Early History
The First National Exhibitors' Circuit was founded in 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest first run cinema chains in the United States of America, eventually controlling over 600 cinemas, more than 200 of them so-called "first run" houses (as opposed to the "second run" neighborhood theaters to which films moved when their first run boxoffice receipts dwindled).
First National was the brainchild of Thomas L. Tally, who was reacting to the overwhelming influence of Paramount Pictures, which dominated the market. In 1912, he thought that a conglomerate of theaters throughout the nation could buy and/or produce and distribute their own films. Tally was soon partnered with West Virginian James Dixon Williams, and they formed First National Exhibitors Circuit. Among the more than two dozen exhibitors who attended the first meeting held in New York on April 25, 1917, were Frederick Dahnken of the Turner and Dahnken Circuit in San Francisco, Harry O. Schwalbe of Philadelphia, Samuel Roxy Rothafel of New York, Earl H. Hulsey of Dallas and Nathan H. Gordon of Boston.
Between 1917 and 1918, they made contracts with Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the first million-dollar deals in the history of film.
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