The Shadow
COVINGTON, Va. (VR) – The year was 1929. Starting in October, a series of articles in the Covington Virginian recorded the city’s rising excitement as a two-reel, 22-minute comedy/drama titled “Covington’s Hero” was filmed in town and shown at the Strand Theatre on Main Street.
On October 26, the newspaper announced a competition to select a young local woman as the film’s leading lady. This, the paper announced, “may be the means of elevating some Alleghany girl to world-wide fame and fortune in the films.” Hundreds applied for the role.
The director was Don O. Newland, from Consolidated Film Producers, a “well known company in Hollywood.” The paper described Newland as “a pioneer in the moving picture industry” who had worked with such stars as Mary Pickford and James Kirkwood. The paper touted “the Hollywood unit” as “experienced in the production of movies as it is done in the center of the film industry on the West Coast” and looked forward to giving the people of Covington and Alleghany County “a chance to see just how a real production is made.” Once the casting was set, the actual filming was completed in just four or five days.
No Ties To Tinseltown
In reality, however, the film company had no studio, no permanent staff, and no legal registration in Hollywood. Don Newland, who came from Michigan, was running a classic “fly-by-night” operation that existed wherever he, his family, and his two or three crew members were staying that week. His home mailing address, a Post Office box in Washington D.C., was used primarily to send raw films to labs to develop. “Covington’s Hero” was just one of more than fifty short films he produced between 1922 and 1933 in small towns up and down the East Coast. Newland used local talent and the same basic script that prominently featured a reporter and a scene showing how the local newspaper was produced. All his films were financed and promoted by the starstruck local papers.
In Virginia, “Hero” films were made in Covington, Staunton, Danville, Charlottesville, Richmond, and possibly Harrisonburg. A recent article in “Style Weekly” describes Newland’s approach to filmmaking as he worked on “Richmond’s Hero” in 1925.
Production took four, strenuous 12-hour days. Using his best PR instincts, Newland chose locations that would be most recognizable to audiences and endear them to the production. He set up several interior sets on the stage of the National Theater, so a paying audience could sit and watch the filmmaking process unfold in front of them….
While filming the interior scenes on stage at the National, Newland consummately performed his own role of the dashing Hollywood director. Wearing a vest, riding boots, a director’s beret, and wielding a megaphone, he “dodged in and out of the scenes,” shouting: “Action!” “Spot!” and “Cut!” to the absolute delight of the packed crowd.
Newland was always greatly impressed with the acting skills of his volunteer “stars” and with the local venues and scenery, and praised them highly to the sponsoring newspapers. But needless to say, none of the participants was ever “elevated to worldwide fame.”
Each of the “Hero” movies featured a staged car crash, accomplished by filming two new cars backing slowly away from each other, reversing the film, and adding a puff of smoke to simulate an explosion. When the smoke cleared, two wrecked cars appeared with the “victims” staggering around nearby. In Covington, this was staged on Nov. 5 th , 1929, at the intersection of Main Street and Court Street before a large crowd of onlookers.
Newland made a point of advertising the time and place that each scene would be filmed and shot side footage of the audiences that came to watch. This footage was attached to the end of each movie, enticing onlookers as well as participants to come see the finished product. Another canny tactic was to include a big “orphanage” scene at the end of his films. This allowed Newland to recruit and film dozens or hundreds of local children, ensuring that their parents would buy tickets to the subsequent screenings.
Don Newland switched to producing “talkies” around 1931, but “Covington’s Hero” was almost certainly a silent film with a music track. No reports mention any spoken parts.
Despite all his efforts, showmanship, and travels, Newland barely scraped out a living as an itinerant filmmaker, and eventually gave up the business for more mainstream pursuits.
Tracking “Covington’s Hero”
“Covington’s Hero” debuted at The Strand Theatre on November 18, 1929. Don Newland was on hand to introduce the film to a packed house at what the Virginian called “the biggest night the Strand ever had.” The film was screened three times daily from November 18 through the 21 st . A fifth and final matinee showing was added on December 27. The Strand, a single-screen movie theater with 500-600 seats, was located at 419 Main Street. It closed permanently around 1970, and the building was demolished in the early 1980s.
In January 1930, the Virginian reported that County Agent Brown Surber had shown the film at several high schools around Alleghany County and also at the Boys Home of Virginia. In December 1935, the film was shown once again at Boys Home by the 4-H Club.
The chance that “Covington’s Hero” still exists is remote. Just one 35mm print of each “Hero” movie was produced, and of some fifty “Hero” films only four are known to survive.
One of them, “Belvidere’s Hero,” is available on YouTube. However, the later showings of “Covington’s Hero” after 1929 raise the possibility that more copies of the film were made.
Undated photo of the Strand Theatre on the 400 block of Main Street in Covington (Credit Alleghany Historical Society).
Undated photo of director Don Newland (at right, behind the camera – credit Wiki Commons)
