Happy Birthday, Dryden Theatre!

This article is written by Nancy Kauffman, archivist in the Stills, Posters and Papers Collection in the Moving Image Department. Want to celebrate the Dryden’s 68th birthday with us? Join us Saturday, March 2, 7:30 p.m. a special screening of Sally, Irene and Mary(1925) and How the Movies Began (1954), part of a Warner-Pathé newsreel that features the George Eastman Museum, the Dryden Theatre, and James Card in the first decade of the museum’s existence.

March 2 marks the 68th year that the Dryden Theatre has been in operation as a distinguished venue for international cinema. With funds donated by George B. Dryden, widower of George Eastman’s niece Ellen Andrus Dryden, the theatre was built for the study of historical motion pictures and for lectures and demonstrations related to the museum’s educational programs. Construction began on April 28, 1950, with a ground-breaking ceremony at which James E. Gleason, board chairman of Gleason Works, was given the honor of digging out the first shovelful of dirt.

The building was designed by the engineering division at Eastman Kodak and construction took nearly a year to complete. The exterior was designed to match the Georgian details of George Eastman’s house as closely as possible, using the same general lines and materials. The biggest challenge in the design was the initial unavailability of yellow Roman brick to match the house. Fortunately, suitable brick was located before construction began, enabling the design to be carried out as planned.

For the interior of the theatre a contemporary design was chosen. The 533 seats were upholstered in mulberry corduroy with the metal parts painted mauve. The corrugated walls of the auditorium were a warm grey and the lower portion of the walls was hunter green. As an elegant link back to the historic Eastman property, the original stage curtain was reproduced in sepia from a photograph of the stone loggia in the museum’s garden.

The dedication of the theatre took place on March 2, 1951. Author and news commentator Lowell Thomas was the chief speaker and he broadcast his nightly nationwide radio program from the stage of the Dryden that night. Other notable guests were Thomas J. Hargrave, president of the Eastman Kodak Company; Edward Steichen, director of the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art; Merrill C. Miegs of the Hearst Corporation; and George B. Dryden, whose financial contribution made the theatre possible.

The theatre design included a second floor gallery for exhibiting photographs from the collection. The first exhibition in the Dryden Gallery was entitled “Masterpieces from the George Eastman House Collections from 1839 to the Present” and included daguerreotypes and Julia Margaret Cameron prints from the Boyer Collection among the items on display.

The projection booth was equipped with two new 35mm projectors, given to the museum by the Century Corporation. These two projectors, the latest models available in early 1951, continue to operate on a regular basis to this day.

Strangely, there were no films shown at the dedication on March 2. The first film screenings in the Dryden did not take place until March 10 and 11, with the inaugural program of the museum’s Saturday and Sunday lecture series entitled “The Silent Film as the Basis of the Art of Motion Pictures.” The first weekend program highlighted the early pioneers, with several short films shown: a series of Eadweard Muybridge studies (1880–87), Edison Kinetoscope films (1893–95), the Georges Méliès trick film Un homme de têtes (1898), Lumiere films (1894–95), James Williamson’s The Big Swallow (1901), and Ferdinand Zecca’s The Invisible Ones (1905). The international scope of this first group of films was clearly indicative of the museum’s intention to collect and screen films from around the world.

The first feature film shown in the Dryden was Jean Renoir’s 1925 Nana, on March 14, 1951. It was the first of ten films in the museum’s Wednesday evening subscription series covering “The Transition from Silence to Sound.” An introduction to the film was written by the museum’s first Curator of Motion Pictures, James Card, but unfortunately he was taken ill and unable to deliver the introduction himself. Curator Beaumont Newhall stepped in for Card and read his introduction to the audience. This was the beginning of the long-held tradition of giving an introduction to every film screened in the Dryden Theatre, a practice that continues to this day, and which was even explained in Card’s first introduction:

Just as we have attempted in our exhibitions to explain the significance of the material on display, by the printed word, so we plan to preface each of our programs with a brief introductory lecture. . . . We hope to show you the significance of these films, to define the positions they occupy in the development of the moving pictures, and to measure the contributions which each of these landmarks has made to the advance of the medium.

As we look back at the history of the Dryden Theatre, we’d like to thank our dedicated audiences of the last 68 years for their continued support and for helping us make the Dryden a destination for world-class cinema!