securing rights to older Hollywood releases newly printed onto smaller film gauges.30 It was a win-win as Hollywood found a way to monetize older films at the small scale, and distributors gained a new revenue stream. As Kit Parker, a former film distributor, explained, large film studios were unresponsive to small scale distribution requests, ““... they’d call Warners’ Burbank office or another branch, and Warner Bros. would say, “Call Kit!” They were happy to have someone to forward $200 rental requests to. It relieved them of a burden. They treated me like gold while it lasted.”31 By the 1970s the nontheaterical film market was creating a plethora of films, with estimates of major theatrical studios making less than 300 films in 1977 compared to more than 15,000 by the nontheaterical industry.32 Nontheaterical film production would unfortunately not remain at these levels for long.
New media formats spelled the downfall of nontheatrical film starting in the latter 1970s. Several formats to rival small gauge film were released in quick succession, including LaserDisc, VHS, and Betamax. These new formats provided plentiful and cheap competition to film, especially eating into the circulation of older theatrical films which formed a key aspect of income for regional film distributors. Compounded in the decline was the cutting of budgets by educational institutions, a major clientbase for distributors.33 Although new and innovative, these formats had sufficient downsides that kept film relevant; for instance, the fidelity of VHS was a step down from film and LaserDiscs had reliability issues with rendering on consumer TV sets.34 The final end to film distribution came with the adoption of DVDs in the late 1990s. The cost, image quality, and popularity of DVDs made film noncompetitive.35
In addition to films, some catalogs sold film equipment, like this one from Keystone Manufacturing Company selling camera lenses and filters.
This back cover shows some of the daily work of the film distribution company Allan Sandler Film Libraries, Inc.
The proliferation of smaller film guages and equipment were key to nontheaterical film. Marketing to the amatuer audience, like this ad from 1926 shows, helped in this process.
Inventive cost saving efforts were common in nontheatrical film as expenses could be large, like this opportunity to rent out your skills and equipment by Ideal Pictures Corporation.