That time they filmed a movie in Mount Carmel

Just about everyone knows that the borough of Mount Carmel has a reputation for two things-- coal mining and smash-mouth football. But Mount Carmel also had a chance of becoming the motion picture capital of Pennsylvania in 1916, thanks to an ambitious entrepreneur named F.A. Lerch and hundreds of local amateurs with stars in their eyes.

This is the incredible story of "A Romance of the Coal Field", a silent motion picture filmed in Mount Carmel during the summer of 1916.


The Early Days of F.A. Lerch


The Lerch name is synonymous with the founding of Mount Carmel. It was Felix Lerch who, in 1832, leased an inn from Oscar Bradford, the Sunbury attorney who first came up with the idea of laying out a village centered around his tavern. This tavern, the Mt. Carmel Inn, was erected by pioneer Richard Yarnall in 1812, and it was this two-story log structure situated along the old King's Highway that gave the borough its name. His great-grandson, Felix Albert Lerch, was born in 1886 and spent much of his young adult life working in Schuylkill County as a "contest man", using the professional name of F.A. Lerch.

As a contest man Lerch's role was that of a promoter, and his job was to find ways to drum up publicity for area businesses and attract subscribers to local papers. This was generally accomplished through contests. In 1907 he was employed by the Shenandoah Evening Herald, where he ran a contest offering $10 to anyone who could guess the names of downtown businesses based upon short snippets of ad copy [1]. This contest was a wild success and before long the contests-- along with the prizes-- became bigger and more extravagant. The following year he created the "Great Diamond Contest" for the Family Theatre in Pottsville, where the top prizes for women included "a genuine white diamond with Tiffany setting" and a gold watch (with case). Prizes for the men included diamond rings and gold watches as well, all of which were provided by Solomon Levit's jewelry store. In order to win, one simply had to purchase theater ticket books and re-sell them. Needless to say, every theatrical production for that season was a sellout.

In 1909 he came up with a novel idea for a contest for the Dreamland, a "moving picture show" in Watsontown operated by the Rothermel brothers. He asked readers of the Milton newspaper to cast votes for their favorite local amateur actors and actresses. The winners would get to play the leading roles in a locally-produced teleplay, which would be filmed and shown at nickelodeon theaters in Watsontown and Milton. Lerch knew his contest would be a success, but even he was overwhelmed by the response. Amazingly, over 700,000 votes were cast (participants were allowed to vote daily), which was nearly seven times the entire population of Northumberland County at the time. This led the editor of the Mount Carmel Item to call it "one of the most successful advertising contests ever held in Milton."[2]

Lerch's Foray into Filmmaking


Although Lerch's contest for the Miltonian newspaper was a raging success, the motion picture industry seemed like a passing fad to most Americans. But that all changed after 1908, when Thomas Edison founded the Motion Picture Patents Company, a trust comprised of all the major American film companies of the era. The world's largest supplier of film, Eastman Kodak, was based in Rochester, Vitagraph Studios was based in Brooklyn, and New Jersey was home to the Edison Manufacturing Company. This trust firmly established the East Coast as the motion picture capital of the world (for more on this topic, read Richard Koszarski's excellent 2008 book, "Hollywood on the Hudson"). This development also marked the beginning of the "Silent Era".

F.A. Lerch continued to organize all manners of contests across Pennsylvania, but in early 1916 he decided to focus solely on the burgeoning motion picture industry, which had grown to become a $575 million business. However, it was prohibitively expensive to make a movie; in 1916, the cost of producing a typical five-reel photoplay was $15,000 (a staggering sum in those days). Lerch remedied this problem by getting in on the ground floor of what later became known as the "home talent" photoplay industry. By casting local actors and crew and filming on location instead of renting a studio lot, costs could be significantly reduced.[3]

In January of 1916, Lerch put his new concept to the test, producing a series of contests he called the "Flo Home Talent Photoplay Contest" (so-named because the heroine of each film was a character named Flo). He produced his first two films in Pottsville and Tamaqua, entitled "The Spell of the String" and "Innocently Accused", respectively. These early films were simple, crude creations of the two-reeler variety-- about 20 minutes of runtime-- that were shown in area movie houses before the big Charlie Chaplin or Mary Pickford feature film. Once he managed to iron out all the wrinkles, he rented an office on the second floor of the Guarantee Trust Building in Mount Carmel, at Third and Oak Streets, where he planned to shoot an extravagant five-reel teleplay that would rival anything the big studios of Hollywood or New York could produce.


Flo Madness Comes to Mount Carmel


The first movie theater in Mount Carmel was the Theatorium, established by Lawrence J. Chamberlain in August of 1907 and located at 112 South Oak Street. Chamberlain, who also built the Victoria Theatre in Shamokin, expanded the Theatorium in 1912, increasing its seating capacity to 700. In 1916, to coincide with the theater's upcoming ten-year anniversary, Chamberlain and Lerch agreed shoot a full-length feature film comprised entirely of local talent. In anticipation of an enormous response, Lerch hired a general business manager as well as a contest manager, and reached out to New York for the best film crew he could afford.

Inside of the Theatorium

For cinematographer he selected Charles Meyer, a former cameraman for Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company (which became Paramount Pictures in 1927). Meyer, who was in Illinois filming the Karo Corn Syrup plant at the time, dropped everything and raced to Mount Carmel, eager to get his career back on track. For director, Lerch enlisted Arthur Jay Adams, a Coal Region native with more than 300 teleplays under his belt. Now Lerch needed a script, and for this he offered a $20 gold coin to anyone who could write the best 500-word story centered around a leading lady named Flo. Seventy-five entries were received, and the prize went to William F. Hobbs.

"The story is replete with tense, dramatic situations and there are some very exciting moments in it," stated Lerch. "One of the big scenes involves the use of dynamite and another may require a mob scene in which several hundred people can participate. There is a deep-dyed-in-the-wool villain who has plenty of villainy to look after." [4]

The Search for a Leading Lady


On May 20, the search for Flo began, along with a search for 49 others who would comprise the cast of "A Romance of the Coal Field". Lerch offered $50 to the winner, as decided by voters. The rules of the contest were as follows:

The young lady who receives the highest number of votes will play the leading role known as Flo, the heroine of the picture play. The young man who receives the highest number of votes will play the leading role opposite Flo... For the present, candidates can secure votes by clipping the coupon which appears every evening in the Mount Carmel Item. Clip this coupon, write your name on it and deposit it in the ballot box in the lobby of the Theatorium or mail it to the Flo contest manager's office in the Guarantee Trust Company Building. Each coupon is good for ten votes.

To further hype his contest, Lerch made sure to point out that the winner of the Tamaqua "Who Will Be Flo?" competition, Mary Louise Shindel, had just been offered a regular position with the Lubin film production company of Philadelphia, and every day for weeks the Item ran stories about famous actresses who had been "discovered" after appearing in home talent photoplays. By June 22, the Item reported that a number of the candidates had already sat for their photos at Joe Akelaitis' studio on East Third Street, if for no other reason than to see how they would look on film. [5]

The vote tally was printed in the paper on a daily basis, and every few days Lerch would throw a curveball by promising 1,000 "bonus votes" to new entrants. This was a shrewd move, since it prevented one candidate from running away with the whole shebang, which would cause the public to lose interest.

But, judging by the deluge of voting coupons mailed to the Item, it seemed the public was in no danger of losing interest. If anything, movie mania was spreading like wildfire; votes were pouring in from as far away as Akron, Jersey City and Detroit (even though nobody knew what the candidates looked like, since the Item hadn't printed any of their pictures). As the contest entered its final days, Lerch decided to capitalize on the frenzy by offering "special voting certificates" each week worth 5,000 votes to the person who sold the most Theatorium tickets. As the contest entered its final week, Lerch upped the ante by offering 7,000 bonus votes to the person who could sell the most tickets. [6]

In the final days of the competition, Lerch pulled out all the stops. Mary Louise Shindel, the "Tamaqua Flo", made a publicity stop in Mount Carmel to shake hands and sign autographs and talk about all of the wonderful career offers she had received. As for Lerch, he all but promised the moon and stars to the winners of his contest:

Your part in this home talent photoplay may prove to be the 'open sesame' into a profession in which the salaries of the leaders greatly exceed those of many presidents of huge corporations, he wrote on June 16.

Final vote tally

On June 24, the winners were announced. Verna Wydra, of Mount Carmel, landed the role of leading lady "Flo Barson" with 408,190 votes. Finishing second was Mary McHale with 125,500 votes and third place went to Kulpmont's Clara Green, with 87,290 votes. The role of leading man "Jack Parmlee" went to Frank Wydra (Verna's brother) with 470,400 votes. Luke Butkie, a well-known Mount Carmel firefighter and miner, came in second with 286,150 votes, thereby earning him the role of the lead villain.

Shooting Begins


Problems began to arise as soon as the contest winners were announced; the script called for the male and female leads to be sweethearts, even though the parts were set to be played by siblings. Lerch assured everyone that this little detail would in no way detract from their acting abilities, since Frank and Verna both had considerable acting experience in local amateur theatrical productions. And since the Mount Carmel script called for large mob scenes and explosions, the film crew decided to finish shooting Shamokin's teleplay, "The Pearls of Fate".

On Wednesday, June 28, all of the cast members were directed to report to the Guarantee Trust Building, where director Arthur Jay Adams assigned the roles and handed out the script. The following morning was spent wrangling up extras and shooting exterior shots around the borough, and by afternoon Verna and Frank Wydra took their initial plunge into the world of film. They both admitted that it was very different from stage acting. There were no rehearsals; each scene was done over and over again until the director got the result he wanted. The actors were also surprised to learn that movies weren't filmed in sequence.

The home of Thomas M. Righter (at the corner of Sixth and Oak, across from the Clover Hose) was used as the lead male character's residence in the film. Other local landmarks used in the film included the McKinley School, the newly-constructed Marble Hall (currently known as the Union National Bank building), and the Sayre Colliery.

It appears that Luke Butkie, as the villain, was having the most fun of the whole bunch. One of the scenes called for a fight between him and his accomplice (played by Roman Rakoski) at the Sayre Colliery. Not only did Butkie beat up his fellow cast member, but the Item reported that he threw Rakoski down a mineshaft for added effect. Adams was so pleased with Butkie's improvisation that he kept the scene in the movie.

For the dynamite scene, which took place at the Sayre Colliery, a real bomb was used, constructed by Butkie himself with dynamite, electric batteries, and a clock "borrowed" from local jeweler Charles Reinard. Although the script called for Butkie's character to be named "Tough Andy", Adams thought the actor's real name sounded even tougher, so the proposed name was scrapped. In a scene depicting the inside the villain's office at the colliery, a sign on the window can be seen proclaiming, "Luke Butkie, plain and fancy villainy. All work neatly and promptly done." This was one more of Butkie's improvisations that Adams decided to include in the final product.

Unfortunately, inclement weather necessitated the canceling of the highly-anticipated mob scene, which called for 500 local men dressed as miners to assemble at the corner of Third and Oak Streets on July 5. Rainy weather made further shooting in Mount Carmel impossible, and the rest of the movie was filmed in Kulpmont. Shooting wrapped up on Thursday afternoon, July 6, with the final scene filmed on Chestnut Street in Kulpmont.[7] In this scene, Frank Wydra's character beats up his nemesis, Luke Butkie, in the middle of main street (according to Lerch, five takes were required to get it just right).

Cast members Helen Konciewicz, Anna Donahue and Mary McHale

"We said in the beginning we were going to make a high class photoplay and we did," stated F.A. Lerch after filming was complete and the negatives had been sent to New York to be developed. "No expense was spared." This was true; the film cost $1,000 to produce, which would be the equivalent of over $23,500 in today's money-- a rather pricey amateur production by anyone's standards. "A wire from New York this morning states the photography is equal to that of the regular releases you see every day," he added.

The day after filming wrapped up, stills of the actors were displayed in and around the Theatorium, and souvenir copies were sold at Akelaitis' Photo Studio. Hundreds flocked to the theater just to see the actors' headshots.

"Why, all day long from early morning you can see a crowd around that particular poster board, each looking at his own favorite, and expressing nothing but praise for the entire crowd," said Doc Reeger, manager of the Theatorium. "And from public opinion there is no reason why any of these people shouldn't go right along into the big stuff... Everybody poo-hooed the idea of any good actors or actresses coming out of Mount Carmel, but now the song has changed."

Four of the stills from the film also found their way into Motion Picture Mail, an insert in the New York Evening Mail, on July 29, 1916. These stills include the scene in which Flo (Verna Wydra) sprains her ankle, a scene at the mouth of the Sayre shaft with Jack Parmlee (Frank Wydra) and Butkie, a scene featuring Helen Konciewicz on the bucket of a steam shovel, and fight scene between the hero and villain.

A copy of Motion Picture Mail from March 18, 1916

"A Romance of the Coal Field" Opens to a Packed House


Before the film could be shown, it first had to be sent to Philadelphia for review by the State Board of Censors. By the time it had been edited enough to please the Board of Censors, the movie had been reduced to 2200 feet of film, which meant a running time of only 30 to 40 minutes. It wasn't quite the full-length feature film F.A. Lerch had envisioned for his hometown, but he was proud of the results nonetheless.

"Compared with the big feature films, the men who have had charge of the work say that the cast need not be ashamed of their efforts, as the local film is undoubtedly the best made in the East this year," said Lerch. A private screening for the cast and crew was held on July 23, and the film's premiere at the Theatorium was slated for the following day. Tickets were sold for five cents apiece for daytime showings, and ten cents for evening showings.

Naturally, every man, woman and child in town turned out to see "A Romance of the Coal Field", and local critics fawned over the finished product. The Mount Carmel Item went so far as to predict that the borough would soon be crawling with motion picture directors eager to work there:

Cast amid the witchery of the coal field among familiar scenes the photoplay presented well compares with the most elaborate picture ever seen in any of the local theatres. It proves we have the topography, the scenic environment and the talent and beauty to breathe life into any moving picture. [8]



Life After Flo


On July 28, just four days after the film was released, leading lady Verna Wydra packed her bags and headed off to Detroit to further her acting career. She returned the following year and married Anthony Urban, a naval officer from Mount Carmel. She found found work at the Kulpmont silk mill, but continued appearing in theatrical productions for many years. She and her husband later moved to Chester County.

Frank Wydra left Mount Carmel in 1920 and moved to Cleveland, where he lived the rest of his life. He died in 1945, at the age of 53, after a lengthy illness.

Luke Butkie, the firefighter who stole the spotlight as the movie's villain, suffered a horrible injury on January 5, 1930. While battling a fire at the J.C. Penney building in Mount Carmel he fell off the roof, suffering multiple broken bones and severe internal injuries from which he would never recover. He passed away in February of 1935 at the Ashland State Hospital, where he had been a patient for six weeks. He was 54.

Exterior of Theatorium

As for F.A. Lerch, he left the area and married Helen Leveridge of Elizabeth, N.J. He spent a few years in New England, first as a sales representative for the Donnelley Corporation and then as an advertising executive for Electrical Merchandising magazine. In 1923 he accepted a position with Southgate Press in Boston as manager of the Calendar Sales and Promotion Division. A few years later his health began to fail; he moved to Ashland and spent the final years of his life bedridden. He passed away in 1952 at the age of 66.

"A Romance of the Coal Fields" was last shown at the Theatorium on August 1, 1916. While many of Lerch's lesser home-talent photoplays were shown at multiple theaters, his extravagant gift to his hometown never went further than the Theatorium.

The Theatorium building as it appears today (with a really weird anomaly... a ghost maybe?!?)

The Theatorium closed its doors in January of 1925. "The Clean Heart", featuring Percy Marmont and Marguerite De La Motte, was the last film shown. The building was purchased in early February by a Philadelphia firm with the intention of converting the theater into apartments. The location was taken over by a Polish club called the Stars of Freedom Society the following year. In 1927 the location was taken over by the Central Cigar Store and Billiard Parlor, and a few years later it became the Kinney shoe store.

Considering the fragility of motion picture film and the number of hands the building has passed through over the past century, it is a sad certainty that every frame of "A Romance of the Coal Field" has been forever lost to history.








Sources/Further Reading:

1. Pottsville Republican, June 13, 1907. Page 1.
2. Mount Carmel Item, Feb. 5, 1909. Page 1.
3. Mount Carmel Item, June 17, 1916. Page 2.
4. Mount Carmel Item, June 20, 1916. Page 1.
5. Mount Carmel Item, June 22, 1916. Page 4.
6. Mount Carmel Item, June 12, 1916. Page 1.
7. Mount Carmel Item, July 7, 1916. Page 1.
8. Mount Carmle Item, July 26, 1916. Page 1.