Motion Picture Filmography of Wayne County, Ohio

Comprehensive History

During the early years of the cinema, 1895 to 1910, local films were a regular feature of the picture show. These early films were often made by itinerant film makers, who traveled from town-to-town capturing people and scenes on films that after developing the movies would then charge the local audiences to see at a temporary event. Audiences and exhibitors alike recognized local views as motion pictures that were made near the site of their intended exhibition in order to give those people the opportunity to see themselves as others saw them on the big screen. One could be captured in a local film in much the same manner that one made the decision to go see a picture show: just by showing up.

Local filmmaking starts to change around 1910, when what is best described as the “institutionalization” of the movie business began. Film distributors started to circulate film programs on a regular, and predictable, basis. Film production itself became more organized, and within a few years, the building blocks of the industry—genres and stars—were in place. In most cities and towns, the movies themselves went from an occasional spectacle shown at a fair or temporary entertainment exhibit to a permanent movie house/theater, and soon became a fixture in local life. In many ways, the cinema’s arrival as an institution occurred precisely at the same time that a “moving picture theater” was established in a town.

Soon the traveling filmmakers began planning scenes of particular people and places, and, within a few years, began shooting narrative fiction pictures. Instead of paying for production costs upfront, filmmakers asked the business organizations and other local groups to sponsor their work. Rather than exhibiting their movies in a temporary location, they contracted with theater managers to show their films at the new movie house in town.

The films produced in the small towns of Wayne County, Ohio between the years of 1910-1950s could be categorized into author, Martin L. Johnson's, six significant modes of local film production: municipal booster films, home talent pictures, local Hollywood films, amateur fiction films, movies of mutual recognition, and civic films. The majority of the local Wayne County, Ohio films which have survived to this day, fit the municipal booster film type. These movies were intended to promote a city to its own residents, as well as to nonresidents who might see the film at an exposition or even at a theater in their own city.

Filmography of Known Films

• 1912-1913 filmmaker Charles V. Burton films Wooster, Ohio
  

Description: Charles Vance Burton working for a Specialty Film Co. in Cleveland, Ohio who was getting footage for Pathe Weekly, filmed scenes of various people and places in Wooster, Ohio. Of note was a clip showing Alberta Claire who was passing through Wooster at the time. She was first woman to travel from coast to coast on horseback.

• Title: Wooster's Hero (1923)
  

Sponsored by the Wooster Daily Record newspaper and directed by Don O. Newland.
Description: A screamingly funny comedy produced in the City of Wooster on the Lyric Theater stage and streets of Wooster. Featuring an all-star cast of local people: Miss Miriam Steiner (winner of Popular Girl contest), Jack Lytle, "Zeke" Alcock, and Mrs. Walter Mougey, and many others.

• 1928 Orrville, Ohio

Produced by National Film Company, Akron, Ohio
Description: a movie that is best defined as a municipal booster movie: reportedly showed the principle people and organizations in Orrville and businesses of note.

• Title: Around Town in Your Town of Wooster 1938
  

Produced by National Film Productions, Akron, Ohio
Description: a movie that is best defined as a municipal booster movie: showing 35 clips of the principle people and organizations in Wooster and businesses of note.

• 1942 Shreve Band Mother's Club Movie
  

Description: a movie of two reels of local film that showed business men and their places of business, organizations, school pupils and teachers. Producer also promised surprise pictures of people on the street in Shreve, Ohio.

Newspaper articles

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  1913 Wayne County Democrat newspaper reports that a film company was in Wooster recording for Pathe Weekly.

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  1923 a Popular Girl Contest in which the winner was to star in local movie play being directed by Don. O. Newland.

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  1923 advertisement announcing the premiere of the local movie, Wooster's Hero.

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  In 1928 the National Film Co. from Akron, Ohio was in Orrville, Ohio recording.

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  In 1942 Shreve, Ohio, the school Band Mother's sponsored a movie that starred local Shreve area people.