Film Distribution and the Formation of the Legion Film Service

On the surface, film distribution may appear a strange market for Legionnaires to enter, particularly during an era when the industry was consolidating. Since the late 1890s, film exchange operators developed a robust business after recognizing that motion picture prints held value and generated profits from local exhibitors paying rental fees. In 1910, Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Corporation began merging these exchanges into the General Film Company, an extension of his larger attempts to forge a monopoly around his patents on the medium’s core technology. While imposing, General Film did not entirely succeed in eliminating its competitors, and these autonomous exchanges remained key distributors. In 1914, eleven of these regional exchanges united to form Paramount, which in turn joined with Famous Players-Lasky in 1916. This combination established a powerful distributor-producer that could command higher prices from exhibitors and finance the production of high-quality, feature-length movies appealing to wealthier audiences that Edison had been reluctant to court. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cinema operators hated the new arrangement and in 1917 formed First National to undercut their rival; Paramount executives then responded by expanding into exhibition in 1919.Footnote ¹⁰

By the 1920s, investors began appreciating the new amalgamated, stable combinations that Paramount and First National modeled, growing increasingly confident in the structure’s ability to generate profits. Aspiring moguls tapped Wall Street financiers to vertically integrate production, distribution, and exhibition within a unified corporate organization, forming powerful conglomerates. Such consolidation began delineating between “independent” operators and major enterprises, with cash-backed impresarios forming the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) trade association in 1921 to support their interests. MPPDA-aligned studios often considered independents’ continued operations frustrating—the public already enjoyed cinema, so unaligned enterprises’ “support” for the industry was no longer necessary, and collaboration generally proved difficult since major players used corporate practices modeled after the era’s big businesses rather than specialized, idiosyncratic methods that worked fine for small endeavors.Footnote ¹¹

As the Hollywood system emerged, its major players adjusted their strategies to continue increasing profitability. During the 1910s, General Film used its national reach to control which exhibitors could have “first run” rights for a movie, limiting access to the newest pictures to single operators in defined areas so the proprietor could charge monopoly prices. Cinema managers believed such novelty was crucial to securing return customers and soon began changing their bills incredibly often, leading local ticket sellers to seek exchange partners who could provide a large volume of films very quickly. Over time, distributors began offering a range of products to exhibitors, pushing toward “block booking” during the early 1920s by packaging dozens of features together to fill specific blocks of time. Realizing their power, exchanges then began including lower quality pictures alongside more artfully made fare, forcing theater operators with few alternatives to purchase these bundles.Footnote ¹²

Conglomerates’ practices also began limiting opportunities for independent distributors. Some, like W.W. Hodkinson Corporation, continued along, renting low-cost films created by companies outside the Hollywood system to small-town exhibitors with limited buying power. Around 1920, many exhibitors valued independently produced films, marketing them as higher-quality alternatives to studio fare, and the number of such releases rose from 646 to 854 between 1919 and 1921. However, important suppliers, including the Ford Motor Company (which had crafted motion pictures featuring car races and scenic travel segments as a rural advertising strategy) and the Community Motion Picture Bureau (a civically inspired exchange), soon closed operations; when remote projectionists did acquire products, they were often visibly deteriorating because such bills were the final point on most distribution networks. Further complicating the business, rural Americans increasingly noticed the difference between their local cinema and the opulent movie palaces found in larger cities. By the middle of the decade, teenagers with access to cars began traveling in large numbers into bigger communities to enjoy a better experience featuring interstitial vaudeville performances, large orchestras, impressive pipe organs, ornate decorations, ushers, and thousands of seats.Footnote ¹³ While it was still possible for smaller enterprises to operate in the motion picture industry, the changing landscape made it imperative for new entrants to develop effective operational strategies.

Despite the risks, Legionnaires pressed ahead with their independent film distribution plans, securing pictures from a variety of sources. In its earliest months in operation, the Film Service relied heavily on war footage it had acquired from the government; of the four options available for rent in the autumn of 1921, three were explicitly martial in nature (a six-reel naval aviation program, a six-reel Marine Corps program, and a reel and a half of war footage from the U.S. shipping board), with only a vaguely described “six reel program” lacking a clear connection to the armed forces. Film Service administrators made a concerted effort to expand their holdings, acquiring the rights to the 1917 Thanhouser Film Corporation feature The Man Without a Country from independent Chicago operator S.H. Boynton, feeling the adaptation of Edward Everett Hale’s 1863 short story about a lieutenant who came to regret renouncing his allegiance to the United States fit the organization’s cultural priorities. The following year, Legion executives began searching for material that posts could screen as part of their fundraising drives, contacting universities across the United States to borrow or cheaply book movies from colleges’ catalogs. As the decade continued, the Film Service expanded in a variety of directions, securing films from major studios like First National and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, as well as independent producers like Thomas Ince to round out playbills. The Legion itself also became a source of material, as it embraced the industry-wide trend of vertical integration by expanding into production (with the goal of leasing its output to other exchanges as well).Footnote ¹⁴ Although the movie distribution marketplace was in the midst of rapid consolidation, the Legion Film Service developed a variety of ways to source material for its own exchange and enter this competitive sector.

The Legion Film Service then circulated its movies throughout the organization using both tried and true techniques and innovative new approaches. The Legion’s plan for distributing The Man Without a Country evoked contemporary norms, as it offered Boynton permission to distribute the picture in cities with more than 45,000 people in exchange for the opportunity to market the movie in smaller communities. While this pressured Legionnaires to turn out large percentages of their numerous small-town affiliates’ communities (inspiring the aggressive marketing strategies discussed below), it also offered the enterprise significant benefits; urban, first-run theaters essentially functioned as an advertising arm for rural exhibitors, as city releases fueled public discourse and generated interest that could be capitalized on in the near future.Footnote ¹⁵ The Film Service also deployed a strategy that conglomerates’ executives dreamed of embracing—percentage-based pricing of rented material. Distributors had long sought a percentage of cinemas’ receipts instead of a flat fee, but outside of special situations where exchange operators provided an extra resource (often marketing), exhibitors strenuously resisted this practice, fearing that shared box office data would be used against them in future film pricing negotiations. As the Legion’s national headquarters offered promotional assistance for Man Without a Country and future features, they secured 50 percent of the profits (in communities with ten thousand or more residents), generating revenue in a way that their contemporaries could not.Footnote ¹⁶ While the Legion’s negotiations with its affiliates did make it different from a corporate exchange’s dealings with theater owners from a separate firm, funds were still flowing between different organizational stakeholders, as national and local leaders sought ways to leverage income for their respective benefits. Striking such a balance was just one of the ways the Film Service was able to harness and surpass contemporary distribution strategies, creating opportunities to thrive despite the competitive environment.

Over the next few years, the Film Service continued to expand, largely by mirroring techniques developed by the era’s leading vaudeville chains. In the preceding decade, entrepreneurs in this popular form of variety entertainment courted middle-class audiences by establishing the United Booking Office to control their industry and allow centralized staffers to collect data on performers and spectators’ reactions. This then served as a model for distributors of motion picture shorts, who borrowed from its packaging, pricing, routing, and timing techniques as early as 1905.Footnote ¹⁷ The Film Service embraced this approach as well; by 1923, national administrators had developed a survey to understand each post’s facilities and presentation environment, gathering information on clubrooms and seating capacities, local theaters and their pricing and publicity strategies, and other logistical concerns like the availability of projectors. To book a movie (or rent a community theater), a chapter executive wrote Indianapolis with three possible choices from the Film Service’s catalog and proposed screening dates; officials then crafted a plan to fill the order. To confirm the reservation, directors sent each branch a standardized letter, outlining where the reels would be coming from and where they should be sent next. These details were crucial to the circuit’s operation, and by 1925, national leaders made it clear that if the forwarding instructions were lost, post officers should not ship the picture back to Indianapolis but instead call headquarters and determine where the precious cargo should be transported, preventing valuable time and resources from being wasted. Supervisors were thrilled by the results, feeling their work keeping features in constant motion was “directly in opposition to the policies of commercial agencies,” yet also “permits us to operate more economically and to double and frequently triple the volume of business.”Footnote ¹⁸ In their efforts to operate efficiently and maintain acceptable margins, Film Service agents clearly integrated practices pioneered by established businesses, adopting effective tactics to rapidly expand the enterprise’s footprint.

Legionnaires were buoyed by their efforts to recruit talented, professional staff who knew how to attract customers. In-house marketers had been crucial to Paramount’s rise, as these experts parsed data on their firm’s branches and local marketplaces, examining both communities and competitors’ resources—information the Film Service had also gathered—to centrally coordinate pricing more effectively than other endeavors. Legion officials were able to find expert managers by leveraging relationships formed in World War I. During the conflict, the federal government made an extensive effort to reshape public opinion by using social scientific data collection and the mass media, recruiting press agents and other experts as “dollar-a-year men” who took a minimal salary to aid policymakers.Footnote ¹⁹ Many aided the Committee on Public Information and its propaganda efforts, but the military’s need to conduct registration, recruitment, and enlistment drives also led its administrators to hire specialists who then identified with veterans once the armistice had been secured.

Such professionals provided crucial insights to the Film Service by drawing on their past experiences. One key manager was Wells Hawks, a newspaperman who had moved to New York City in the early twentieth century and became known for stunts hyping the Ringling Brothers Circus like sending a bearded lady to get a haircut and taking a well-dressed elephant to a restaurant, as well as crafting more traditional advertising campaigns for movie pioneers like Universal and Famous Players. In January 1917, he quit these jobs and joined the navy, spurring enlistment with spectacles including the construction of a warship in New York’s Union Square, a high-profile success that brought him to the attention of President Woodrow Wilson. When he departed for France to negotiate the Versailles Treaty, Wilson brought Hawks along to oversee the motion picture production of the trip. Upon his return, Hawks took a job with the Fox Film Corporation and was an active Legionnaire, leading a New York City post and supporting membership drives and the formation of the Legion Film Service.Footnote ²⁰ Other recruits included James E. Darst, a St. Louis newspaper reporter wounded in combat, who became associate editor of The American Legion Weekly and briefly led the Film Service. In this role, he sought to develop logistical solutions, mostly acquiring and supplying films and projectors for posts. Darst would soon cede his responsibilities to another St. Louis area journalist—Earle A. Meyer, who served in the navy during the conflict.Footnote ²¹ Hawks, Darst, and Meyer were just three of the many veterans who brought a wealth of expertise in mass communications to the Legion, holding skills and knowledge that could generate revenue and advance a cultural agenda.

The Legion’s professional staff developed a marketing strategy that was national in scope but tailored to the communal structures of local municipalities. Within a year of the Film Service’s launch, Meyer outlined a comprehensive approach for promoting the film Cardigan. This seven-reel Messmore Kendall picture set during the Revolutionary War featured a protagonist who witnessed foundational moments in the country’s history, including Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, sequences which aligned closely with the Legion’s patriotic ethos. Meyer provided posts with a form letter that could be sent to nearby branches of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, noting that “if it is not possible to circularize the entire membership, it may be just as effective to send a letter to the Corresponding Secretary of each chapter, requesting them to notify their members.” He then proposed slightly modifying the text before shipping the mailer to other civic-minded institutions like the Rotary International, Service Club, American Club, and Elks lodges. Each affiliate was also instructed to set up a publicity committee that could contact journalists in town, develop stickers for automobiles, make telephone announcements, and distribute posters throughout the region; the national headquarters would offer additional support by issuing press releases to announce the event in area newspapers. By 1923, the Film Service’s plans had been organized into a manual that was dispatched to all posts and auxiliary units across the country.Footnote ²² From its earliest days, the Legion’s experts contributed resources and guidance to branches, standardizing audience cultivation by combining grassroots activism with a uniform message and bureaucratic resources.

Working within this framework, local posts added their own unique approaches that piqued citizens’ interest. In the aftermath of World War I, Hollywood studios were well known for their creative campaigns to attract audiences. Elsie Janis, a vaudeville star whose performances for doughboys in France earned her the nickname “Sweetheart of the AEF,” directly incorporated veterans performing a five-gun salute and short, public march into the theater for the November 1919 premiere of her movie A Regular Girl for Selznick Pictures Corporation.Footnote ²³ Legionnaires recognized the potential of these martial techniques and quickly applied them to their marketing strategy for the aforementioned Man Without a Country. Executives provided a blueprint with the film’s September 1921 debut in the Legion’s headquarters of Indianapolis, where “a host of special stunts” evoked some of Wells Hawks’s earlier methods, including the display of a captured German cannon in the center of town, an aerial flyover of the city releasing complementary tickets, and the mailing of two hundred “mush notes” from fictitious women inviting men to rendezvous at the screening, and the organization’s administrators encouraged chapters to follow suit and develop their own spectacles.Footnote ²⁴

S.H. Boynton’s limited resources eventually led him to tap the Film Service for support with his screenings of The Man Without a Country in larger markets, attesting to posts’ successes in turning out audiences. At the end of 1922, Legion officials advanced Boynton cash and put him in touch with local chapters for more effective coordination. Connections with prominent community leaders allowed the organization to recruit speakers like Governor Edwin P. Morrow of Kentucky, a non-combat veteran of the Spanish-American War, who spoke before the movie’s premiere in his state. Nashville Legion posts held a beauty pageant that awarded top contestants the roles of “Miss Columbia” and “Mother of America” in a tableau before the picture’s screening. Newport News-area Legionnaires asked local businesses to work the title of the film into their advertisements in the daily paper, keeping the feature’s name on the tip of the public’s tongue while securing roughly one hundred dollars in free publicity. Hundreds of miles north in Cattaraugus, New York, a town of roughly 1,200 people, the Legion’s film night captivated an audience of 800 after the chapter commander personally addressed 1,000 postcard messages to citizens in the municipality and outlying rural areas, attracting many who had never seen a motion picture.Footnote ²⁵

In contrast to the Legion’s profitability, Boynton struggled to pay off his advances and increasingly missed opportunities for greater collaboration. By the summer of 1923, officials suspected Boynton was actually creating disputes with the posts he was supposed to be coordinating with in hopes of renegotiating their deal.Footnote ²⁶ The Legion’s spectacles easily surpassed smaller contemporary commercial operators’ advertising strategies, fusing unique connections between regional civic organizations and the wider public with a national marketing message locating new patrons.

While intensive advertising spread word of the Legion Film Service’s local events, the aggressive approach also inspired occasional animosity. In the spring of 1924, the Film Service reached what trade journalists called “one of the largest deals put over recently in the independent market,” acquiring the exclusive distribution rights for Monogram Pictures Corporation’s The Whipping Boss. The organization planned a nationwide rollout for a feature dramatizing a recent scandal in Florida, where World War I veteran Martin Tabert had been unjustly arrested, sentenced to a term as a convict laborer, and whipped to death, with the movie framing Legionnaires’ investigation into the incident as a heroic resolution to the tragedy. As a part of their promotional strategy, Chicago posts hired a company to telephone city residents and drum up ticket sales, deploying tactics similar to contemporary telemarketing campaigns. While many Legionnaires in the community supported the plan, some saw it as a problem; Committeeman Ferre Watkins wrote directly to the National Commander (circumventing the normal chain of command) to “protest against this system of panhandling the public in Chicago, Frisco or New York, wherever it may happen. It is injuring The American Legion, is undignified, and is the identical thing we have been fighting against.” He referenced society’s recent frustrations with the organization’s similarly belligerent book-selling initiative, noting that the new program “will leave a disagreeable impression in the mind of every business man or citizen telephoned or approached.”Footnote ²⁷ Watkins’s opposition foreshadowed American consumers’ frustrations with the increasing prominence of advertising in the 1920s, a dynamic that would further intensify with the onset of network radio at the end of the decade, when public intellectuals like Stuart Chase branded such content a “punishment.”Footnote ²⁸ Ultimately, the Legion’s adoption of uncompromising marketing was so effective that it made the organization an early target for grassroots opposition to such strategies.

While the Legion Film Service developed many strategies that mirrored corporate operations, it also had a unique advantage that the numerous other exchanges attempting to stay profitable could not claim. As a secular, nonprofit organization, the American Legion Film Service was part of new trend of institutions capitalizing on recent legal, political, and social developments, which allowed such enterprises many opportunities to innovate and adapt beyond their contemporaries. Lobbyists were generally unable to achieve tax-exempt status, but 1919 Treasury Department rules made a notable exception for veterans, allowing the American Legion to secure this important benefit at the moment of its creation. This era also coincided with a dramatic rise in the country’s standard of living, as average annual pay rose 29 percent from 1914 to 1929, allowing Americans to contribute their growing disposable income to causes they believed in. Although the value of individual donations remained roughly the same, the number of benefactors climbed significantly; the percentage of San Franciscans aiding caregivers climbed from 3 percent in 1900 to 35 percent in the 1920s, a shift fueled by mass drives benefitting the Red Cross and United War World Campaign during World War I.Footnote ²⁹ As a philanthropic endeavor opening shop in the 1920s, the American Legion’s very presence was revolutionary, providing its leaders and members with a unique chance to leverage their resources in a novel way.

By the late 1920s, film distribution was a well-defined marketplace that was increasingly dominated by commercial, studio interests. To stay competitive and advance the American Legion’s goals, its Film Service adopted the best practices of other entertainment companies and leveraged its unique cultural and economic advantages. These approaches placed it at the forefront of the contemporary industry, attracting wider audiences (including some that had never been to a movie theater)—and, as we shall now see, greater scrutiny as a Hollywood outsider.

Establishing an Independent Identity

The Legion Film Service’s rapid ascendance created friction with its more established, corporate competitors, as its cultural vision fostered a novel sense of purpose for motion picture distribution. In the early twentieth century, executives in a variety of sectors sought ways to communicate the benefits of their products and services to consumers, often marketing a brand identity that could enhance esteem for their offerings. This included H.J. Heinz, who supported new regulations for the country’s food industry in the early twentieth century to increase consumers’ confidence in his processed foods, and Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, who framed his firm’s vehicle lines (Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, GMC Trucks, Oldsmobile) as a “famous family” providing buyers with special benefits unique to that brand to compete with Henry Ford’s low cost Model T.Footnote ³⁰ Legionnaires embarked on a similar path even before they had established their Film Service, as their cultural agenda led them to scrutinize cinema bookings—and in some instances mobilize against studios’ distribution strategies. In May 1921, Legionnaires from the Hollywood post began targeting Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Goldwyn was a small but significant industry player formed in 1916 after Paramount fired Samuel Goldfish (soon to adopt the name Goldwyn), who then secured a seven-million-dollar investment from the Du Pont family, Chase Bank, and Central Union Trust and purchased production space near Los Angeles. He also distributed highbrow, often European, stories for his “Eminent Authors” project, eventually acquiring the rights to revolutionary German expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which put him in the Legion’s crosshairs for patronage of the country’s wartime adversary.Footnote ³¹

Legionnaires picketed the picture’s opening at Miller’s Theatre, and, according to the press, by the evening the protest “assumed monster proportions. The streets in the neighborhood of the theatre were packed for blocks and street car and automobile traffic was interfered with. Long lines of protestants [sic] armed with banners bearing patriotic legends marched up and down in front of the theatre.” While the movie would successfully open in Los Angeles later in November, veterans’ maneuvers derailed the profits of a growing corporation in the short term.Footnote ³² In this instance, the Legion’s national headquarters had not directed the action—it was coordinated by a single post—but it still demonstrated the organization’s power to radically shift the movie marketplace, in this instance against a major distributor. The story also illustrated the complexities of their relationship, as such exploits could arguably have benefitted studios’ production arms as a form of nationalistic protection for their output, providing American firms even greater influence over the business.

After confronting the Legion’s activist potential, Hollywood executives began courting the organization’s endorsement for major motion pictures, which created new controversies. The Film Service was far from the first enterprise to recognize the power of its institutional approval; over the preceding decade, reformers seeking to turn movies into a resource for social uplift embraced censorship of the medium, crafting resources like the National Board of Review to define what constituted legitimate films; by 1912, the Board’s blessing carried national credibility and producers used it to access key markets.Footnote ³³ In the autumn of 1921, mere months after the Caligari protests, Legionnaires began trickling into theaters to see The Face at Your Window, a movie produced by Fox Film Corporation that had premiered a year earlier, though marketing had recently shifted to target post members across the country. Legion officials were already familiar with the feature—they had previously been contacted by Fox administrators seeking the society’s support. This seemed plausible, as the picture centered on two small-town factory owners’ troubles with Russian labor radicals and positioned Legionnaires as heroic peacemakers, a narrative opposing Bolshevism and promoting a literal version of the association’s Americanism. However, the Legionnaires were costumed as Ku Klux Klansmen—a fact that was promoted in the film’s early advertisements. Legion agents were stunned at the depiction—their presentation in white hooded garments “was not only considered misleading but ridiculous.” To secure veterans’ backing, Fox initially offered to split profits and give Legionnaires the ability to recut the movie, but negotiations soon broke down. Despite the enterprise’s overt rejection of the feature, administrators learned “that Fox Film Corporation was distributing the picture and calling on Legion men to support it, claiming that it had the indorsement [sic] of the American Legion. A bulletin was thereupon issued, telling posts that the Legion had not indorsed [sic] the picture and had nothing to do with it.”Footnote ³⁴

Nonetheless, unsuspecting members saw publicity directly appealing to them and dutifully went to the cinema, only to be shocked at The Face at Your Window’s content. Leon Schwarz, a Legionnaire from Alabama, wrote to national headquarters that “wherever it shows, a special call is made to the Legion men to see it. In response to that, I went to see it, and find in it, that the Legion, in order to save America from Bolshevism, converts itself into the Ku Klux Klan. Rather ingenious, and calculated to do the Legion harm, I fear.” Hundreds of miles away in Michigan, veterans fell victim to the same campaign, frustrating national leaders who felt they had little recourse; the Legion’s National Judge Advocate stated, “I do not believe, however, that we have any more ground for action in this case than we do against the author of a book in which reference is made to the Legion or the manager of a store which advertises that their goods are such as Legionnaires might wear.” In Kansas, Legionnaires booked the film for their Armistice Day celebrations based on Fox’s appeals to former servicemen, only to regret it once they heard headquarters’ reservations; despite the post’s concerns, they still screened the picture since they wanted some form of entertainment, leading the audience to conclude “no one is to blame but the film company that has not learned decency in advertising.”Footnote ³⁵ In crafting this feature and its marketing, Fox’s representatives could easily have taken steps to deepen an alliance with an institution that shared the movie’s political perspective, yet industrialists instead chose to use familiar tropes that conflated the Legion with the “heroes” of D.W. Griffith’s recent Birth of a Nation. This approach may have been an attempt to reap Nation’s blockbuster profits, but it also antagonized a publicly engaged mouthpiece of civically minded citizens from across the country.

Legionnaires also positioned their cultural agenda in opposition to Hollywood studios, using Americanism as justification for expansion into film production. In 1922, the Legion launched a campaign for “cleaner” and “truly American” movies that would offer more sophisticated content for highbrow audiences. In the years that followed, Earle Meyer, the director of the Film Service, circulated a press release that was intermittently picked up by papers across the country and lambasted “motion picture producers who have been making pictures that would appeal to the ‘thirteen-year-old’ intelligence of the average motion picture audience.” It went on to note that the Legion “has produced several pictures for exhibition in theaters throughout the country” that were “educational, historical and entertaining, and the enthusiasm with which they have been received, according to Meyer, is evidence a plenty that the people of America want more wholesome films.”Footnote ³⁶ Internally, the move toward film production created much debate—many leaders worried that it would “commercialize” the Legion and thus run afoul of its interests. However, Meyer worked closely with other prominent figures within the organization’s media apparatus, cultivating an alliance with A.H. Whiton, the head of circulation for The American Legion Weekly, who enthusiastically lobbied the National Adjutant to make sure the project won approval.Footnote ³⁷ While the Legion’s entry into motion picture production was a novel idea that could potentially have expanded its cultural influence, it also framed movies as a public menace by denigrating the profitable techniques of the extant industry in an attempt to win patrons.

In practice, the Legion Film Service’s operations were much less radical than Meyer’s public rhetoric. Meyer’s notations to the responses he received from college administrators regarding his request for material illustrated his interest in commercial options, as he circled advice from an official at the University of Texas suggesting “a number of recreational programs that can be secured from the Southern Enterprises in Dallas” that came with “low rental rates for the posts. The Goldwyn releases can be secured for about $7.00 and some of the Paramount artists’ pictures are rented for about $12.50.”Footnote ³⁸ Clearly, Meyer and the Legion would happily have made use of Hollywood films—if the price was right.

Moreover, the organization’s plans for their own shorts demonstrated an appreciation for popular genres and styles, as one of its main goals was “to reach a large audience.” Achieving this meant “such a reel must have: Entertainment value, Beauty, Charm, Humor. Every reel should be made wide enough in its scope to appeal to Women, Children.” While the motion pictures were intended to be educational, topics could explore popular personalities and sports alongside discussions of business, science, history, and government. Administrators preferred humorous intertitles and noted, “we would never despise the picture of a pretty girl because she happened to be pretty – and it would require weighty reasons to keep out a laughing baby – and the editors should be instructed to stop editing any time to conjure up an excuse to include any stray picture they may discover of a lot of kittens playing in a basket of yarn.”Footnote ³⁹ Although Meyer and his colleagues argued that their collection was intellectually rigorous, the films they made and distributed actively courted wide audiences—the same crowds that the Film Service denigrated Hollywood productions for reaching. In reality, the association’s claims were an attempt to draw a contrast with established competitors whose crowd-pleasing techniques Legionnaires would soon borrow.

After publicly framing commercial ventures as their antithesis, the Film Service’s officials sought out allies in distributors and producers who chafed under the Hollywood system. The Legion’s national leaders publicly aligned their organization with independent impresarios, providing testimony against major studios’ block booking practices. Since Paramount had signed many of the industry’s star performers shortly after the firm’s organization, executives had begun using their influence as distributors to demand exhibitors rent 13 to 52 (sometimes as many as 104) films that included many features with significantly less appeal than those toplined by celebrities. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating such activities in 1921, gathering over seventeen thousand pages of testimony for a case that would take over a decade to adjudicate. In 1923, Colonel Alvin Owsley, the Legion’s national commander, agreed to testify, stressing the medium’s ability to educate audiences. The testimony gathered by the FTC also echoed many of Meyer’s talking points—block booking led the public to see “unsuitable films” and pay unreasonable prices—all of which were welcomed by independent producers and theater owners who struggled against Hollywood’s dominance.Footnote ⁴⁰ In one of the era’s most consequential investigations of the film industry, Legionnaires united with companies being pushed out of the marketplace, encouraging the government to step in and regulate the commercial techniques of the sector the Film Service was entering.

Meyer and his colleagues further strengthened their connections with independent filmmakers by seeking their advice and support for the Film Service’s expansion into producing shorts. As studios shifted their emphasis toward features and the larger profits they generated, this created a vacuum since shorts remained a part of many playbills. During the early 1920s, Educational Pictures (a company that, despite its name and initial cultural bent, specialized in comedies) considered their low-running-time material the “spice of the program” and worked to secure more respect for the genre, eventually winning enough acclaim that Paramount and Metro began returning to the format. When the Legion began production, its leaders developed a relationship with the Kinogram Publishing Company of New York City, which was amenable to the organization’s goals and feedback. In 1924, just months into their work, Legion officials sought a topical picture to pair with The Whipping Boss, feeling that it must provide “a little humorous relief” since the feature was particularly tense. Meyer liked the result, Hitting the Trail, suggesting alterations to a mountaineering sequence that seemed “quite common-place” and the film’s title, which Kinogram editors made.Footnote ⁴¹ Working with a small producer thus allowed Legionnaires to quickly secure novel movies matching their needs and vision.

Circulating finished products to a wider audience was its own challenge, which Kinogram officials again addressed. The firm secured the assistance of Ricord Gradwell, the President of the Producers Security Corporation, a national distributor of independent films. Gradwell identified six potential partners for the Legion spanning a range of sizes, including Educational, Standard Cinema (a subsidiary of Hollywood producer Louis J. Selznick’s organization), a new firm formed by Carl H. Anderson (a former manager of Educational), and the Film Booking Offices of America (a studio bankrolled by Joseph P. Kennedy). However, Gradwell’s advice was for the Legion and Kinogram to work with independent distributors; not only could Gradwell use his connections to enter into twenty-eight markets, but this plan also had “the advantage of giving us more advantageous terms than can be found in national distribution under a single company.”Footnote ⁴² Even though there were compelling reasons for the Legion to cultivate an alliance with national conglomerates consolidating control over the industry, its officials repeatedly chose to work with smaller enterprises that charged lower rates and provided greater responsiveness.

As the decade wound on, the Legion Film Service was able to capitalize on its nonprofit status and unite other, often independent, exhibitors under Legionnaires’ management, continuing their own vertical integration to compete more effectively against Hollywood corporations. Throughout the early 1920s, the film industry dealt with a variety of levies, but autonomous cinema operators felt the pressure particularly acutely as they struggled to remain viable against rapidly consolidating competitors. In the summer of 1921, the chairman of the Washington, DC, exhibitors’ committee testified before Congress and listed off a range of fifteen assessments his colleagues had to pay including license, water, real estate, personal, vault, seat, admission, income, excess profits, assessment, film, capital stock, corporation, inspection, and music taxes. At the same time, the Treasury Department began stepping up its efforts to enforce sales taxes, deploying 250 specially trained revenue officers and 2,000 deputy collectors to target proprietors who had not submitted various surcharges—a campaign that collected $12 million in two months.Footnote ⁴³ While the government benefitted, small businesses struggled—in Los Angeles, the secretary of the city’s Theatre Owners’ Association wrote to the City Council complaining that high fees had led to the closing of many movie houses, while the editor of The Moving Picture World reported that roughly 125 theaters had closed in New York City, the majority of which were because of high admission taxes.Footnote ⁴⁴

In order to remain in operation, many independent operators across the country sought alliances with local Legion chapters that could use their nonprofit status to eliminate these tax burdens. In Terry, Montana, a cinema manager consolidated his business with the nearby American Legion Hall, a plan that soon led to record-setting audiences. In Alamosa, Colorado, plans flowed in the opposite direction—a Legion post constructed a seven-hundred-seat movie house but then leased it out rather than serving as the day-to-day operator. Such ideas were not necessarily new—a Legion branch had maintained a theater in Walla Walla, Washington, since 1921—but they became increasingly viable as entrepreneurs fought to remain solvent as the decade wound on.Footnote ⁴⁵ While all businesses dealt with levies, new national cinema chains had the financial resources to weather the storm and expand Hollywood studios’ control of the industry. Rather than admit defeat to these innovative corporate structures, independent operators entered into an alliance with the Legion, using its nonprofit status to secure tax relief and enable local managers to continue running their businesses.

By entering the film distribution market and expanding into production and exhibition, Legion Film Service officials clearly sought ways to establish their enterprise as an independent operator outside the influence of large Hollywood studios. Such corporations had already squabbled with the Legion by claiming its public support when they had not actually secured it. For their part, Legionnaires were also interested in drawing contrasts with major firms to justify ongoing growth. When officials found cheap ways to integrate popular films and styles into their repertoire, they did so, but when this proved expensive, Legion administrators forged alliances with autonomous producers that provided their own unique resources. Yet, as the next section will illustrate, this reality also opened the door to potentially collaborating with moguls who were allegedly the nonprofit’s rivals when conditions became more advantageous.

Hollywood Resource

Although Legionnaires’ cultural mission led them to challenge the distribution of some films, their objectives could also support Hollywood studios—a process that again began before the organization established its Film Service. After returning home, World War I veterans were excited to enjoy recreation and leisure activities as they had done during their time in the military, spurring efforts to make temporary regulatory changes permanent. During the conflict, soldiers primarily took leave on Sundays, which ran afoul of local communities’ “blue laws” that prohibited recreation on the Sabbath, leading army officials, local businessmen, and theater operators into an alliance against ministers and local law enforcement. In 1917, officials in Fort Worth and Louisville attempted to enforce these rules, but courts and prosecutors declined to uphold penalties or advance the cases, feeling a weekly trip to the cinema was one of the few opportunities for troops to enjoy a respite from the rigors of training camp. Many Legionnaires wanted such developments to continue, and in the closing weeks of 1920, the District of Columbia Department (the organization’s term for state-level operations) adopted resolutions that condemned blue laws and crafted a committee to lobby Congress for their repeal.Footnote ⁴⁶ Cinema managers had long sought the ability to reap profits seven days a week, and the support of the Legion allowed this to take place, with members using their patriotic credentials and genuine interest in seeing movies to support legal reforms benefitting Hollywood.

Even after the Legion Film Service debuted and framed its films as an alternative to studio fare, there were still many opportunities for these institutions to work together. In 1921, journalists for The Moving Picture World encouraged theater managers to pursue relationships with Legion posts in their community to secure robust audiences for their bills. The periodical’s recurring “Selling the Picture to the Public” page shared successful marketing campaigns and highlighted a Charleston, West Virginia exhibitor’s decision to help the Legion fundraise—the post sold ticket booklets for the cinema as a December 1920 Christmas gift and kept 15 percent of the revenue. The drive was a massive success, as Legionnaires’ social network and patriotic appeal enabled them to build a kiosk next to the community’s busy post office, generating $15,000 in sales.Footnote ⁴⁷

While Charleston proprietors operated their theater independently of a vertically integrated Hollywood studio, the support of a flagship publication and other prominent insiders suggested that moguls viewed the strategy as a way of uplifting the industry. Exhibitor Sid Grauman, the famed impresario who established palatial landmarks including the Chinese and Egyptian Theatres, made Hollywood’s support for the Legion more explicit, as his substantial donations earned him a plaque of gratitude from the organization. In Kansas City, local cinemas collectively set aside a portion of their proceeds on November 13, 1922 (two days after the fourth anniversary of the armistice) for the city’s posts, which agreed to abstain from any competitive attractions that could depress turnout.Footnote ⁴⁸ Despite the occasionally adversarial relationship between the Legion and commercial theater operators, entrepreneurs of all sizes recognized the potential benefits of securing audiences from the ranks of American veterans and actively courted their patronage, leveraging the organization’s marketing capabilities and membership rolls to turn a profit.

Legion posts also became a valuable resource for studios as a secondhand market for their commodities, exploiting their growth from distributors into exhibitors. Since the value of completed films declined rapidly after release, it behooved moguls and their affiliated exchanges to find partners interested in old stock to guarantee some level of profit from these assets; Legionnaires were an obvious candidate for motion pictures supporting their cultural and fundraising initiatives, particularly given their growing distribution network. In the early 1920s, the Veterans Bureau established hospitals across the country to facilitate the rehabilitation of returned servicemen, and, in 1924, Earle Meyer outlined a plan to provide Christmas entertainments at forty-eight centers. He instructed nearby chapters to secure projectors from local schools or YMCAs and then develop a relationship with the local branch of First National’s film exchange office (a list of their locations and managers was also provided).Footnote ⁴⁹ This initiative demonstrated the Film Service’s strengths and shortcomings. Its national reach and community engagement allowed Legionnaires to perform important logistical functions that facilitated the distribution of entertainment; however, despite their earlier efforts, veterans lacked a large supply of the movies that attracted audiences. As a result, the Film Service also built ties with established Hollywood businessmen to acquire their inventory at a reasonable price.

During the Christmas hospital campaign, Legion officials had secured the rights to distribute and exhibit First National’s films, but when the Film Service was not performing public service, it needed to pay industry insiders for their supplies. In these instances, the Legion positioned itself as a loyal customer that executives were willing to make concessions for. In 1926, Legionnaires sought copies of Janice Meredith, a love story set during the Revolutionary War and one of the first films distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, a major corporation formed two years earlier by the merger of three significant studios. As an older movie, the Legion paid twenty-five dollars per day and could show it for up to a month in towns where it had already been screened commercially. The Film Service’s plan was to charge posts thirty dollars a day to borrow the feature from national headquarters, thus generating five dollars for the organization, though this ultimately proved untenable as individual chapters found it difficult to consistently generate more than the daily rental cost. Legion representatives then secured a price reduction to fifteen dollars a day from MGM, but this was still too steep for individual branches to profit. National administrators then removed themselves from the process, asking posts to secure the print from MGM exchanges on their own.Footnote ⁵⁰ Even though the deal was a flop, its constant renegotiation was telling—MGM valued its partnership with the Legion enough to substantially lower rates, seeing the nonprofit as a valuable ally.

The Legion could also serve as a partner for Hollywood by granting an endorsement to major feature films from a variety of organizational levels. In 1921, United Artists secured limited Legion support for J’Accuse, a French film that the firm was distributing within the United States. While the movie contained footage shot on World War I’s battlefields, its anti-war message led national Legion officials to withhold formal support. However, United Artists then approached the Legion’s individual departments, with New York agreeing to promote it. Although administrators in Indianapolis reminded posts that “no Legion Department has the inherent right nationally to indorse [sic] any project,” regional support nonetheless mattered. United Artists’s promotional copy, in publications like The Moving Picture World, highlighted the New York department’s recommendation to maximize the power of its impact and attract the widest possible audience.Footnote ⁵¹ Even in instances where the Legion’s leadership saw Hollywood threatening its cultural endeavors, local chapters had the authority to collaborate with leading corporations and encourage members to patronize studios’ releases.

In some instances, the Legion entered into profit-sharing agreements with independent film producers who carved out their own complex relationships with Hollywood firms in tandem with the organization. Within the nascent studio system, rapidly shifting between industry insider and independent entrepreneur was already common—W.W. Hodkinson, whose company challenged “cold-blooded” exhibitors with The Ex-Kaiser in Exile, was an exchange operator credited with the foundational vision establishing Paramount. However, angling by other executives forced Hodkinson’s ouster in 1916, leading him back to autonomous endeavors.Footnote ⁵² Another contemporary Legion ally was the Thomas Ince Corporation. Ince’s career straddled Hollywood mogul status—his work a decade earlier routinizing the creation of motion pictures under the leadership of a single individual had essentially laid the groundwork for standardized feature production; he also helped form Triangle Film Corporation—one of the first vertically integrated movie companies—before he sold his shares and re-dedicated himself to his own enterprise. Ince came to the Legion’s attention with Skin Deep, a 1922 gangster story that modeled its protagonist on criminal Monk Eastman, who had served in World War I after spending many years in prison. This plot allowed Ince, First National (the feature’s distributor), and the Legion to recognize the potential benefits of posts screening the movie in exchange for ten percent of the profits. With this deal in place, the Legion’s National Commander publicly endorsed the picture, and local managers began using their novel marketing approaches (such as advertising screenings in Clarksville, Tennessee from a banner pulled by a car participating in a Legion parade through the community) to successfully attract patrons; by 1926, the Legion had secured over five thousand dollars from the arrangement with Ince.Footnote ⁵³ Partnerships like the one boosting Skin Deep illustrated the complexity of the Film Service’s operations, as it generated money by exhibiting a range of pictures sourced from counterparts’ exchanges that then worked with the Legion’s own internal distribution network to advance specific cultural goals.

The Film Service also directly served as a resource for Hollywood when major studios, in particular, Fox Film Corporation, hired multiple Legionnaires to shape commercial operations. In the final months of 1924, Earle Meyer, the administrator who had lambasted studios’ output just a few years earlier, left the Legion to work for Fox. Despite his exit, Meyer maintained a close relationship with his former employer because one of his first projects was a new production of The Man Without a Country. The Legion’s National Judge Advocate indicated the organization’s support, telling Meyer that “we would be willing to withdraw all consideration of our own film,” volunteering to clear the market of older competitors to the movie. Meyer offered $8,300 to the Legion in exchange for all of its prints, its endorsement of the updated picture “based entirely on the merit of the production,” as well as the “moral support” of the Legion’s publicity arms including articles in its News Service and The American Legion Weekly. Everything seemed to progress smoothly until the Legion’s ownership rights became subject to litigation from its distribution partner, which led Fox executives to lose interest and simply rename their movie As No Man Has Loved. Even after negotiations collapsed, Meyer continued advising the Legion, encouraging executives to protect their claim by taking out advertisements stating their holdings in film journals.Footnote ⁵⁴ Upon the feature’s release, the Legion continued supporting it, with 11,000 posts providing endorsements and officials at national headquarters printing an ad in The American Legion Weekly encouraging chapters to book the film. Fox’s marketing team also encouraged local exhibitors to arrange tie-ins with Legion halls in their community to secure additional revenue.Footnote ⁵⁵

While Meyer’s career at Fox was brief—by the autumn of 1925, he had already departed for a Fort Lauderdale real estate development company—other Legionnaires also joined the studio. James E. Darst, the former editor of the Weekly who briefly led the Film Service prior to Meyer’s appointment, took a post as foreign editor. By the end of the decade, Darst was a director for Fox’s Movietone newsreel series—a new technological marvel that debuted in 1927. These journalistic shorts provided recorded sound for audiences and became so popular that the company began programming a New York theater solely with them, including one that documented the Legion’s Parisian convention commemorating the tenth anniversary of America’s entrance into World War I. Darst held his position far longer than Meyer before returning to St. Louis to manage a high-profile auditorium in 1933. Publicity man Wells Hawks, who had already worked for Fox after returning from service, continued aiding the firm as well, coordinating distribution of its 1926 war film What Price Glory that relied on twelve different roadshow companies and lavish thirty-five piece orchestras to break the company’s revenue record (making over $2 million in just twenty-one weeks), shortly before suffering a debilitating illness that forced his retirement in 1927.Footnote ⁵⁶ Although the Film Service had again struggled to secure the business arrangements and profits it sought, it was clear that many impresarios did not look at the association solely as a competitor; in fact, entrepreneurs welcomed Legionnaires into their ranks to help smooth tensions and foster bonds between them.

While the Legion may have promoted itself as an alternative to Hollywood and sought ways to develop productions outside of the traditional movie industry, it also served as a partner to leading corporations in a variety of ways. Maintaining a good relationship with established film distributors allowed the Legion to function as an effective national exhibition service, while its support and endorsement benefited major firms. Relations may have been fraught, but there were many instances where tensions could be overcome or worked through to generate profits for all parties.