By EARL THEISEN, Associate Editor, The International Photograper Magazine

November, 1935

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“That is my new jerk-absorbing device," stated Mr. lwan Serrurier, owner of the Moviola Company, who was showing me through his factory over at 1451 North Gordon Street, in Hollywood. "It is designed to fit in the valve of the magazine," Mr. Serrurier continued, "so as to prevent damage to the film from the jerking due to the sudden starting of the equipment." 

The little device with its simple roller and spring piston arrangement was like the rest of the Moviola line. It was designed and made from the dictates of actual experience to fill a need. So necessary and so obvious are the improvements introduced by the Moviola Company, they are accepted as a matter of fact rather than a startling innovation.

To imagine a cutting room without a Moviola would be impossible. The Moviola is as much a part of a cutting room as the cutter himself. Yet the mechanical books on the motion picture of a few years ago show the cutter holding the film up to the light trying to find the "suitable spot." He perspired over the film frame by frame, squinted at it through a magnifier, and he waded through it on the floor.

Then the Moviola came along and eliminated this tedious drudgery. Like the saw is to the carpenter, the Moviola is the badge of the cutter.

"Dozens claim they bought the first Moviola from me." Mr. Iwan Serrurier made the statement.

Moviola number one sold to Douglas Fairbanks on September 16, 1924, for $125. Numbers two and three sold to Universal on September 24, 1924, and Mary Pickford bought number four on October 13, 1924. The first sound Moviola sold to Educational Studios on January 29, 1929, and the first 16mm Moviola sold to William Horsley Laboratory on October 1, 1926.

Before the advent of the Moviola, a number of persons tried to do something about making direct viewing devices which for various reasons were never widely adopted. One such improvisation was the old Edison projector head which was anchored to a table in the cutting room at the Lasky Laboratory. By hand cranking, the pictures were viewed on a 9 by 12-inch screen. The film went from the projector through a hole in the table and into a basket. There were a number of other attempts to do something about a film editing tool, but in each instance the device was a makeshift using discarded equipment.

Then along came lwan Serrurier with ideas and ability to see the ideas realized. Although he was born and raised in Leiden, Holland, he received his college education in Zurich, Switzerland, because, as he says, "they offered the kind of mechanical training I wanted."

He came to the United States in 1903, and to Los Angeles a year later, where he found employment doing mechanical jobs until the war broke out. Then Mr. Serrurier worked in the shipyards doing mechanical drawing and designing, a job much to his liking. 

During this time as a hobby he was spending his spare time making movie devices, of which one was to be the grand-daddy of the Moviola. Along about 1917 he got the idea that a home movie projector that was enclosed in a cabinet like the Victrola would be welcomed by the public, hence the coined name, movi from movie and ola from Victrola. The trademark, Moviola, now identified inseparably with the cutter and his part in film production, was registered on April 8, 1919.

The first patent of a number granted to Iwan Serrurier on the Moviola was issued April 8, 1919, as United States Patent No. 1,299,729, "Picture Projecting Apparatus," from an application dated October 25, 1917. Subsequently the Moviola was patented in Canada, France, and England. 

The first Moviola was a far cry from the present device; in fact it was a home movie projector enclosed in a Victrola-like cabinet. The first cabinet utilized a Motiograph projector head of the vintage patented in 1909, and threw pictures to a 12 by 18-inch screen. The screen when not in use folded into the cabinet. After the first experimental Moviola was demonstrated as practical, Mr. Serrurier wanted "a projector that would run backward as well as forward" for his home movie equipment, so he went to Chicago and then to New York, trying to locate a suitable movement. He knew the public wanted to run short home movies, to rewind them, and he also knew of the necessity of having a small, durable intermittent. Not being able to find the desired device in the United States, he went to Europe, where in France he located two makes of projectors, the Guilbert projector, of which he bought four, and the Mollier, of which he bought a number.

Twenty cabinets were made and equipped with these projectors, which sold to various individuals and to the movie studios during the period prior to 1924. Some of them are still in use in the studio executive offices for viewing "dailies" and other film. In fact in October of this year four of them which saw constant use since 1924 at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were overhauled.

While contacting and selling the cabinets in the studios, he saw the need of a small direct viewing device for the cutting rooms. He set out to make such a device.

Because the foreign projector intermittents were noisy, Mr. Serrurier decided to use parts made for a standard American projector which he assembled for the Moviola movement.

Within a short time business increased and Serrurier designed and started making his own Geneva movement which he has continued to use since.

The Maltese cross of the intermittent is made of "yellow label" carbon tool steel. and is ground in a special jig, after which it is polished and carefully fitted by hand. That accounts for the long life and silence of the Moviola equipment. The wearing parts that come into contact with the film are made of bearing bronze, while the parts such as sprockets and other precision parts that are handled and subject to the rusting and corrosion due to the hands are white nickel plated.

The paint on the body parts is of the hard crystal finish with an undercoat of baking japan, and both are baked on the equipment.

The Moviola factory is not a factory in the conventional sense of the word.

Out in front of the manufacturing part of the concern is a court. It is hemmed in on all sides by large buildings and has ping pong tables, palm trees and places to sit in the sun and philosophize if one is so inclined. On one side is a group of ten fully equipped cutting rooms. In front, for the convenience of the cutters and Moviola makers, is a restaurant.

A novel feature is an underground concrete vault for film storage. Space in this vault, with its constant underground temperature and other conveniences, is rented to outside individuals. Whoever rents a section has available a lock arrangement that safeguards his film cans.

Within the factory proper is a heterogeneous mass of steel tools, lathes, milling machines, radio, chairs, and Moviolas. Seventeen men are employed making Moviolas and all the other tools needed by the cutter for all parts of the world.

Just now a large order is being filled for Russia. China, Japan, India, England, France, Australia, and other countries use the Moviola. "In fact," Mr. Serrurier says, "it would be easier to name the countries that do not use them."

Some of the earliest Moviolas are still in use. Harmon Weight, a cutter, has one of the very first Moviolas which he bought in December, 1925. It is still in use, and Mr. Weight says, "I am going to keep it in the family."

Two of the experimental models made before the Moviolas were offered for sale are on display in the Motion Picture Gallery of the Los Angeles Museum.