Canadian Bacon - History of Canadian Filmmaking (Part One)

“This country’s film industry has a problem; most of the people living in it were unhappy for pretty much most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” - Metaphorical Fictitious Quote from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The First Exhibitors

The beginnings of the Canadian film industry involved extensive trial and error, and it was launched with a railroad stretching across it. Canada, stitched together in 1867, was a melting pot of French, Irish, English, and Indigenous cultures. These cultures sought a new language of cultural expression. And just when they were finding their footing, came a wave of filmmaking from the South. Their neighbors were having a grand time with a new invention called the motion picture camera, which Canadians readily adopted. It was only a matter of time before that same communications technology sparked a war between the two nations over storytelling, legacy preservation, and cultural divides.

Montreal, Quebec, is where it all started, at least for Canadians. Quebec had an edge in the early days of film that several other provinces did not. It spoke French, the language of the cinema’s birthplace.

France’s cinematic history is long, but the highlights include Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, the first person to record a moving picture sequence with a single-lens camera, often regarded as the Father of Cinematography. Following him were Auguste and Louis Lumière, renowned French manufacturers of the Cinématographe motion-picture system and among the earliest filmmakers responsible for the birth of cinema. And when they opened the doorway to filmmaking, they opened the floodgates. French projectionists, artists, and directors crossed the Atlantic, bringing flickering visions to North America.

Animation, too, was brewed in the shadows of France. Before the Lumières, Charles-Émile Raynaud had already lit the screen with dancing figures in his Pantomimes Lumineuses, the first recorded animated cartoon. It debuted in 1892, a full three years before the Lumières' first film screening.

Émile Cohl (Born Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet on 4 January 1857), who is considered the father of animation and the first person to produce the first fully animated cartoon, 'Fantasmagorie' (1908), was also the first to adapt a comic strip into a regular animated film series.

And then there was Georges Méliès. Magician. Director. Illusionist. The godfather of visual effects. Méliès was a French magician, actor, and film director, best known for creating "trick films" and innovative use of special effects, popularizing techniques such as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color. His most famous films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and his favourite creation, The Impossible Voyage (1904).

It really wasn’t a question of whether Montreal would be the birthplace of Canadian cinema, but rather a question of when. Eventually, that time would come on a warm summer day, on June 27, 1896, as the first theatrical film screening in Canada and the North American debut of the Lumière cinematograph.

Two Frenchmen, Louis Minier, a former naval officer, and his assistant, Louis Pupier, presented Canada's first public feature film. They were starting a 2-month tour of Quebec and their little eccentric machine. Both men arrived from Paris, France, and set up a show on a vacant lot on St. Lawrence Main, between Vitre and La Gauchetiere in Montreal, in the building of The Robillard. Their projector was installed in a shooting gallery space about seven feet wide and fifteen feet long, and the charge was five cents for standing. The program lasted approximately seven minutes, with 20-25 films presented by Minier and Pupier, each lasting 10-20 seconds (65-125 feet).

What brought Minier and Pupier to Quebec was the Lumière Brothers' insistence that all film exhibitors and events using their technology be organized by their representatives and that all camera operators and projectionists be trained. Lumiere did not sell territorial rights to his combined cameras and projectors. Instead, all presentations were organized directly by Lumiere's agents in conjunction with a local promoter or exhibitor. Once local projectionists had been trained to operate the equipment, the agents would move to another town. Minier and Pupier were a part of this process, and their educational trips helped train thousands of Canadians to work with film. All these Lumiere shows were extremely popular with Canadian spectators, both English and French.

However, there was something else afoot in North America. The Lumieres were not the only people developing new communications equipment. American Businessman Thomas Edision led the commercialization of the filmmaking movement in the United States from New Jersey.

Quickly, the Lumieres had competition. Less than a month after the cinematograph showing in Montreal, on July 21, 1896, in Ottawa, two businessmen, Andrew and George Holland, unveiled their moving picture show at West End Park. This showing was "the first exhibition in Canada" of Edison's Vitascope.

The Holland show was more dramatic than Minier and Pupier’s. Their host was John C. Green, a carny magician known to audiences as Belsaz. Before the film started, Belsaz, the Magician, would perform and narrate the show. Reporters noted that the invited audience praised "the creative genius” and became enthusiastic about the entire production. Admission to the show was 10 cents. This park was home to the Ottawa Electric Railway Company, and the film show was intended to encourage people to travel on the company's streetcars.

Early films in North America were, on average, no more than 30 seconds long and featured the daily routines of ordinary people of the period. This included walking through parks or working at their daily jobs. By the time the Twentieth Century rolled around, films had increased in length on average to five to ten minutes. The topics had also changed. Films portrayed royal and state occasions, sports, disasters, and local history records. These were Vaudeville events meant to entertain and inspire. The showman or presenter would show a movie program until the audience lost interest, then move on to another.

The Vitascope show was an enormous success. Every reserved seat was taken. Every night, 1,600 bodies filled the stands, eyes glued to a ghostly screen. Though initially scheduled for only two weeks, the show lasted longer than expected. The first English-language film shown at this event was The Kiss (1896), directed by William Heise and starring May Irwin, a Broadway actress from Whitby, Ontario.

The Hollands were established publishers and booksellers and were agents for the Edison Phonograph, the Sorley battery, and the Smith Premier typewriter. Andrew Holland also oversaw a steamship service between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Sydney, Australia.

Their involvement with the movies went back before the Vitascope to the Kinetoscope, a "peep-show" device that was an early film viewing device, and the Holland brothers of Ottawa were the first people who sold them. On April 14, 1894, the Hollands opened the world's first Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155 Broadway in New York. It was an instant success as hundreds of similar parlors opened. Thomas Edison was delighted with the brothers' success and granted them sole and exclusive Canadian rights to the new Vitascope.

For decades, the press would crown the Hollands as the pioneers of Canadian cinema. For a very long time, the Holland-Ottawa show was regarded as the first time Canadians were introduced to cinema. It was not until decades later that Germain Lacasse, a French-Canadian film scholar from Quebec and a professor at the University of Montreal, translated Quebec’s French film archives into English.

Without Lacasse, this misconception would most likely still exist today. Newspaper editors did not greet the arrival of the motion picture with front-page headlines. The first film reviews began to trickle in weeks after the first screenings. Canadian newspapers restricted themselves to simple, noninformative articles to the effect that "such and such a device was being shown at such a place." It was thought that the editors considered the films vulgar and undignified, not a form of entertainment to be encouraged. Or they considered movies a fad, already on their way out when they first appeared in Montreal. The first anonymous Canadian film review was in July 1896. There was a sense of wonder at the new invention, and audiences were reported to be "thrilled and delighted.” In 1896, the first film showings received only a bare mention in the Montreal press.

It would only be through large-scale public exhibitions that the Vitascope and the Cinematographe would achieve more large-scale acclaim in the written record. Later that year, Toronto tasted the action happening in Ottawa and Montreal. During the first Toronto Industrial Exhibition in 1896 (later known as the CNE), the first movie theatres were established in Toronto. The two competing devices opened almost simultaneously. The Vitascope opened at Robinson's Musee, 81 Yonge Street, on August 31, 1896, and was presented by Ed Houghton. The Lumiere Cinematographe opened on September 1st as part of the grandstand show at the Exhibition, exhibited by H.J. Hill, a well-known showperson and exhibition manager.

Robinson's six-week show incorporated a menagerie on the roof, a curio shop on the second floor, “Wonderland in the basement,” and the Bijou Theatre on the main floor offering vaudeville. Films were shown downstairs in Wonderland, and all attractions could be viewed for a total of a dime. During the week of September 19th, 1896, films were presented, such as "The Cataract of Niagara Falls and the Whirlpool Rapids." This was the first time Canadian scenery appeared on the movie screen, which sparked the popularity of Niagara Falls and led to its becoming a staple in films in the ensuing decade.

But back to Ottawa and Montreal. The legacies of both showings would continue to spread across Canada through the persons who sat in the audiences on those fateful days, and through others who actively and enthusiastically assisted the Holland brothers and Minier and Pupier on their journey across the landscape of the great northern nation.

The legacy of the Holland show fell to their host, John C. Green, who exploited the new gimmick. Green, born in 1866, had wandered through Eastern Canada and the U.S. for two decades as a professional magician, mixing illusion and projection, conjuring stories for crowds.

After the show’s infamous success, Green latched onto the movies as a permanent part of his traveling show. John C. Green learned of the upcoming motion picture show through his contacts, Thomas Ahearn and Warren Y. Soper, the owners of the Ottawa Electric Railway Company. Films at the time had no titles, and it was the usual practice to have someone on stage identify the scenes on screen. Jumping at the opportunity to lecture on the new invention and perform his magic act, Green became the main selling point of the Hollands' act.

After the show had closed in Ottawa, Green stayed on the road until 1917, bringing his Nightmare Alley adventures across the nation until eventually joining the N.L. Nathanson’s theatre chain as a district manager for Famous Players Canada in Guelph. But he hated the nine-to-five life, and once complained that Famous Players treated him as though "I am serving a life sentence with them." In 1925, he quit and returned to magic and the stage. He continued performing until his death at 85 in 1951.

Leo

In French Canada, off-screen of the audience of Minier and Pupier’s 1986 show at the Theatre National, was a young man named Léo-Ernest Ouimet. Ouimet, born under a silver snow-clad sky in St. Martin, Quebec, on 16 March 1877, was a farm boy, plumber, and electrician at the aforementioned theatre.

Inspiration would strike from here, and by 1900, he would be promoted to lighting designer there, before leaving to work as a projectionist at Sohmer Park from 1903 to 1904. Ouimet did such a fine job in his craft that the name Ouimet soon became synonymous with film projection. His advice was sought on various film matters; he opened a film exchange to distribute films in 1903, and he was even offered the opportunity to show soap commercials on the streets of Montreal.

In 1904, he signed a contract with the Kinetograph Company to secure its Canadian franchise rights and became a licensed Kinetoscope operator. However, Ouimet quickly understood that the real power and money in the film industry lay in becoming an exhibitor or a distributor rather than operating under a third party. This realization opened the doors for what was to come next.

After patiently formulating his plans for two years, he opened the Ouimetoscope on New Year's Day, 1 January 1906, on St-Catherine Street at Montcalm. This was followed by one of the first Canadian film exchanges in St. John, New Brunswick. No one had seen anything like it—cinemas did not exist then, and this revolutionary movie theatre changed how films would be exhibited forever.

With the opening of the Ouimetoscope, Ouimet had just revolutionized the film industry in Montreal. Ouimet made watching a film classy. Now, patrons stayed longer, and it became an “event” that the upper class enjoyed and was willing to pay for. The pictures at the Ouimetoscope would change each week, and the business prospered. Seeing his enterprises succeed, others quickly followed his lead, and the number of movie houses in Quebec increased. Ouimet's next move, in response to increased competition, was to build a movie palace, a building much larger and grander than his first building for the Ouimetoscope.

In 1907, when Ouimet closed for the summer, he demolished the first Ouimetoscope. The new Ouimetoscope was ready by Labour Day weekend and was a 1,200-person theater that opened on Saturday, August 31, 1907. The building costs were $30,000 (CAD 1,006,892.55 in 2024); the land and hotel license costs another $100,000 ($3,356,308.51 in 2024) annually.

News headlines and documentation of Ouimet's new custom-made movie theatre were minimal. Still, there was a sense of awe at the fireproof construction of the new Ouimetoscope, the absence of columns to obscure the view of the picture, the exceptional comfort of the seats, and the amenities, which included a coat check room and a ladies' room. The buildings themselves were something Ouimet placed great care into designing. The new Ouimetoscope projector outclassed its American and European rivals. An orchestra and a singer were scheduled to perform every 15 minutes as reels were changed. One commentator mentioned a film containing scenes of the Victoria Falls in Africa. Prices were high, 25 cents as a standard daily price, 35 cents in the evening, and 50 cents in the loges. Women were encouraged to attend, and candies and chocolates were distributed to guests.

The Ouimetoscope wasn’t without its rivals. Georges Gauvreau, who owned the Theatre National before selling it and retiring, attempted to re-enter the film industry by buying the land on which the Ouimetoscope was built, since Ouimet owned only the building. Ouimet stopped him after purchasing the entire property for $150,000, with $70,000 for the property itself and $30,000 for the hotel license required to operate the theatre. To further spite Gauvreau, he opened a second theater on August 31, 1907, seating 1,200.

The creation of the Ouimetoscope would also bring unwanted attention to Ouimet from Paul Bruchési, the second Archbishop of Montreal. The Archbishop, wary of this new technology, banned the showing of films on Sundays, as they were a commercial activity that violated the Sabbath. Ouimet would defy his orders and showcase films on Sundays. He would also be one of several exhibitors to receive a $10 fine per showing for his defiance. Montreal banned Sunday screenings until 1908, when various film companies successfully challenged the law.

Now Ouimet, the center of French attention, craved to be involved in the action of the films he screened in his theaters. In 1908, he turned the lens on Quebec and began producing local films. His first films focused on his children and his life, but quickly recentered on local events. All of his early films were processed in a printing lab in the basement of the Ouimetoscope. The building became a film production facility, one of the first in Canada.

Like other filmmakers, Ouimet sought to distinguish his works from foreign productions by focusing on local subjects and national history. His first breakthrough film documented the Prince of Wales's visit to Quebec for the Tercentenary Celebration in 1908. He sold this film to a German-American producer and distributor, Charles Urban. Then, he made a film documenting the Eucharist Congress in Montreal (1910) and sold it to Butcher's Film Service.

Around the same time that Ouimet was producing films, the world's largest film production and equipment company, Pathé, was operated by two brothers from France, Charles and Émile Pathé. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel, which initiated the practice of showing news in cinemas before feature films. The newsreels were compilations of events intended to inform, educate, and entertain, and they were profitable! Many independent filmmakers could earn a living shooting live or recreated scenes for newsreels. A Toronto portrait photographer, George Scott, would film one of Canada’s first on-the-spot newsreels of the great Toronto Fire in 1904. Ouimet showed them, too, but he carefully added his local takes to the newsreels.

Everything would run smoothly until 1910, when, out on a shoot, Ouimet caught a severe case of dysentery. It took him four years to be completely cured, which slowed his standing in the local filmmaking community. Slowly, over multiple attempts, Ouimet reentered the industry, this time moving on from the Ouimetoscope and forming Specialty Film Import in 1915. During Ouimet’s illness, the Ouimetoscope Theatre faced severe financial difficulties, which ultimately led to the building's conversion into a rental space. Specialty Film Import brought good news for Ouimet, and from there, he became Pathé's official representative in North America and the distributor of Official War Films.

His company quickly established itself as one of Canada's most aggressive film distributors, with offices nationwide. His deal with Pathe expanded the activities of his newsreel camera operators across Canada, and he founded British Canadian Pathé News in 1918, cementing his role as the pioneer of Canadian newsreels. When the Prince of Wales visited Toronto in August of 1919, scenes shot as late as 5 p.m. by Ouimet's ace cameraman Bert Mason were on the screen by nightfall.

In 1921, due to overexpansion, Specialty Film Import faced intense competition from major Hollywood studios, and Ouimet sold the company in May 1922 to Nathan Nathanson's Regal Films for $200,000.

Just as Ouimet’s business ventures started to fade, he was approached by a group of Montreal businessmen who wanted to make a feature film. One of these people was Paul Cazeneuve, an old friend of Ouimet who had been a director and actor at his theatre for many years before moving to Hollywood. Ouimet agreed to head the project, and Laval Photoplays Limited was incorporated in February 1922 with a capital of $60,000. Ouimet took off for Hollywood and rented an office. Why Get Married? was their first film, released in Montreal in December 1923. However, the venture did not turn out as planned. Poor reviews and financial performance ended Ouimet's filmmaking career.

In addition to his career failures, in 1924, most of Ouimet's Specialty Film Imports' collection was destroyed by fire, leaving his archives empty. Ouimet would have a brief career revival after 1926, when he would manage the Imperial Theatre in Montreal for two years. Still, a sudden fire at the facility killed two children, and he formally left the business in 1926.

Seventeen years would pass before Ouimet would venture into a new era of film technology. Ouimet would be inspired by the work of Soviet engineer and inventor Semyon Pavlovich Ivanov on 3D imagery. In 1943, Ouimet and Albert Brault, an American chemist known for developing the fabrication process for the first integral color image sensors, attempted to create a camera to record separate right- and left-eye images on the same piece of film. They modified Pathé cameras from the 1920s and worked on the project until abandoning it in 1948. This would be one of the first attempts in history to present 3D images to a theatrical audience.

In 1951, even though Ouimet had long since left the film industry, Mary Pickford presented him with a scroll recognizing his contributions to motion pictures in Canada. After leaving his partnership with Brault, Ouimet took a quiet government job on the Quebec Liquor Board and worked there until 1956. Léo-Ernest Ouimet‘s legacy would disappear, and he died quietly in Montreal on March 3, 1972, at 94, alone and forgotten in a retirement home. There was barely any publicity about his death or public recognition of the achievements he had created in Quebec. However, in 2018, his legacy resurfaced and was recognized when the federal government designated Ouimet a National Historic Person of Canada, acknowledging his role in laying the foundations of Canadian film.

Traveling Magicians

The rags-to-riches and back-to-rags story of Canada’s first theatrical producer is a very common story in the world of Canadian filmmakers and producers. The momentum of selling the illusion of the moving image, with continuous hype and acclaim, while still maintaining a steady inflow of cash, is a wave that changes with the tides of time.

Ouimet’s competitors also faced similar fates. Two of these traveling projectionists were Henry de Grandsaignes d'Hauterives and his mother, Countess Marie-Anne, nee Treouret de Kerstratn. These two French aristocrats brought their family venture to North America and, in the process, introduced the world to the Historiograph (the Historiographer) and to genres of filmmaking that would forever change the direction of Quebec cinematography.

Henry de Grandsaignes d’Hauterives was the black sheep of a French aristocracy, of two distinguished families of the French nobility. Henry was a former clerk in the office of a Parisian lawyer based in Pont-l'Abbé, France. On his mother’s side, he was a descendant of the Comte de Mirabeau, a writer and a leading revolutionary; on his father’s side, he had distinguished military ancestry. His Mother, Countess Marie-Anne, was a renowned businesswoman in her own right who had created one of the first commercial holiday resorts in Brittany, France, and had grown an enormous fortune from it.

The mother-and-son duo had begun their venture in Quebec after Henry’s youthful splurges brought shame to his family by tarnishing his reputation and squandering his wife's enormous dowry on extravagances, causing her to leave him with their only son, never to return. The shame of his ruining their legacy through gluttony was a blow to the family's ego that drove him outwards in a Hail Mary attempt to start over in America, landing in New York before his initial travels to Quebec.

In 1896, Henry de Grandsaignes brought the Historiograph to New York, showcasing it to the general public in a venture cut short by his father's death. Now stuck with his 56-year-old mother by his side, watching over his every move, he would set sail for Canada again in 1897.

Countess Marie-Anne Tréourret de Kerstrat was described as energetic and highly resourceful, and looked forward to the trip with her son. She left a family and an environment that did not value her, especially her female matriarch, so she followed her only son, who was everything to her. Henry d'Hauterives and his mother arrived in Montreal on October 17, 1897, after a 10-day crossing on the steamer Laurentian. It was reported that his mother posed as his wife and shared the same second-class cabin with him for approximately $34.00.

As soon as they arrived, they began advertising. On November 5 of the same year, an announcement in French and English in the Montreal Star stated that a show at the Eden Museum, 206 St-Laurent, was intended to “help teach universal history in schools.” This place was a wax figure gallery proclaiming itself “devoted to the fine arts and the reproduction of the most glorious episodes in the country's history.” It was here that the name "Historiograph" was solidified as a device for highlighting short historical subjects. The Eden boasted of being “the only 10-cent theatre” in the city. Their first shows succeeded, and the family became known for their historical lectures and presentations. From here, the Hauterives would take over French "moving pictures" projection in Quebec and dominate the scene for the next decade. They would rebuild their family fortunes and present their show to the archbishops of the Catholic Church in Quebec and to Canada's governor general.

The Hauterives had all the French hits of the time. Their program included Méliès's surreal films and numerous animations, but toward the end of their careers, it consisted mainly of melodramas. This included Le Voyage Dans La Lune(1902), L'affaire Dreyfus(1899), Jeanne d'Arc(1900), Cendrillon(1899), Histoire d'un crime(1901), and Epopee napoleonienne(1903).Without intending it, the Hauterives were the mentors of the first Quebecois to enter the film industry. These films would directly impact the surrealist and abstract direction of Canadian filmmaking.

On February 21, 1898, their Montreal stay ended with a performance in front of the Archbishop of Montreal and (receipt of) a letter of recommendation from Bishop Bruchési: “Mr. d'Hauterives gave this evening, at the Archbishopric, a session of Historiographer, an interesting session from all points of view: it was at the same time a lesson in history, science, and morality.” They would hit the road and travel to Ottawa, where they were met with the same adoration as in Montreal.

By 1905, they were on their ninth and final tour, grinding through the Regional Agricultural Exhibition in Ontario after completing multiple tours of Bermuda. They still presented two shows daily, switching them twice daily: Pilgrimage to Lourdes (Early 1900s), Legend of the Disappeared Girl (Early 1900s), and Love by the Light of the Moon (1901).

The downfall of Hauterives would eventually come from the evolution of the competitive film industry in North America. The technology, market, and theatre-going experience had changed rapidly since their initial showings in 1896. After their last trip to Montreal in Easter 1908, they left New York without settling their accounts with suppliers, thereby abandoning their operations there, which were incurring substantial losses. This was the beginning of the end.

With little funds left, properties falling into disrepair, and continually borrowing to stay afloat, the Hauterives would have a brief theatrical stint in Bermuda in the hopes of setting up a permanent cinema there. However, the country's power generators could not provide enough electricity to run a theatre. Countess Marie-Anne and her son returned to France penniless and reduced to renting rooms and selling Breton lace to tourists.

After their departure, no one ever spoke of them again, except for Ouimet in his memoirs. In France, where the Hauterives returned, there would be a similar silence. There wasn’t even a newspaper obituary when MarieAnne died in Pont-L'Abbé on December 20, 1920. Her son, Henry, got more favorable newspaper coverage at his death. Three lines in the Petit Parisien said that a law clerk had died after collapsing on the terrace of a cafe on the rue de Mauberge on Sept. 26, 1929. Neither of them has a monument or a commemorative plaque at their graves. They were forgotten, as so many projectionists of their time were.

Schuberg

In Canada, film exhibitions were staged by traveling circuses and performers. Wherever a railroad track was laid, filmmakers traveled with it. Directors such as Edwin Porter, best known for The Great Train Robbery (1903), would spread cinema along the east coast of Canada, bringing his Wormwood's Dog and Monkey Theatre to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1897.

One of the most successful nationwide exhibitors who consistently captured his audience's attention was J. A. (John) Schuberg. Schuberg was the first film exhibitor in Western Canada. Known professionally as “Johnny Nash,” J.A. Schuberg was distinguished from his colleagues by his resourcefulness and his strategy of designing “thematic” programs of short films, thereby intensifying his audience’s movie‑going experience.

Schuberg was the son of Swedish immigrants, grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and took his first steps into show business through Kohn and Middleton’s Dime Museum, which featured acts such as Adgie the Lion Tamer, John Kelly the Irish Comedian, General Tom Thumb, and Jonathan Bass the “Ossified” Man. Schuberg soaked in the show, learned the tricks, then hit the road with the John T. Robinson Circus, traveling across Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. In 1894, by the time he was nineteen, Schuberg had landed in Winnipeg, lured in by a job with Frederick Burrows' circus. There, he met Nettie, Burrows’ youngest daughter and soon-to-be wife. He would play in fairs and carnivals during the summer, traveling as far east as Montreal, before packing up and heading west to Vancouver.

In Vancouver, the newlyweds, in an attempt to distance themselves from their circus heritage, set up an umbrella repair shop. However, Schuberg, ever eager for attention and thrill, would make a quick career change when word came of an Edison projector for sale in Seattle. He would purchase the machine for $250 and several Edison films, including The Wreck of the Battleship 'Maine' (1898) and Burial of the 'Maine' Victims (1898), and would become a movie exhibitor.

From there, Schuberg rented a large building on West Cordova Street in Vancouver's central business district, opening the theatre to the public on 15 December 1898. The price was ten cents to watch a program of selected movies and slides about what he called “The War Show”—a reel-to-reel spectacle on the Spanish-American War.

At first, people were wary of what Schuberg was selling. Some were preoccupied with the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897–1898; others were suspicious of his gimmicks. To pique people’s interest, he promoted his show as a sideshow, producing various sound effects: beating a bass drum, rattling a large metal sheet to suggest thunder, and firing two pistols loaded with blank cartridges to “add some realism” to the program. He left the front door open so people on the street could hear the effects, which caught their attention.

However, the attention he garnered was still insufficient to keep his business afloat, and two weeks after opening, he traveled to reach audiences who had not seen “The War Show.” The Schubergs began showing films in black‑top tents at fairs and carnivals, which were becoming increasingly popular. In 1899, the Schubergs decided to return to Winnipeg and slowly moved their show across the country to the city.

The Schubergs would stop at small communities along the CPR line to present film screenings. However, this was a challenge, as many towns could not afford the resources for local theatres or touring shows. For one show on their national tour, the electrical power in Ashcroft, British Columbia, was insufficient to operate the projector, and John Schuberg was unable to present his show.

Due to a lack of venues, it was common in this era for theatres to open in unexpected locations or reuse buildings that doubled as storefronts. Which would then gradually become the central locations for early theatre chains. Theatres consistently lacked resources and resorted to “borrowing” items to screen movies successfully. An example of this is the Bijou, which opened in 1912 as Edmonton's first cinema and also served as a dry goods store. Theatres like these would even borrow sheets and seating from funeral homes.

In May of 1899, after successfully journeying back to Winnipeg, Schuberg and his father‑in‑law, Frederick Burrows, erected his black‑top tent in a vacant lot on the west side of Main Street, one hundred yards north of Logan Avenue. The tent measured 20 ft. x 60 ft. and seated 200 people. The exterior featured a marquee‑like banner on poles and paintings or posters advertising the movie inside. Inside, the exhibitor would raise the “sidewall” at the end of the show so the audience could cool off. Schuberg called this facility the “Edison Electric Theatre.”

Schuberg once again presented “The War Show,” which became one of the first films to be screened commercially in Winnipeg. He later recalled that the money “came in so fast that it almost turned our heads.” During the summer months from 1899 to 1902, he performed at fairs and carnivals in Manitoba, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and New Mexico. The Schubergs returned to Vancouver in 1902 to establish a permanent facility for film screening.

While vacationing in Los Angeles in the summer of 1902, Schuberg visited Thomas L. Tally’s “permanent” facility, the Electric Theatre. Tally screened such films as Capture of the Biddle Brothers (1902) and New York City in a Blizzard (1902), charging adults ten cents and children five cents admission. Inspired by Tally, Schuberg rented an empty store at 38 Cordova Street in Vancouver for $1,000. In October 1902, he opened the Edison Electric Theatre. He charged customers ten cents to watch a program featuring vaudeville acts and movies. Schuberg then hired George Case as his projectionist. The response to the program, which included two films, Méliès’s The Eruption of Mt. Pelee( 1902) and The Great Train Robbery(1903), was enthusiastic.

But Johnny wasn’t done with Winnipeg; he was once again drawn to the province of Manitoba. He returned and formed an amusement company with affiliate George Case, geared toward operating theatres in Winnipeg. In 1903, with Case as his partner, they opened the Unique at 529 Main Street and sold the Electric Theatre in Vancouver to Fred Lincoln. Then came the Dominion at 175 Portage Avenue in 1904 and the Bijou at 498 Main Street in 1905. Johnny and Case would arrange with a Minneapolis distributor for one reel of film and three vaudeville acts per week. The business prospered, and in 1909, it opened Dreamland at 530 Main Street, and in 1910, it opened the Province at 209 Notre Dame Avenue. The Province accommodated 650 patrons and was one of the largest in the theatre chain. These theatres were consolidated into the Nash Theatre Chain, which included eight theatres in Manitoba, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

In 1914, Schuberg partnered with W.P. DeWee, a Vancouver-based exhibitor. They opened the Rex Theatre in Vancouver in 1916, and together they would join American businessmen Thomas L. Tally and J. D. Williams to form the First National Exhibitors’ Circuit on 25 April 1917, when twenty‑six regional distributors across the United States merged. From there, it would be reincorporated as First National Pictures in 1919, and Schuberg would secure the exclusive rights to distribute First National Pictures’ catalogue throughout Western Canada.

At the beginning of the industry, theatre ownership was the most lucrative sector of the film industry. The theatre owner typically takes 50 percent of each ticket sold. Because of the high cost of film production, widespread distribution was vital to a film’s commercial success. In the 1920s, the major Hollywood studios adopted a vertically integrated ownership model. This enabled them to combine production and distribution under a single umbrella, and equipment companies now controlled multiple stages of production across multiple countries. The majors then aligned themselves with the large national theatre chains to guarantee an outlet for their product. In some cases, they purchased theatre chains outright. This vertical integration expansion quickly excluded smaller players in the film industry and countries that had yet to find their place in it, such as Canada.

First National Exhibitors was created to challenge Adolph Zukor, who ran Famous Players and became one of their first competitors. First National Exhibitors opposed the highly rigged “block booking” distribution system. If exhibitors wanted the best Paramount Films, they were obliged to accept a block of 104 films each year. However, they would not know which type of film to screen until it arrived. These 104 films could include highly renowned and sought-after movies or complete duds. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, but which led the United States government to pursue it on antitrust grounds for more than twenty years. This infuriated Canadian theatre chain owners, who were almost always forced to screen films with little to no audience interest. Schuberg and W.P. DeWee’s partnership with First National Pictures was one of the few loopholes for Canadian movie exhibitors to successfully bring in an audience.

The Motion Picture Exhibitors and Distributors of Canada (MPEDC) was also formed in 1924 in a formal defense for Canadian exhibitors. Although Canadian, the organization comprises most major American distribution companies, such as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America branch. It was known as the Cooper Organization, after its president, John Alexander Cooper. The organization took its direction (and funding) from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The Cooper Organization ensured that American industry practices were cemented in Canada. These included discriminatory methods (such as requiring cash in advance) aimed at curbing the success of independent exhibitors.

Now sitting as one of the top dogs of the film industry, Schuberg continued to own and operate several theatres in Manitoba, including three first-run theatres in Winnipeg (a film in its first run means it has been recently released, controlling eleven theatres in British Columbia, including three first-run theatres in Vancouver and two in Victoria. However, in June 1919, Schuberg sold his exhibition and distribution interests to the Allen organization for $1 million. The Allen brothers had come up from the States in 1906 and, by 1920, owned 47 theaters across Canada. Schuberg had suffered financial losses at the box office due to the closure of theatres during the 1918 flu epidemic and the Winnipeg General Strike, leaving him with few or no other options for selling his stake in the exhibitor business.

By 1924, Schuberg sold off the rest of his theatres to Famous Players and promised to stay out of the game for ten years. He retired and became a rancher in Washington. However, the art of filmmaking never left Schuberg, and he returned to Winnipeg, taking over the Province and the Bijou again for several years. Schuberg died on 13 December 1953 in Vancouver at seventy‑nine, leaving a legacy of three sons, two daughters, and seven grandchildren.