Some writers may have to struggle with a lack of source material, but the principal source of this book – the business archive of Jean Desmet – is a wall of written paper. The keyhole metaphor is entirely appropriate, although there are, properly speaking, many keyholes. I looked in on Desmet himself, but also on his customers, suppliers and competitors. Hundreds of different stories, sometimes contradicting each other, yet all revealing the complexity of (film) history. In a Pathé farce called UN COUP D’OEIL PAR ÉTAGE (1904), a concierge peeps through the keyholes on each floor of his building and discovers a fire on the top floor. We come upon signs of damage by fire and water in Desmet's business archive as well. In 1938, a fire broke out at the top of the Cinema Parisien, his cinema in Amsterdam. Both Desmet's films and his business records were very nearly lost, and this book would never have been written.

My book is a condensed and reworked version of a dissertation, originally written in Dutch, which was awarded a doctorate by the University of Amsterdam in March 2000. The original idea of the study goes back to the end of the 1980s. In 1988 Nelly Voorhuis and I were organising a festival of Italian cinema before 1945 entitled ‘Il primo cinema italiano 1905-1945’, which marked my introduction to early Italian film, to the Giornate del Cinema Muto at Pordenone, Italy, and to the international community of film historians. I became fascinated by the ‘mainstream cinema’ of the decade 1910-1920. It was only then that I became properly acquainted with the Desmet Collection, and we selected several of Desmet's Italian films for the festival programme. Together with the film historian and festival programmer Paolo Cherchi Usai, I looked at unrestored Desmet films at the Netherlands Filmmuseum's auxiliary branch in Overveen. It was the first time I had seen nitrate films, with their bright monochrome tinting, or caught the stale odour of decomposing nitrate stock.

Early in 1910, Jean Desmet began to diversify his activities in the film world. He now became a distributor as well as a cinema exhibitor. The story of the rise and flourishing of his distribution business provides an insight into the growth of Dutch and foreign film culture between 1910 and 1914. In this short period the Dutch film world underwent rapid and sweeping changes, which were partly determined by events abroad. In the years 1910-12, Desmet imported second-hand films from Germany which were delivered in readymade programmes. From 1912 to 1914, he purchased directly from production companies, or from international distributors and their agents who owned the rights for particular film companies. From this point onwards, his buying was centred on Brussels and Berlin. The source of the majority of these films, which are the basis of the present Desmet Collection, can be traced through an examination of Desmet's dealings with Westdeutsche Film-Börse and Deutsche Film Gesellschaft, his most important contacts in the period 1910-12, and with his principal suppliers in Brussels and Berlin in the years 1912-14. This chapter therefore focuses in detail on these contacts and the kind of films he acquired through them.

Second-Hand Films (1910-1912)

The German distributive trade. The acquisition of complete programmes and the rise of the long feature film

The beginnings of Desmet's film distribution are directly linked to important developments in Germany, which were already in evidence from 1906/7 onwards. Initially, both travelling showmen and permanent cinema operators simply bought their films. An example of this practice in the Netherlands is Frans Goeman of the Tivoli Winter Garden, who bought Pathé films in Paris up to 1907. Goeman changed half his programme every four weeks and then sold the worn films to smaller operators or to travelling showmen. He stopped buying and selling when Pathé introduced film rental in 1907.

Germany had a large number of cinemas from an early stage. The purchase of huge quantities of films created a need for dealerships. An extremely heterogeneous market in used films came into being, from film exchange fairs to small retailers.

What was the situation of film distribution in the Netherlands before Desmet arrived on the scene? How did he acquire his films between 1907 and 1910? Unfortunately, the Desmet Archive does not offer much help on these questions. Sources not directly concerned with Desmet offer more information. The Dutch fairground trade journal De Komeet, of which only a few odd copies have survived from Desmet's fairground years between 1900 and 1910, contains advertisements from distributors and production companies. Trade journals specific to film did not exist at the time. Another source is the film programmes of the period, notably the programmes of F.A. Nöggerath's Bioscope Theater. On the basis of De Komeet, film programming in general in the years 1907-10 and the film copies still extant in the Desmet Collection, it can be established that Desmet had a choice of three sources for his films: F.A. (Anton) Nöggerath Sr. and Jr., the Dutch branch of Pathé and the foreign production companies themselves. In addition to these, Desmet took Dutch news productions from the Mullens brothers which he probably purchased from them directly.

Nöggerath

The first major Dutch film distributors were Franz Anton Nöggerath, father and son. Where Desmet, the Mullens brothers and Benner stand as representatives of the world of travelling cinema at the beginning of the last century, Nöggerath Sr. and Jr. were important figures in the world of Dutch variety theatre. Parallel to the fairground circuit covered by Desmet in the years 1907-9 was another world that also fostered the development of a Dutch film culture. This was the world of variety theatre.

In cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, film was to be seen mainly in the variety theatres. Amsterdam had possessed a flourishing variety-theatre circuit since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Towards the end of the century, this was concentrated on Rembrandt Square and nearby Amstelstraat (Flora Theater, Grand Théâtre, Rembrandt Theater) (Fig. 13), as well as along the River Amstel (Carré Theater). In Rotterdam, Samuel Soesman's Casino Variété on Coolsingel and Carl Pfläging's Circus Variété on Station Square were the trendsetters, but the whole of central Rotterdam buzzed with theatre and variety, particularly on and around Coolsingel.

In 1910, Jean Desmet faced competition from three other large distributors who had all become professionals and who, like himself, owned release cinemas in Amsterdam. Pathé had first claim on their own productions, and after 1910-12, when he was buying his programmes in Germany, Desmet was able to obtain only their newsreels, the Pathé-Journals, which were available on the open market. Nöggerath specialised in Italian epics such as quo vadis? and THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII but also offered a bit of everything. Gildemeijer became the main importer and distributor of German films and secured exclusive rights on all Asta Nielsen films. Around 1913, they were joined by Wilhelmina, who released German and Italian films. This had the effect of narrowing down the selection of films available to Desmet. Nonetheless, he was now part of the Dutch film distribution establishment. In 1911/12, he made his mark with Danish films and in 1913/14 he brought out long German feature films.

Even before the introduction of exclusive films, Desmet and the other Amsterdam distributors were monopolising the first-week runs of programmes. The first-week system set the pattern for the other less powerful cinema operators who wanted to acquire the films after them. By locating their de luxe theatres in smart shopping streets, and by virtue of their dual function as owners and distributors, Desmet and his associates made the other cinema owners dependent on their little group. They became the trendsetters of Dutch film culture. However, this situation made it difficult for Desmet to increase his profits by releasing his films in other de luxe Amsterdam cinemas, which was one reason why he took over the elegant Cinema De La Monnaie through his NV Middenstad company in 1914.

These cinema operators consolidated their position through the establishment of trade journals, in which they set out their stall as professionals, and drew a line between themselves and those who were merely dabbling in the business by holding sample viewings for potential clients and issuing demands for regulation. Despite this consolidation, owners and distributors competed ruthlessly among themselves. Calls for the regulation of cinemas were also being raised in other quarters, though here the motives were educational, moral, religious and legal.

From November 1910, Desmet began to present himself to the world as a film distributor. Up to that point, he had been showing films in his two Parisiens and occasionally renting to third parties, but his film distribution only took on real shape when he began to buy programmes from Westdeutsche Film- Börse. From that month on, he was advertising regularly in the fairground trade journal De Komeet, which, in the absence of a proper professional journal for cinema operators and distributors, was the organ that had to cater for both the itinerant and the fixed versions of cinema. His clientele now grew so ramified that he started to keep separate ledgers for his outgoing correspondence. His ‘client books’, in which he entered the details of programmes and films rented, also date from this time. On 18 November 1910, therefore, we find him writing to the Amsterdam theatre owner J. Sieders, who was looking to open a cinema in Enschede, that he was in a position to offer him programmes of at least 2,000 metres ‘with one or two coloured films every week and three lithos, for the price of ƒ75 per week. Payment on delivery.’ Before the year was out, Desmet had bought his first long feature, although during that first year in the distribution business he dealt mainly in programmes of short films. Desmet stood at the cradle of the distribution of long movies in the Netherlands. From the spring of 1911, the long feature film triggered sweeping changes in programmes, genres, countries of origin, cinema advertising, rental contracts, prices and market competition. It is also clearly apparent from Desmet's relations with his customers that the arrival of this new type of film was going to make exhibitors much more choosy and fastidious about what they rented.

The Beginnings of Desmet's Distribution Business and the Consolidation of His Clientele (1910-1912)

The sine qua non of Desmet's distribution was his capacity to deliver. The films he received from Germany from March 1910 onwards were the basis of his first two years in the business. He also bought the occasional actuality, such as the FUNERAILLES D’EDOUARD VII, and rented his stock of old films from his travelling days to travelling showmen.

Within the historical retrospect of Desmet's business, there are six key themes. Allowing for certain significant differences, the Dutch situation resembles the open models of Britain and Germany cited in the Introduction. Desmet's development forms part of the institutionalisation of cinema at a critical moment in time. By following his development, we are able to trace not only changing exhibition practices but also shifts within the power structures of film distribution, both in the travelling cinema period and afterwards. His story shows how he was at various times a ‘winner’ or a ‘loser’, a modern or a conservative businessman; how he sometimes set the trend and at other times merely followed it. The task of reconstructing the history of Desmet's career teaches us to appreciate the value of a commercial archive as an historical source. And finally, in looking at things through Desmet's eyes, we are made more aware of the many changes that have taken place in cinema since its early days.

The Netherlands in an International Perspective: ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ Situations

The changes taking place outside the Netherlands cannot be projected onto the Dutch situation without further ado. National developments are only to a limited extent part of international developments.

This applies particularly to the situation in France and the United States. In the early stages, the production companies in these countries formed a closed front with sweeping powers of control over film trading and cinema exhibition. During the heyday of the travelling cinema, the Netherlands had been heavily dependent on Pathé, but this situation changed dramatically after 1909. Henceforth, Dutch distributors chose their films for themselves, thanks to the arrival of permanent motion-picture theatres, independent distributors and the growing variety of films on offer. Schemes like the creation of the Belge Cinéma subsidiary, through which Pathé sought to incorporate both Belgium and the Netherlands, proved unsuccessful. Like Britain and Germany in the years before 1914, the Netherlands was a country where it was possible for anyone to import, distribute or hire movies.

It remains difficult to establish precisely to what extent the Netherlands adopted the closed system, which introduced the practices of block-booking and blind-selling that Kristin Thompson observes in Britain. In any event, the power of Dutch exhibitors and distributors did not come to an end, despite the restrictions of choice that followed the rise of Ufa and the American studios.