‘In answer to your letter of 26 Sept, I can tell you that “The Battle of the Somme” has not yet been shown at the Cinema Palace. As far as my own films are concerned, it's no longer worth the trouble. You’ll receive “The Vagabond” (DIE LANDSTRASSE) for 6 to 10 October, but then that's it for me,’ wrote Jean Desmet to his brother Theo, manager of the Bellamy Bioscoop in Flushing, on 1 October 1916. Desmet's film distribution and cinema exhibition businesses collapsed during the First World War. It was not the end of Desmet's career. In 1916, he switched to a new livelihood.

The Exhibition and Reception of Desmet's Films During the War Years

During the war years, Desmet distributed war newsreels. They were mainly war actualities from Pathé and newsreel compilations assembled in 1915/16 under the title LAATSTE BIOSCOOP WERELDBERICHTEN (LATEST CINEMA WORLD NEWS*). He stopped buying the usual Pathé-Journals and also turned down offers of newsreels from other companies such as Eiko and Messter, preferring to rent the British Topical Budget newsreels for his own cinemas and regular customers. He also tried to get hold of the English Gaumont Graphic newsreels, but it is unclear whether he succeeded, since there are no surviving copies of them in the Desmet Collection.

After the outbreak of war, Desmet set his sights on major feature films, the big box-office hits. He still occasionally bought short comedies and melodramas but on a much more modest scale than previously. However, his supply of hits was irregular, and a distributor like Nöggerath, with his large claim on new Cines productions, was able to guarantee greater continuity.

It is instructive to follow Desmet's wartime film offerings just by looking at his advertisements in the trade press. In this period he was renting a lot of pre-war pictures. There were then a number of titles that he advertised repeatedly with accompanying stills. These were films placed at his disposal temporarily by the importer Ralph Minden, such as IL DRAMMA DEL COLLE DI GUIS, SHANNON OF THE SIXTH, A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM and A DAUGHTER OF THE HILLS. These films are mainly long American features. American long features appear to be well represented in Desmet's stocks, but he did not actually own them himself.