"Whose make is it?"
-Two ladies in front of the Herald Square Theater,
quoted in the Moving Picture World, 1 November 1913, p. 486

Before the rise of the star system, films were perceived and sold by brand name. The motion-picture industry in 1909, like any manufacturer in twentieth-century America, advertised and distributed its products by the brand. Under the system of the release day and the standing order, exhibitors, exchanges, and the public were expected to request films by company names, not by specific titles or stars. The price to the distributor was the same for any brand and any film. Competition among producers consisted of selling a greater number of prints to the exchanges; that number, which ran from seventy-five to several hundred copies in 1909, was determined by the popularity of their brand names.¹

Such a system depended on the uniformity of the product...