cinelog.org

While movie theatres have existed in Orange County for slightly over one hundred years, the first public screening of a motion picture in the county dates back to June 25, 1897. Held in the upstairs “opera house”, of Santa Ana’s 2nd Spurgeon Building, the film presented was the, March 1897, James J. Corbett vs. Bob Fitzsimmons heavyweight title fight.

 

Filmed by Enoch Rector, utilizing three 63 mm cameras, the fourteen round fight had been captured on 11,000 feet of film and transfered to Rector’s, proprietary, Veriscope projection technology for distribution. Developing in to somewhat of a national sensation, the Corbett vs. Fitzsimmons film had toured the country, via territorial licensing agreements, earning an estimated $120,000 nation wide. Perhaps, due to the territory’s licensee, the Santa Ana showing was billed as being a “Vivascope Production”, rather than the official “Veriscope”.

      

 

Proving how cyclical issues of social morals and film content can be, newspaper coverage of the day tended to focus on the film’s “brutality” and the “hideous depravity” of viewing such images. Equally reminiscent of modern cinematic controversies, many areas sought to block the film’s showing and several states attempted to pass legislation, in an effort to protect “public decency”. Yet, just as we experience today, the “outrage” and “controversy” only served to promote the film further. At Santa Ana’s Spurgeon Building, the Corbett vs. Fitzsimmons film proved, not only to be Orange County’s first motion picture screening, but also the county’s first sold out movie.