THE EXCELSIOR COMPANY

IS PLEASED TO OFFER

UP-TO-DATE ENTERTAINMENTS

FROM NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT.

THE
EXCELSIOR ELECTRIC THEATRE,

A MOVABLE NICKELODEON
FEATURING
MOVING PICTURES, ILLUSTRATED SONGS
AND LIVE VAUDEVILLE, CIRCA 1905-1915.

APRIL IS EARTHQUAKE AND ESCAPE MONTH!

We offer a generous portion of both fantasy and reality.
For the 21st of April our show illuminates the world of 1906, before and after
the San Francisco quake, with film, slides and music to match,
plus brilliant flights of imagination from the great Georges Méliès.
CLICK BELOW FOR DETAILS.

AND
THE EXCELSIOR MOVEABLE MOVIE PALACE,
WITH
SMALL-FORMAT SILENT FEATURES,
SHORT SUBJECTS & SERIALS
FROM THE LATE TEENS THROUGH THE TWENTIES.

CLICK BELOW TO SEE OUR RECENT PROGRAMS

Our Excelsior shows will usher you into a simpler non-digital world,
where moving pictures are still a young marvel of the new century.
We believe that there is a special magic to seeing movies on reels of real film,
shown with a mechanical projector-- now that's going to a picture show!

We have popular classic titles as well as rare and obscure,
even unknown, films such as the unreleased 1927 three-reeler
"SO THIS IS EDEN",
directed by Joseph Rothman,
and featuring a silhouette animation by Tony Sarg.

CLICK BELOW FOR MORE ON THIS AND OTHER RARITIES
WE'LL BE SCREENING IN THE FUTURE

The Excelsior Company's mission is to present silent films in the context of their times.
It's history, it's entertainment & art, and it's entertainment & art history.
From the short early dramas, comedies and fantasies of Edison, Biograph, Pathé, Méliès and Lumière
through the lavish perfection of 1920s feature spectacles,
every moving picture has the potential to mentally and emotionally transport
the viewer to that other time when each film was new.

Beginning with the nickelodeon shows of the early 1900s, each of our programs
commences with an edition of the Excelsior Electric Magazine,
which employs slides, moving pictures, and contemporary recordings to provide what we like to call 'Temporal Decompression'.
This immerses the audience in images and sounds of the news, advertising and arts of that time, so that when the program proper begins
they're primed (one trusts) to see it through the eyes of 1905, 1915, 1925 or any other year of the silent era.

The Excelsior cinema library contains hundreds of small-gauge films, comprising dramas, comedies, serials and news footage.
The shows are either accompanied by a live pianist (depending upon availability of instrument, player, and budget for player's pay)
or by the Accompaniphone, a picturesque cabinet from which issues recorded music.
The Electric Theatre nickelodeon programs of 1905-1915 include Illustrated Song Slides with audience sing-along,
plus modest vaudeville turns, as was the fashion in these early multimedia shows. The Movie Palace programs
feature a musical prologue appropriate to the films that follow, a practice continued well into the sound era by the major houses.

Excelsior shows are ideal entertainments for private and corporate parties, schools, libraries, hospitals and senior communities,
whether the intent is to provide pure old-time fun, or to instruct in a fashion as agreeable as it is memorable.

WHO WE ARE

The Excelsior Company is a loose confederation of professional and part-time entertainers and film history enthusiasts
around the greater San Francisco Bay Area who share a love of the silent era's shows.

COME PLAY IN THE PAST!