HOLLYWOOD IN THE ROCKIES

If you went to a movie theater between 1928 and the mid-1950s, chances are you'd have seen footage shot in Colorado Springs.

The Alexander Film Co., which produced short advertising "playlets," employed as many as 750 people and produced more than 1 million feet of footage for the big screens.

The company was started in Spokane, Wash., by brothers J. Don and Don M. Alexander in 1919. They moved it to Englewood in 1923 and then to North Nevada Avenue (where KKTV is today) in 1928.

By the time the company moved to Englewood, the brothers needed airplanes to distribute their films. Not finding any they liked, they built a few themselves. Potential customers fell in love with the Eaglerock biplanes at first sight and started ordering them.

By 1929, Alexander Aircraft was building four models at the rate of a plane an hour. But the demand for small aircraft crashed along with the stock market, and the business came to a halt in 1932, leaving an aviation legacy - its Bullet monoplane was the first to use retractable landing gear.

The film company thrived, however. In 1951 it had 11,000 theaters under contract to show its ads. But later in the decade, television eclipsed the movie business. The company had trouble selling its TV commercials because it was a nonunion shop. It did produce a memorable one - a 1961 GM ad showing a Chevy perched atop a 2,500- foot butte in Utah.

The company was sold several times after J. Don died in 1955, but it still exists. Andy and Regina Hutchison operate Alexander Film & Video Services, an audio and video duplication service, at 1055 Elkton Drive. The aircraft company's descendant, Goodrich Aircraft Seating Products, specializes in cockpit-crew and cabin-attendant seats. Its facility is near the Colorado Springs airport, at 1275 N. Newport Road.

Copyright 2001
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