By Bradley Towle
SCHOHARIE — As anyone passing by the historical marker in front of the Schoharie County offices may know, Schoharie has the dual distinction of being the location of the first-ever free open-air screening of a film on June 7, 1917, and the first-ever free outdoor screening of a “talkie” on June 11, 1931. The Schoharie Free Street Movies were the brainchild of Schoharie’s progressive mayor, Perry Taylor, to encourage support for local businesses and boost morale as the U.S. entered the bloody fray overseas during The Great War.
Dwight Grimm’s 2018 short documentary A Century Under the Stars explores the history and legacy of the wildly popular Schoharie Free Street Movies and its often-forgotten role as the origin of the drive-in theater. Grimm, who also owns and operates the Greenville Drive-In with his wife, Leigh, describes Taylor as a “dreamer and a doer” and, as luck would have it, “an avid moviegoer.” The film includes plenty of background on Taylor’s unique proposal and photographs of an early 20th-century Schoharie.
Grimm was also fortunate enough to locate several interviewees who remembered the Free Street Movies. They reflected fondly on the large gatherings, offering a glimpse into a community that no longer seems to exist to the same degree. It is hard to overlook that these were the days before television, and a free movie on a Thursday night would have been the thing to do. No history of the Schoharie Free Street Movies would be complete without Ed Scribner, a local “whiz kid” who created the sound system required to show talking films. The advent of the “talkie” in 1927 with Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer revolutionized motion pictures. Talking films brought plenty of challenges (“Quiet on the set!” hadn’t been necessary with silent films, for example), and a rural open-air free film series undoubtedly had fewer resources to accommodate the new technology than large movie houses in New York or Los Angeles. But Scribner was Schoharie’s Ace in The Hole, and he rose to the occasion, creating a sound system in 1931 that facilitated the Schoharie Free Street Movies until they ended in 1942. It wasn’t until 1933 that Camden, New Jersey, held what is commonly (and mistakenly) regarded as the first drive-in movie event. The Scribner House at The Old Stone Fort Museum contains more on Scribner’s life and role in The Free Street Movies.
Grimm, along with his wife Leigh, Carl Kopecki (former director of Old Stone Fort Museum) and a group of volunteers, celebrated the centennial of the first-ever free outdoor screening of a film by recreating the event on June 8, 2017. Just as it was 100 years earlier, Main Street was shut down, and a crowd gathered for live music, food, and a screening of The Awakening of Helena Ritchie, the silent film screened on that summer night so long ago. Only a few minutes of the film survive, and The Library of Congress loaned the remaining reel for the event, which was projected from a flatbed truck (just as it would have been in 1917) with an antique, hand-cranked projector from Boston. For those few moments on the centennial, Main Street in Schoharie became an open-air theater, with only the sound of a projector and the live piano accompanying the film heard in the village—an opportunity to travel through time by way of pausing it. Dwight Grimm’s A Century Under the Stars can be viewed for free on YouTube. The 2018 update includes the centennial celebration.
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