Movies Unlimited - The Movie Collector's Website

Thirty? Something!

Movies Unlimited's Castor Avenue, Philadelphia storefront, circa 1978

In March, Movies Unlimited will celebrate its 30th birthday, and it’s a cause for much celebration around here.

Who knew that when Jerry Frebowitz opened his first store or printed his first catalog that the company would be around for three decades?

Certainly, Jerry didn’t know. After all, he started the whole enterprise as a hobby. He owned a variety store in the Tioga section of Philadelphia. In the back, Jerry sold Super 8mm movies. His hobby was collecting the 8 to 20 minute condensed versions of movies, and he expanded his interests by selling the movies to a small but devoted group of movie fans. Jerry realized there were more movie fans out there, so he cut some pictures out of catalogs from the different 8 mm and super 8mm suppliers, added a little paste, and slapped it all together and—voila!—he was in the mail order business! Back then, the company was called Brenda’s Movie House, after Jerry’s wife. The guides were sent to mail order customers, who responded enthusiastically.

In 1978, Jerry decided to close his Germantown Avenue store and open a store devoted entirely to selling movies. The location was on Castor Avenue in the Oxford Circle section of Northeast Philadelphia. The store stocked primarily those condensed version of feature films in Super 8mm, but added a new item as well: videotapes. The business was renamed “Movies Unlimited”.

VHS and Beta were new formats on the film collector’s market, and Jerry put some into his store and into his mail order catalog. At the beginning of the videotape revolution, selection was scarce, with only a few companies throwing their hats into the electronics ring. The cost of videotapes was relatively high, usually $40-$80 for a movie. And the price of the VHS machines, manufactured by RCA, Panasonic, JVC, and others, and Betamaxes, produced by Sony and Sears, typically cost over $1000.

But their popularity took off, and so did Movies Unlimited. The catalog got bigger and more professional looking and while the Super 8mm sales dwindled, VHS and Beta movies replaced the shelf space in the store.

Companies such as Disney, MPI, Meda (later Media) and Magnetic Video (which cut a deal with Fox and Embassy) were early signers-on for video distribution of movies. Other studios such as Warner, Paramount, and Columbia, eventually joined the fray, followed by an array of independent companies joining the revolution.

Meanwhile, Jerry realized that not everyone was eager to pay $50 or more for a videocassette. He introduced an opportunity for his customers to watch a movie which he called “previewing”. Customers were allowed to take movies on loan for anywhere from one night to an entire week and pay a fee based on the time they had the movie out. If they decided to keep the movie the fee was put towards the purchase price. People responded big time, especially since Movies Unlimited offered a huge selection of video titles from every genre, something that became their trademark over the years. On weekends, lines often snaked through the store and out of the front door.

Movies Unlimited adopted the apt slogan “Gets ‘em first, has ‘em all,” and decided to expand their successful formula of offering a huge section that mixed the latest Hollywood hits with obscure and hard-to-get titles, an informative, movie-savvy staff and prompt service. The company opened four other retail locations in the Philadelphia area over the years, in Drexel Hill (later Broomall) and Oxford Valley in Pennsylvania, and Cherry Hill and Turnersville, New Jersey. The stores not only became a place to preview (now called “rent”) movies, but also discuss their merits with staff members and other movie fans, or enjoy special film-themed promotions or snag some free popcorn for a movie night at home. At the same time, the catalog got more formidable, with pages numbering several hundred and circulation topping 100,000.

Other companies entered the video landscape both nationally and locally—many of the locals, in fact, were owned by former Movies Unlimited customers. But the Movies Unlimited style and niche was already molded, and its success continued. Other formats—like RCA’s short-lived CED disc and Laserdisc—came and went, as did a myriad of industry trends, but Movies Unlimited remained constant through all of the changes.

In the late 1990s, the industry embraced a new format called DVD, and with it came more emphasis on selling movies rather than renting them. Jerry decided to close the stores over the period of five years, with the original Castor Avenue location eventually shuttering in 2004. At the time of its closing, the Castor Avenue site was the oldest operating video store in the country.

Jerry put all his eggs in the mail order basket, and none of them cracked. The mail order arm of the company expanded even more, shipping movies around the world and to many major Hollywood studios, stars, and filmmakers, as well as many movie fanatics who started purchasing from the company when they were in its infancy and sold Super 8mm. Meanwhile, the company went whole hog into the Internet in 1998, introducing their www.moviesunlimited.com website, which features the company’s huge inventory, special sales and collector’s information. The Movies Unlimited Catalog grew, too:. The 30th Anniversary Edition is a whopping 836 pages.

In 2007, Movies Unlimited partnered with Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to produce the Turner Classic Movies DVD Catalog, an offshoot of the annual Movies Unlimited DVD Catalog. The partnership has proved to be a match made in heaven for both companies, which share similar demographics and appeal to true movie fans. Propelled by commercials which ran on TCM with host Robert Osborne, the TCM DVD Catalog proved to be a runaway success, and the venture has continued into 2008.

Today, Movies Unlimited remains a pioneer and innovator in the world of video retail, offering old school reliability, knowledge and a sense of history to the ever-changing world of home video. Jerry would be the first to tell you that when he started the whole shebang 30 years ago, he had no idea where it would lead or for how long it would last. But he’s certainly glad he was able to turn his hobby into the premier establishment for film collectors around the world.

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