Part One: The Mirth-Provoker.
When Mickey Mouse Debuted In the UK he not only became an international phenomenon; he helped modernise the British Film Industry.
Keeping Up With the Jones’.
In 1929 it seemed like you couldn’t be in the British film industry and not be trying to promote Mickey Mouse in some way. Just a year after debuting in the USA, Walt’s Mickey Mouse was an international phenomenon. He was so revolutionary when he hit screens that he even helped to drive demand for sound technology in British cinemas, altering the way we watch movies today.
Though he wasn’t the first sound cartoon to be made, he was the most sophisticated and amusing one the world had yet seen, which meant everyone wanted to be the cinema that showed Mickey cartoons and everyone wanted to say that their technology allowed Mickey to whistle and dance the way Walt intended. As the 1920’s reached their end the business of cinema was booming in Britain.
People were seeking visual entertainment like never before and theatres were working hard to provide venues for them to spend their money. During this decade, with the advent of sound technology, a revolution occurred across the industry and theatre owners had to move quickly to install sound equipment so they could offer the newest and best films to their customers.
Companies manufacturing audio apparatus were just as eager to find exhibitors to use their technology and everyone wanted an angle. They could be big foreign companies like Western Electric and RKO with new devices. Or brand themselves as smaller companies, trading on their national home grow appeal, like British Thomas-Houston.
“… if a company … could promise that their technology showed off novelties like a synchronised singing, dancing mouse the way it was meant to be seen, then that was good business.”
They sold to cinemas of all sizes, improving and refining their systems to offer venue filling sound at a competitive price. Western Electric’s smallest apparatus was suitable of houses of 1,000 seats and upwards, costing £1,550 for cutting edge dual format machinery, with their largest installation peaking at £3,600. RKO’s ranged from £1,100 for the same volume of chairs and rose to £3,350 at the top end.
In 1929 a new British company called ‘British Talking Pictures’ (BTP) began distributing equipment based on the De Forest Phonofilm Company’s Sound-on-Film technology which they had acquired after DFPC went bankrupt in 1926.
When BTP came on the scene the 1923 De Forest sound-on-film was already outdated by equipment that used sound-on-disc technology or apparatus, but the company quickly became successful by producing a dual apparatus to accommodate both systems later in the summer of 1929. Homegrown, up-to-date and cheaper than Western Electric at 1,100 for basic dual format installation, BTP would have 200 installations by 1930.
So what did this mean for cinema owners, their customers and Walt Disney? It meant widespread demand and distribution from both ends of the sphere. Because if a cinema wanted customers it needed the best equipment and the most popular shows, preferably ones that were cutting edge enough to make them difficult for competitors to show.
If a company like BTP or Western Electric could promise that their technology showed off novelties like a synchronised singing, dancing mouse the way it was meant to be seen then that was good for business.
Enter the Mouse.
In an item run by the Bioscope Magazine of 10 April 1929, an advertisement proclaimed that users of BTP apparatus would be assured the use of: ‘Over A Hundred Full – Length “Talkies.”’ That of 27 March the same year specified that these films would include those from British National Pathe, the Mickey Mouse Cartoons and British Sound Film Productions (BSFP.) This entry actually constitutes the first mention of Mickey Mouse on the British Newspaper Archive and must therefore count as one of the earliest mentions of Mickey in the British press.
After a typically difficult production process, Steamboat Willie had premiered in the USA on 18 November 1928, and after garnering national acclaim. America’s most advanced sound cartoon was in high demand in Europe as well. Walt Disney’s instinct to pursue excellence in synchronised sound had paid off. Despite the hardship of producing his animated star, the cinema boom was at it’s peak and the timing was almost perfect.
People don’t need to know how a Home-Cinema, an iPhone or a Tesla does what it does, most people just want to know it’s the height of technology. Advertise a processing speed, miles per charge or pixel to screen ration for them to pass on with conviction to awed friends and that will be enough. And it was the same for cinemas in the 1920’s.
The Bioscope gave full page spreads to advertising which sold the ‘optimal’ equipment required to show sophisticated productions like: ‘Walter Disney’s Mickey Mouse Cartoons (American) including the great mirth-provoker “Steamboat Willie.”
BTP wasn’t the only company who jumped on board Steamboat Willie. Vendors needed reels to show on their expensive apparatus, and if they wanted Disney’s animations they were advised to order at once and were instructed to contact British International Film Distributors (BIFD.)
This was one of the three going concerns in Britain of the South African Film Magnate, Isidore W. Schlesinger. Schlesinger had a monopoly on film distribution in South Africa and was on the board of directors of British International Pictures (BIP), and owned BSFP, and he doubtless knew that it was good business to advertise alongside Mickey Mouse.
The Bioscope was a major advertiser for the film industry and it paid to get space in it’s pages wether you were a cinema owner or a movie producer, as it advertised upcoming screenings as well as equipment. The issue of 24 April, giving advance information about coming Trade Shows, listed: ‘4 Mickey Mouse Cartoons (Synchronised)’ distributed by BIFD in their ‘Own Theatre’ for ‘Tuesday April 30’ at 11:00 a.m., to 4:00 p.m., which were described as ‘Four of what promise to be very popular cartoons.’
‘A Remarkably Clever Series.’
Beside sellers of ‘apparatus’ and film distributors hoping to net customers with Walt’s cartoons, there was much more to Mickey than just business. The quality of the Mickey’s seemed to strike everyone in the British cinema industry.
Steamboat Willie was detailed at 700 feet and described as: ‘The first of a series … as good as any cartoon of a similar kind we have seen and promises much for future editions. This one deals with the mouse’s adventures aboard a river boat …’
It was obviously a success, for in the issue of 8 May, they were described as ‘a remarkably clever series.’
Disney still partners with entertainment companies today, lending characters to any number of entertainment vendors for a quid pro quo. Back then Walt was delighted by how eager everyone was to be associated with Mickey. It showed he was being taken seriously and he would never really distance himself from the maxim that his company was not solely in the business of children’s entertainment but was at the forefront of a sophisticated art-form.
The Disney studio made art through old fashioned graft, skill and the use of new technology. What has changed is that today cartoon shorts just do not approach the level of multi-generational popularity that Mickey reached in the 1930’s, nor do they come close to approximating their role in the cinema culture of the early 20th century.
“In September, critical praise of Mickey reels was common and unconfined,”
By the summer Mickey was heading for the West End, and a quartet of musical shorts were in circulation by the end of 1930, humorously called the ‘Mouse-hole Four’. On 24 July the headlines in the Bioscope ran: ‘Mickey Mouse for West End. The synchronised sound cartoon. The Opry House (Cartoon), recently trade show by Ideal, and starring that diverting cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, has been booked for immediate presentation at the Alhambra, Coliseum and Stoll’s …’
The Kent and Sussex Courier, the Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser were all shouting that Mickey was ‘steaming’ their way too. ‘See and Hear! Steamboat Willie!’ they proclaimed. Cartoons were to run on Thursday, Friday and Saturday; through 18 and 20th July.
Meanwhile, back in the city, the trusty Bioscope reported in mid-July that ‘one of a series of four Mickey Mouse Cartoons has entered it’s third week at the Regal, Marble Arch.’
By August Mickey was Famous in England, so stated the Norwood News, advertising that the Palladium Cinema at Brixton Hill was running a ‘Famous Mickey Mouse Sound Cartoon,’ and Kent, Sussex and Sevenoaks were still inviting audiences to ‘hear’ the mouse.
In September, critical praise of Mickey reels was common and unconfined, rare was it to read a negative report in British film press, and the cartoons were proving the highlight of programmes across the city of London, and they would only grow in appeal from there.
