Here's What We Plan to Be Offering Soon:
BRINGS YOU
UP-TO-DATE MOVIE ENTERTAINMENTS
FROM NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT.
AND MUCH MORE, PLUS
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Real Movies on Real Film
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Home Movies, 1920s-1980s
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EXCELSIOR SILENT FILM SHOWS:
The Nickelodeon Era 1905-1915
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Feature-Length Silent Films 1916-1929
Plus Comedy and Other Short Subjects
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Time Travel with a Projector
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Excelsior's Petaluma Project:
Recreating Nickelodeon Shows from the 1910s
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Where Can You See Excelsior Shows?
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CLICK BELOW FOR A SAMPLING OF
EXCELSIOR'S PAST AND PROPOSED PROGRAMS
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Things to Come...
Wonderful Enhancements, Innovations and Shows in the Works
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PERFECT FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
HOME MOVIE HEAVEN
Home movies-- 16mm, 8mm, and Super-8; what a time capsule!
These vintage films give us a privileged glimpse of people and
places as they were 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, even 80 or more years ago.
It's a fascinating ride through the past, especially if these show
people or places or events you've known or known of long ago.
Nostalgia, yes-- and some of them are just plain entertaining.
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Book a show with choice picks from Excelsior's Home Movie Library.
Supply some of your own home movies if you have them, and perhaps
mix with some of our other vintage Real Movies of the same period
for a richly-textured silver-screen visit to the world of yesterday.
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Do you have old home movies and no way to screen them?
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Do you have friends with old home movies?
Invite them to share by having an Open Screen Party so all can see.
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An Open Screen night or matinee is also ideal for schools and libraries.
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Are you planning to transfer your films to video and want a look first?
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Have you come upon a box of unknown reels of film and want a showing?
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Do you have small-format sound or silent films of any sort
you'd like to have screened?
We can help.
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Whether you're planning a large gathering for your movie event
or just need a personal showing, Excelsior's Home Movie Heaven is
ready and eager to put your treasures up on the big screen.
We have all the projectors needed (and then some), and in many cases
we even have them from the very decade when your movies were shot.
If you like to time-travel, you can even make your screening a complete
retro event, with clothing and decor from the 1920s up to the 80s
(when home video was taking over from film). Using a significant
someone's birth or wedding year can yield an especially appealing theme.
Home movies pretty much began with the introduction of
16mm safety film in 1923, followed in 1932 by more-affordable
8mm. Glorious Kodachrome color became available for the
home market in 1937. Various systems were devised for
adding magnetic or optical sound to both 16mm and 8mm
movies over the years, but were simply too complicated
or too expensive for most home movie-makers.
In 1965 the new Super-8mm format provided a larger higher-
resolution 8mm image, and finally in 1973 magnetic sound was
added to Super-8, making sound movies fully accessible at
long last for the home, student and smaller budget filmmaker.
THE 21st CENTURY
Is No Place to Watch Early 20th-Century Movies.
SEE THEM IN THEIR OWN TIME!
THE EXCELSIOR MOVEABLE MOVIE PALACE
Offers
A SPLENDID ARRAY
of Small-Format Public-Domain
Sound and Silent Features, Short Subjects,
Cartoons, Serials & Home Movies--
and Takes You to the Times
When They Were New.
It's all about OLD MOVIES!
So if you like OLD MOVIES,
read on,
but before you go any further...
DO NOT THINK FOR AN INSTANT
THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO
WITH VIDEO/DIGITAL MEDIA!
Our movies are on real acetate film
that's run on real mechanical projectors
(quite a show in itself nowadays).
THERE'S A SPECIAL MAGIC TO IT!
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Well may you ask: What about that
How exactly does Excelsior take you to another time?
Well, it's not just that a movie projector is a potential time machine...
Of course it's very much about the movies themselves. Think of it; each frame of film
preserves an instant of time from that long-vanished day it was shot. Habitual time travelers
will surely agree that it's partly the setting for the show~ the sights and sounds, the feel of a
certain time, and that it's partly how you're dressed. But for it to work, most of all it's about the
mindset, replacing your frame of reference with an Art Nouveau or Art Deco frame, so to speak.
When you see the world through the eyes of say, 1913 (great year for a lot of things),
you're watching a new 1913 movie, hearing new 1913 songs, inhabiting the 1913 world
as a familiar place, as your own time. And that goes for 1906, 1917, 1928 or any other year.
At our shows it's not D.W. Griffith WAS, or Mary Pickford WAS, or Rudolph Valentino
WAS, or Clara Bow WAS; Griffith IS, Pickford IS, Valentino IS, Clara Bow IS.
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(This doesn't work for everyone, we know. Luckily, it's just as exciting
to experience another time as a visitor from the future instead.)
Not to worry; Excelsior can be as simple as a projector and a screen.
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So Let Us Show You Some Nifty New Movies!
Early 20th century Petaluma, California was chock-a-block with places
to go and see movies, and some of them are actually still in existence today.
Principal among these is the Mystic Theatre, a 1911 addition to the splendid
1886 McNear building. The Mystic first opened its doors on January 25th, 1912
as a small-time vaudeville house, with a program of Four High Grade Acts
plus Four Reels of Pictures. At first, newspaper ads usually provided no
more than a tantalizing hint of programming, but that soon changed, a daily
parade of listed movie titles greeting the eager eyes of cinemagoers, titles
that for the most part are all that remain of now-lost films. Oh, for a time
machine that would take us back to the 1912 Mystic and its departed glories!
This image of the Mystic dates from Tuesday, August 18th, 1914, and shows a movie theater
entrance typical of the early to mid 1910s; the offerings are all one- or two-reel subjects
represented on large lithographed color posters, most of which are on standing boards that
clutter the entryway. To the left of the entrance door can be seen the horn of a phonograph,
an inescapable component of nickelodeon-era street advertising intended to attract passersby
with catchy music. At that time every movie house had its bill changed daily; note the sign
next to the ticket window assuring us of "A New Show Today". And what a show it was!
"The Million Dollar Mystery" is obviously the main attraction. This 23-part Thanhouser
serial with beautiful Florence La Badie was highly successful and a sure-fire draw. The
first weekly installment was released on June 22, 1914 and shown at the Mystic on Tuesday,
July 21st. Chapter 5, "At the Bottom of the Sea", is the August 18th entry. No copies
of any part seem to have survived. The 1927 feature of the same title is also a lost film.
"Fatty's Finish", a Keystone/Mutual short released on July 2nd, is also given prominent
poster coverage, as befits Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's great popularity. Presumed lost.
"The Little House in the Valley", released by American Films June 29th, 1914, featured
Ed Coxen and Winifred Greenwood in an exciting two-reel drama of clashes between
American Engineers and Daring Brigands at the Mexican border. Another lost film.
"The Leopard's Foundling", released by Selig on June 29th, 1914, was a jungle adventure
about a girl brought up by a leopard. 'Balu' the leopard girl was played by Kathlyn
Williams, who also co-wrote and co-directed this intriguing two-reeler. A lost film.
"She Wanted to Know" a 1914 Lubin Comedy with Julia Calhoun, was released July 18th,
1914 as a split reel with "All for Love", featuring Romaine Fielding. Both presumed lost.
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It's a shame that so many are gone...
But all is not lost! Or rather, not all are lost. Thanks to the miracle of microfilm and
to newspaper digitization, we've been cataloguing the early 1900s shows of Petaluma's
theaters and seeking out the surviving titles (we already have some!) with an eye to
re-creating Petaluma movie shows of the period. We're currently focusing on 1912, and
especially on the Mystic's programs-- though the Gem, the Princess, the Star, the Hill
Opera House (now the Phoenix) and others all merit attention and celebration. We look
forward to announcing show dates in appropriate venues! Check back for updates.
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As it happens, of the many films that were shown in Petaluma back then, the few still
in existence are not all obtainable on real film, which severely limits the number of
titles we can offer. Thus, -alas!- in certain instances we may be compelled, however
reluctantly, to utilize that villainous modern digital technology in order to provide
a more complete selection of the movies that were actually onscreen in the 1910s.
Unfortunately, an estimated 90% of silent film video transfers have been made at
sound speed. This is so common in broadcast, screening and video for sale that today
many assume all silent films were screened with this unrealistically accelerated,
jerky action. Dramas suffer more by it than comedies, but it's always regrettable.
Thus it is not merely a sentimental preference for Real Film that makes us regard
the use of video/digital projection as a last resort; the art, pacing and rhythm of
the films themselves suffer by it, and the audience's experience is less authentic.
But where modern technology has failed us we must do our best with the means at
hand. Rest assured that the use of digital equipment will not be allowed to spoil
our moviegoers' period immersion by visible evidence of its presence at our shows.
We Love Old Movies!
And We Especially Love Silents.
PRESENTING~
Our silent screen offerings celebrate two eras,
the evolving, inventive early Nickelodeon years,
and the advance of Feature Films and major movie houses.
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WE CALL OUR NICKELODEON
THE EXCELSIOR ELECTRIC THEATRE
Features
Moving Pictures, Illustrated Songs
and Live Vaudeville, circa 1905-1915.
Just a sampling of nickelodeon movies... which customarily alternated with:
Full sets of glass plate Illustrated Song Slides of the time do not survive
in any great quantity-- so we create our own on 35mm slides.
Some nickelodeons also featured small-time Vaudeville acts.
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AND THEN THERE'S
THE BIG PICTURE!
Here's Movie Palace Fare
from the Late Teens Through the Twenties,
Showcasing the Great Silent Stars and Directors.
Comedy Shorts, Cartoons, Serials and Newsreels,
Plus Live Entertainments of the Time
Make Fitting Appetizers for Our BIG PICTURES.
Some of our titles:
...to name but a few.
These are the films that premiered in the most opulent of movie palaces, an atmosphere
that Excelsior strives to emulate. "THINGS TO COME"
enlarges upon this theme.
For more on comedy shorts, visit 'Our Shows'
OUR SILENT FILMS MUST HAVE MUSIC!
So we've engaged some of the most
accomplished
musical talents to be found
in the Greater Bay Area.
We beg to introduce
OUR ESTIMABLE MUSIC MAKER:
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Silent Screen Accompanist Par Excellence
who will animate the ivories with artistic aplomb, to
illuminate even the most lavish of cinematic epics.
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Where can you see Excelsior shows? The answer is---
Wherever you like. Excelsior comes to you, with your own film festival
for a few friends-- or a few hundred, at your home or school, or library
or church or museum or community center or rented hall or club, or you name it.
This doesn't mean that there are no public showings; we can be booked at events or
performance venues like any act. We're based less than a hour north of San Francisco.
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We have popular classic titles as well as rare and obscure
works such as the 1925 Barbara La Marr feature,
"HEART OF A SIREN",
which survives only in a 16mm reduction,
badly in need of restoration.
CLICK BELOW FOR MORE ON THIS AND OTHER RARITIES
WE'LL BE SCREENING IN THE FUTURE
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The Excelsior Company's mission is to present old-time films in the context of
their times. It's history, it's entertainment & art, and it's entertainment &
art history. From the short early dramas, comedies and fantasies of Edison,
Biograph, Pathe, Melies and Lumiere, through the lavish perfection of 1920s
feature spectacles and on to the new horizons of sound cinema, every moving
picture has the potential to mentally and emotionally transport the viewer to
that other time when each film was new.
The Excelsior cinema library contains hundreds of small-gauge films (mostly silent), comprising dramas, comedies,
serials, cartoons, news footage and home movies. We can't afford the latest restored versions of anything, but do the best we can;
some of our titles no longer exist in any larger format than 8mm. Our silents are usually accompanied by a live pianist,
and the piano can also be a nice feature for talkie shows that include appropriate live entertainment.
The Electric Theatre nickelodeon programs of 1905-1915 include Illustrated Song Slides with audience sing-along,
and even modest vaudeville turns, as was the fashion in these early multimedia shows.
The Big Picture silent programs can feature a vaudeville or musical prologue suited to the films that follow,
a practice continued well into the sound era by the major houses.
Excelsior shows are ideal entertainments for private and corporate parties, schools, libraries, hospitals and senior communities,
whether the intent is to provide pure old-time fun, or to instruct in a fashion as agreeable as it is memorable.
The Excelsior Company is a loose confederation of professional and part-time entertainers
and film history enthusiasts around the greater San Francisco Bay Area who share a love of
past movie eras, with their special flavor, charm and significance.
COME PLAY IN THE PAST!
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Apologies-- our email buttons sometimes stop working.
But you can still EMAIL to ExcelsiorShows@aol.com.
The Excelsior Company, P.O.Box 604 Penngrove, California 94951-0604
Date Last Modified: 10/16/24
Web design by Annie Lore
EXCELSIOR!
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