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...Birch Carroll and Coyle Company is now established Australia-wide, its vision of modern picture palaces for regional Queensland had long gestation period which has received little critical attention. For while the contribution of the participants, particularly of the Carrolls, to the film industry has been generally acknowledged, especially their role in the production and exhibition of early Australian movies as well as Edward John Carroll's entrepreneurial entertainment skills in both Sydney and Brisbane (1), BC & C's regional Queensland origins have to a large extent been overlooked in the historiography of the film industry. In particular, there is little mention of the formation of the lengthy Birch Carroll partnership and its expansion into regional Queensland prior to its becoming a state-wide consortium. This article aims to provide an historical understanding of these developments, including an assessment of the industrial and financial experience which the principals gained prior to 1923, when the consortium was formed. As will be demonstrated, its tropical Wintergarden theatres in Rockhampton, Townsville, Bundaberg, Ipswich and Maryborough, founded upon collective business acumen, would make a lasting cultural contribution beyond the metropolis. (2)
A prehistory of Birch Carroll and Coyle would be incomplete without considering the individual careers of its principals prior to 1923. E J Carroll, who played an important role in its formation, was born near Ipswich in 1869. (3) He was destined to play a leading role in the entertainment industry before founding the company in conjunction with his brother, Dan Carroll. E J Carroll's connection with regional Queensland began early in the history of the Australian film industry. After viewing The Story of the Kelly Gang, produced by Charles Tait in 1906, he purchased the rights to the film and exhibited it throughout Queensland. (4) In 1908, E J Carroll co-produced For the Term of His Natural Life (5) with Charles McMahon, and in 1909 he launched with Dan Carroll the first open-air screenings in Brisbane at the Exhibition Grounds. The continued success of these exhibitions led the Carrolls to establish the Pavilion in 1915, the first continuous picture theatre in Brisbane. (6) Not content with the successful exhibition of silent movies at Woolloongabba and the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds, the Carrolls soon branched into other forms of entertainment and built a skating rink in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, where skating was held in winter and films were screened in the summer months.
By 1910, in partnership with Dan, E J Carroll had moved their headquarters to Sydney which was at that time the hub of the entertainment industry. (7) Subsequently, E J Carroll became well known as a theatre entrepreneur and as part-owner of the production company, Australasian Films Limited, and of the film distribution and exhibition company, Union Theatres Limited. His contributions to the production of Australian films in the postwar years prior to BC & C's establishment are well documented (8), including his sorties into the American market with Snowy Baker (9), and his association with Raymond Longford, then-director of Southern Cross Feature Films. Under the Carroll-Baker Australian Productions banner these included three Lucas-Baker films, The Man From Kangaroo, The Shadow of Lightning Ridge, and The Jackaroo of Coolabong. Following the departure of Baker to America, the Carrolls pursued the production of Australian films in association with Raymond Longford as the director of Southern Cross Feature Films. (10)
Despite some poor local reviews, the Carroll Baker films were box-office successes, but according to Graham and Adams (11), Australian distribution was harder to achieve. In evidence to the 1927 Film Enquiry, Longford stated that exhibitors paid higher prices to distributors for Australian films than for American ones and that this, combined with the system of block-booking imposed by the Americans, acted as a restraint to trade. (12) E J Carroll had made the decision to concentrate on films made for the Australian and English markets but, by 1921, the Carrolls withdrew from film production largely because of pressure from the increasingly dominant American industry. (13) In this context, Longford gave evidence at the 1927 Royal Commission to the effect that:
As part-owner of some Queensland theatres he [E J Carroll] depended on the combine for his supply of film, and, as they were opposed to local production, it would be impossible for him to continue should they cease supplies. (14)
Thus the Carrolls' involvement in Birch Carroll and...
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