Eyewitness accounts of viewing pictures
Source: Dudley Buxton, ‘What do you say to five penn’orth of dark?’, ‘Comique’ series no. 3141, Inter-Art Co., posted Scarborough, 25 July 1921, from the Nicholas Hiley collection
Comments: Dudley Buxton (c.1885-1951) was a British comic artist involved in some of the first British animated films, including working with Anson Dyer and the Kine Komedy Kartoons in the 1910s.
Source: Dudley Buxton, ‘What do you say to five penn’orth of dark?’, ‘Comique’ series no. 3141, Inter-Art Co., posted Scarborough, 25 July 1921, from the Nicholas Hiley collection
Comments: Dudley Buxton (c.1885-1951) was a British comic artist involved in some of the first British animated films, including working with Anson Dyer and the Kine Komedy Kartoons in the 1910s.
Source: ‘Movies “Over the Waves” at Lumina, Wrightsville Beach, Wilmington, N.C.’ in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. Postmarked 22 July 1926.
Comments: The postcard shows a cinema screen positioned at Wrightsville Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina, with seats along the shoreline for the audience. The screen was an extension of the Lumina Theatre entertainment centre. The message on the back of the postcard reads: “Well Beulah how are you. I am just fine only rather warm for it sure is hot here. Wish you could have been with us yesterday you would have had a time. We [went] to the Ocean. I was in bathing right by the post in the picture. Fondly, Violet.” The image is used as a key identifier for the exceptional Going to the Show website, which documents the experience of movies and moviegoing in North Carolina, from the introduction of projected motion pictures to the end of the silent film era.
Links: Going to the Show website
Information from Going to the Show on the Lumina
Postcard images of the Lumina Theatre
Source: ‘All I saw at the Picture Palace’, postcard c.1910, from the Nicholas Hiley collection
Comments: This British postcard plays on the popular perception of cinema allowing sexual licence because it placed mixed couples in the dark.
Source: Fred Spurgin, ‘What Could Be Nicer?’, postcard c.1917, from the Nicholas Hiley collection
Comments: Frederick Spurgin (1882-1968) was a prolific British postcard illustrator of the First World War period, who produced several cards with a cinema theme, usually with a mild sexual theme. This card was posted in Guildford in 1917.
Source: ‘The Bioscope’, postcard, stamped Dover 21 August 1904, identified on reverse side as ‘4271 – London, after dark’, Luke McKernan collection
Comments: This is an unusual example of a cinema-related postcard where the message on the back makes reference to the image on the front. The writer says, “This one is rather amusing I think Don’t you. They are quite the latest style here. Some of them are quite shocking.” The postcard show the audience at the screening of films in a variety theatre. A lecturer points out the image (mistakenly shown as a circle after magic lantern practice) and an orchestra plays while the audience reveal what they are saying to one another in the safety of the dark. The messages include “Kiss me quick, this is the last picture”, “Put your foot on mine, ducky” and “Remember I’m a married man”. The Bioscope was the name of a projector that became a generic name for early film shows. Though the postcard is meant to represent London the writer notes that such film shows are popular in Dover, so this entry has been classified under both places.
Source: W. Stocker Shaw, ‘In the Cinema’, postcard c.1910, from the Nicholas Hiley collection
Comments: William Stocker Shaw (1879 – ?) was a prolific British comic postcard artist. This is an example of one of the many postcards from this period which play on the idea of the cinema as a place for sexual licence because it located people in the dark. The thoughts of the audience are complemented by the image on the screen. The venue portrayed is a theatre, with box, rather than a cinema. The message on the reverse of the card makes no mention of the image.
Source: Postcard c.1908 of The Circle in the Square, 28 Leicester Square, London
Comment: The Circle in the Square was the first cinema (as opposed to variety theatres showing films as part of their programme) in London’s Leicester Square. Originally known as the Bioscopic Tea Rooms, it opened in June 1909 and in common with many cinemas at this time offered teas to its patrons, here in an adjoining room, though teas could be taken into the cinema itself. The cinema, which seated 192 with standing room for 42, was open daily 2pm to 11pm, with teas provided 2pm to 7pm. Today the same location is occupied by an Angus Steak House.