Tag: Staff

Kinomatograph in Paris

Source: Max Brod, extracts from ‘Kinomatograph in Paris’, Der Merker vol. 3 no. 1 (February 1912): pp. 95-98, reproduced in part in Hanns Zischler, Kafka Goes to the Movies (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 47-51, translation by Susan H. Gillespie

Text: On the very evening that we had set aside as a night off, after so many nocturnal exertions, for a modest meal in the four walls of our hotel and early to bed, we chanced upon a doorway on the boulevard, decked out with little electric light bulbs and a not exactly energetic barker, whose cap, however, bore a title that attracted us more magically than all his words could have. Omnia Pathé … So here we are stood at the source of so many of our enjoyments, once more at the center of a business whose rays shone so powerfully over the whole world that one would almost rather not believe in the existence of a center – a feeling, by the way, that was typical for our Parisian mood; for powerful central firms, (like Pneu Michelin, Douçet, Roger Gallet, Clement Bayard, etc.) besiege the heart of the newcomer with surprising force. We again dispensed with the night off (damned city!) and went in.

It is hard for one darkened hall to differentiate itself from other darkened halls. But for us, who are always firmly set on finding in everything Parisian something special and better than anyplace else, we are soon struck by the spaciousness – no, that’s not it yet – then, that people are disappearing through a dark doorway in the background and a cool draft seems to regulate this continuous movement of the audience – no, that’s how it is at home, too, uninterrupted showings, an entrance and an exit door – but now we feel we are on firmer ground. This freedom of people to be able to position themselves anywhere there is room, even in the aisle between the rows of benches, even on the ramp next to the apparatus, is something decidedly republican, any police force other than the Parisian police would not approve of it. Equally republican, we must admit, is the freedom of the many columns in the hall to be allowed to disturb the audience’s view in whatever way they please …

A girl in the uniform of a soldier in an operetta, on the cap, this time, the ambiguous inscription “Omnia,” accompanies us to our seats, sells us an (according to good Parisian custom, inexact) program. And already we are under the spell of the blindingly white, trembling screen in front of us. We nudge each other. “Say, the show is better here than at home.” Naturally, after all, in Paris everything has to be better.

[Brod describes some of the film programme, including travel films]

We saw, indeed we saw a great deal – by analogy to the Comédie, which puts eight acts on stage almost without intermission. We saw the doctor visit the poor sick child and turn around melodramatically several times in the doorway, with a distinctly pitying expression. We saw the mercifulness of some English king or other, hand-colored, sandwiched between some theatrical armor and a ruin (which had been created from a burned-out suburban cottage), enjoying life.

[…]

At the end , after the usual revolver shots, chases, fisticuffs, came the news. Naturally she was not absent – the one you now see on all the advertisements, candy boxes, and postcards in Paris: Mona Lisa. The picture opened with the presentation of M. Croumolle (everyone knows that it means “Homolle,” and no one protests against the perfidious way they are going after the gray-haired Delphi scholar). Croumolle is lying in bed, his stocking cap pulled down over his ears, and is startled out of sleep by a telegram: “Mona Lisa Stolen.” Croumolle – the Delphi scholar, if you please, but I am not protesting, I was laughing so hard – dresses himself with clownlike agility, now he puts both feet into one leg of his pants; now one foot into two socks. In the end, he runs into the street with his suspenders trailing, all the bystanders turn around to look at him, even those who are far in the background and evidently not in the pay of Pathé … It is a longing that ever since the emergence of the cinema lives on in me with the force of my early childhood wishes – I would like just once, by chance, to turn a street corner where such a staged cinematographic scene is taking place. What wouldn’t it be possible to improvise there! And in any case, what a sight! But to continue. The story is set in the hall of the Louvre, everything excellently imitated, the paintings and, in the middle, the three nails on which the Mona Lisa is hung. Horror; summoning of a comical detective; a shoe button of Croumolle’s as red herring; the detective as shoeshine boy; chase through the cafés of Paris; passers-by forced to have their shoes shined; arrest of the unfortunate Croumolle, for the button that was found at the scene naturally matches his shoe buttons. And now the final gag – while everyone is running through the hall at the Louvre and acting sensational, the thief sneaks in, the Mona Lisa under his arm, hangs her back where she belongs, and takes Velázquez’s Princess instead. No one notices him. Suddenly someone sees the Mona Lisa; general astonishment, and a note in one corner of the rediscovered painting that says, “Pardon me, I am nearsighted. I actually wanted to have the painting next to it.” … Croumolle, poor man, is released.

[…]

Then, in addition, the Journal Pathé. And so that everything quite resembles a newspaper, the title page and “Year III” are solemnly projected beforehand. We see demonstrations against inflation in France, which look like they have been arranged by Pathé; everyone is grinning in the direction of the audience. …

Comments: Max Brod (1884-1968) was a Czech author, best known as the friend and literary executor of Franz Kafka. His essay ‘Kinomatograph in Paris’ describes a visit to the Omnia Pathé cinema in Paris made by Brod and Kafka on 10 September 1911. The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre on 21 August 1911. The Pathé film company rapidly issued Nick Winter et le vol de la Joconde (Nick Winter and the Theft of the Mona Lisa) the following month, as a title in its ‘Nick Winter’ detective series. Théophile Homolle (parodied in the film as Croumolle) was the director of the Louvre. Brod and Kafka had visited the Louvre the day before to witness the scene of the crime. The painting was recovered in 1913. The Omnia Pathé luxury cinema was the first cinema in the Pathé circuit to be in opened in Paris, in 1906.

Links: Copy of full original article (in German) at Hathi Trust

Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue

Source: Laura Lee Hope, extract from Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1916)

bunnybrownText: Just beyond the corner there was a moving picture theatre, lately opened. Mrs. Brown and Aunt Lu had taken Bunny and his sister there once or twice, when there was a fairy play, or something nice to see, so Bunny and Sue knew what the moving pictures were like.

“Oh, let’s just go down and look at the picture posters outside,” said Bunny, as they stood on the corner, from where they could see the theatre.

“All right,” said Sue quickly.

In front of the moving picture place were some big boards, and on them were pasted brightly colored posters, almost like circus ones, telling about the moving pictures that were being shown inside. There was a picture of a man falling in the water, and another of a railroad train. Bunny loved cars and locomotives.

Not thinking anything wrong, the two tots ran across the street, looking carefully up and down first, to see that no automobiles were coming. They crossed safely.

A little later they were standing in front of the moving picture theatre, looking at the gay posters.

“Wouldn’t you like to go in?” asked Bunny.

Sue nodded her curly head.

“Maybe Aunt Lu will take us,” she said.

“We’ll ask her,” decided Bunny.

Then they heard, from down the side street, the sound of a piano. It came from the moving picture place, and the reason Bunny and Sue could hear it so plainly was because the piano was near a side door, which was open to let in the fresh air.

“Let’s go down there and listen to the music a minute,” Bunny said. “Then we’ll go back and tell Aunt Lu.”

“All right!” agreed Sue.

A little later the two were standing at the open, side door of the place. They could hear the piano very plainly now, and, what was more wonderful, they could look right in the theatre and see the moving pictures flashing on the white screen.

“Oh! oh!” murmured Bunny. “Look, Sue.”

“Oh! oh!” whispered Sue. And then Bunny had a queer idea.

“We can walk right in,” he said. “The door is open. I guess this is for children like us – they don’t want any money. Come on in, Sue, and we’ll see the moving pictures!”

Bunny Brown and his sister Sue walked right into the moving picture theatre. The door, as I have told you, was open, there was no one standing near to take tickets, or ask for money, and of course the children thought it was all right to go in.

No one seemed to notice them, perhaps because the place was dark, except where the brilliant pictures were dancing and flashing on the white screen. And no one heard Bunny and Sue, for not only did they walk very softly, but just then the girl at the piano was playing loudly, and the sound filled the place.

Right in through the open side door walked Bunny and Sue, and never for a moment did they think they were doing anything wrong. I suppose, after all, it was not very wrong.

Bunny walked ahead, and Sue followed, keeping hold of his hand. Pretty soon she whispered to her brother:

“Bunny! Bunny! I can’t see very good at all here. I want to see the pictures better.”

“All right,” Bunny whispered back. “I can’t see very good, either. We’ll find a better place.”

You know you can’t look at moving pictures from the side, they all seem to be twisted if you do. You must be almost in front of them, and this time Bunny and Sue were very much to one edge.

“We’ll get up real close, and right in front,” Bunny went on. Then he saw a little pair of steps leading up to the stage, or platform; only Bunny did not know it was that. He just thought if he and Sue went up the steps they would be better able to see. So up he went.

The screen, or big white sheet, on which the moving pictures were shown, stood back some distance from the front of the stage. And it was a real stage, with footlights and all, but it was not used for acting any more, as only moving pictures were given in that theatre now.

Sue followed Bunny up the steps. The pictures were ever so much clearer and larger now. She was quite delighted, and so was her brother. They wandered out to the middle of the stage, paying no attention to the audience. And the people in the theatre were so interested in the picture on the screen, that, for a while, they did not see the children who had wandered into the darkened theatre by the side door.

The music from the piano sounded louder and louder. The pictures became more brilliant. Then suddenly Bunny and Sue walked right out on the stage in front of the screen, where the light from the moving picture lantern shone brightly on them.

“What’s that?” cried several persons.

“Look! Why they’re real children!” said others.

Bunny and Sue could be plainly seen now, for they were exactly in the path of the strong light. There was some laughter in the audience, and then the man who was turning the crank of the moving picture machine began to understand that something was wrong.

He stopped the picture film, and turned on a plain, white light, very strong and glaring, Just like the headlights of an automobile. Bunny and Sue could hardly see, and they looked like two black shadows on the white screen.

“Look! Look! It’s part of the show!” said some persons in front.

“Maybe they’re going to sing,” said others.

“Or do a little act.”

“Oh, aren’t they cute!” laughed a lady.

By this time the piano player had stopped making music. She knew that something was wrong. So did the moving picture man up in his little iron box, and so did the usher – that’s the man who shows you where to find a seat. The usher came hurrying down the aisle.

“Hello, youngsters!” he called out, but he was not in the least bit cross. “Where did you get in?” he asked.

By this time the lights all over the place had been turned up, and Bunny and Sue could see the crowd, while the audience could also see them. Bunny blinked and smiled, but Sue was bashful, and tried to hide behind her brother. This made the people laugh still more.

“How did you get in, and who is with you?” asked the usher.

“We walked in the door over there,” and Bunny pointed to the side one. “And we came all alone. We’re waiting for Aunt Lu.”

“Oh, then she is coming?”

“I don’t guess so,” Bunny said. “We didn’t tell her we were coming here.”

“Well, well!” exclaimed the usher-man. “What does it all mean? Did your Aunt Lu send you on ahead? We don’t let little children in here unless some older person is with them, but -”

“We just comed in,” Sue said. “The door was open, and we wanted to see the pictures, so we comed in; didn’t we Bunny?”

“Yes,” he said. “But we’d like to sit down. We can’t see good up here.”

“No, you are a little too close to the screen,” said the usher. “Well, I’d send you home if I knew where you lived, but–”

“I know them!” called out a woman near the front of the theatre. “That is Bunny Brown and his sister Sue. They live just up the street. I’ll take them home.”

“Thank you; that’s very kind of you,” said the man. “I guess their folks must be worrying about them. Please take them home.”

“We don’t want to go home!” exclaimed Sue. “We want to see the pictures; don’t we, Bunny?”

“Yes,” answered the little fellow, “but maybe we’d better go and get Aunt Lu.”

“I think so myself,” laughed the usher. “You can come some other time, youngsters. But bring your aunt, or your mother, with you; and don’t come in the side door. I’ll have to keep some one there, if it’s going to be open, or I’ll have more tots walking in without paying.”

“Come the next time, with your aunt or mother,” he went on, “and I’ll give you free tickets. It won’t cost you even a penny!”

“Oh, goodie!” cried Sue. She was willing to go home now, and the lady who said she knew them – who was a Mrs. Wakefield, and lived not far from the Brown home – took Bunny and Sue by the hands and led them out of the theatre.

The lights were turned low again, and the moving picture show went on. Bunny and Sue wished they could have stayed, but they were glad they could come again, as the man had invited them.

Comments: Laura Lee Hope was a pseudonym used by American book publisher the Stratemeyer Syndicate to produce books for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue. The latter series, aimed at young children, was published 1916-1930.

Links: Copy on Project Gutenberg

Seats in All Parts

Source: Leslie Halliwell, Seats in All Parts (London: Granada, 1985), pp. 54-56

Text: … the Lido in Bradshawgate, as unprepossessing an unVenetian a building as could be imagined despite its gondola-filled proscenium frieze. Financed by a small Salford-based circuit, it was little more than a cheap shell. The foyer was bare and cramped, and the centre stalls exists were by crash doors which opened from the auditorium straight out into the side alleys, sometimes drenching the adjacent customers in rain or snow.

But we were unaware of such inconveniences on the Saturday in 1937 when we queued for the gala opening. For some reason the attraction chosen for that one night only was a revival of Jessie Matthews in Evergreen, very welcome but quite uneventful, since we had previously seen it at the Hippodrome. The place nevertheless was mobbed, and we found ourselves in a low point of the front stalls from which it was difficult for me to see more than the top half of the screen over the heads of the people in front. I was comforted, however, by a handful of sample packets of a confectionery, then new, called Maltesers: the usherettes were practically throwing them at everyone who came in, and I grabbed as many as I could from the tray on the way to my seat.

We went again on Monday to see the Lido’s first première, which was Song of Freedom, staring Paul Robeson. It was enjoyable enough while the star held sway, and I responded to his voice as to no one else’s since Al Jolson, who seemed unaccountably to have retired from the screen; but by now we had discovered two of the Lido’s failings. The first was its long, long intervals for ice cream sales, drastically curtailing the supporting programme we expected; the second was an even longer non-attraction called Younger’s Shoppers’ Gazette, a compilation of crude advertising filmlets (I once counted twenty-eight on the one reel). This was certainly not value for money, especially since the Lido was also the proud possessor of a Christie organ, and the interlude for this could stretch the gap between solid celluloid items to as much as thirty-five minutes. Though it had the advantage of a phantom piano attachment, the Lido organ did not rise from the orchestra pit as we expected, nor did it change colour as it came. From some of the side seats you could see it waiting in the wings throughout the performance, and since the main curtain hung slightly short, front stalls patrons could count the feet of the men who pushed it on stage at the appropriate moment. This musical marvel was operated by one Reginald Liversidge, an eager-to-please young man with a gleaming smile and a fine head of skin; his natty tailcoat and graceful manners probably endeared him to the matrons, but not to me. So far as I was concerned, his slide-accompanied concerts of ‘Tchaikovskiana’ were just one more nail in the coffin of a disappointing venue in which I had expected to spend many delightful evenings.

And so I was not impelled, in the years before the 1939 war, to visit the Lido very often. Its schedulers did not have the booking power of the established cinemas, and certainly not of the new Odeon which was to menace them all. It was too often to take the cheapest programme available, and I was happiest when it settled for a re-issue. One such attraction was the 1931 Fredric March version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which my mother wanted to see again, having been impressed by it when I was still in swaddling clothes. It was my first experience, in our well-behaved town, of an audience cat-calling and rough-housing during a performance. Mum said comfortingly that they only did it to prove they were not scared by Jekyll’s transformations into Hyde; I was, but tried not to show it, my fear being tempered by a burning desire to wear, when I grew up, a dress cape, cane and top hat just like Mr March’s. I realize now that this superbly crafted film, by far the best version of the story, is not only horrifying but surprisingly one-track-minded in the matter of sex, and therefore not at all a suitable entertainment for a boy of tender years; nonetheless what I most remember from that long-ago evening is how lustrous and dramatic it was to look at. Mum anxiously watched my reactions to the shock moments and, since I showed no ill effects, took me along a few weeks later to see the Lido’s ‘double thrill bill’ consisting of re-issues of The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man. This time, to our astonishment, we were forestalled by the burly commissionaire in the second-hand uniform, who informed us between pursed lips that Children were no Admitted. My mother pointed out that both films had ‘A’ certificates, not ‘H’, and that she regularly took me to ‘A’ pictures, but argument proved useless, and we could only conclude that this was an entirely unofficial rule drawn up by the management either for the public good or (more likely) to drum up business during a dull week. Adamant, the commissionaire repeatedly tapped a hanging notice on which the words ADULTS ONLY had been inscribed in shaky green lettering. Although, he assured us confidentially, he had seen both pictures and wouldn’t give you that (he snapped his fingers) for their horror content, he was powerless to help us, and could only suggest that we went round the corner to the Theatre Royal where Old Mother Riley was showing. His sister had described it as a real good laugh. Disconsolately, we took his advice; but I don’t remember laughing much: the rather primitively filmed knockabout failed to capture the instinctive zest of Lucan and MacShane’s crockery-smashing stage act which I had seen at the Grand on one recent Saturday night.

Comments: Leslie Halliwell (1929-1989) was a film historian and programme buyer for ITV and Channel 4. Seats in All Parts is his memoir of cinemagoing, including his Bolton childhood. ‘A’ certificates were introduced in 1912 and stood for ‘Adult’; from 1923 a child attending an ‘A’ film had to be accompanied by an adult. ‘H’ certificates, for Horror, were introduced by the British Board of Film Censors in 1932, to be replaced by the X certificate in 1951. The Lido cinema opened in March 1997 and closed in 1998, by which time it was called the Cannon Cinema. The site is now occupied by a block of flats. The films recalled by Halliwell are Evergreen (UK 1934), Song of Freedom (UK 1936), The Old Dark House (USA 1932), The Invisible Man (USA 1933) and Old Mother Riley (UK 1937). Younger’s Shopper’s Gazette was produced by Younger Publicity Service and ran from the 1920s to the 1940s. An example can be seen on the website of the Media Archive for Central England.

The Cinema Habit

Source: ‘The Cinema Habit’, Punch, vol. 146, 18 March 1914, p. 215

Text: The writer of “The Ideal Film Plot,” which appeared in a recent issue of Punch, has quoted an “authority” (anonymous) for the approval of his scenario. It is quite evident that this “authority” (so-styled) must belong to the plebeian ranks of the film-world. It cannot reside in our suburb.

Our cinema theatre is, I venture to state, of a far superior order, both as to drama and as to morality. It is not a mere lantern-hall, close and stuffy, with twopenny and fourpenny seats (half-price to children, and tea provided free at matinée performances), but a white-and-gold Picturedrome, catering to an exclusive class of patrons at sixpence and a shilling, with neat attendants in dove-grey who atomise scent about the aisles, two palms, one at each side of the proscenium (real palms), and, in addition to a piano, a mustel organ to accompany the pathetic passages in the films. Moreover, the commissionaire outside, whose medals prove that he has seen service in the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the Great Raid on the House of Commons in 1910, is not one of those blatant-voiced showmen who clamour for patronage; he is a quiet and dignified réceptionnaire, content to rely on the fame and good repute of his theatre. Sometimes evening dress (from “The Laburnums,” Meadowsweet Avenue, who are on the Stock Exchange) is to be seen in the more expensive seats.

It is unquestionably a high-class Picturedrome. True that the local dentist, who is a stickler for correct English, protests against the designation. I have pointed out to him that if a “Hippodrome” is a place where one sees performing hippos, then surely a place where one sees performing pictures is correctly styled a “Picturedrome.”

I am acquiring the cinema habit.

It is very restful. Each film is preceded on the screen by a certificate showing that its morality has been guaranteed by Mr. REDFORD. I have complete confidence in Mr. REDFORD’S sense of propriety. If, for instance, a bedroom scene is shown and a lady is about to change her gown, one’s advance blushes are needless. That film will be arrested at the loosing of the first hook or button. Virtue will always be plainly triumphant and vice as plainly vanquished. Even the minor imperfections of character will be suitably punished. When on the screen we see Daisy, the flighty college girl, borrowing without permission her friend’s hat, gown, shoes, necklace and curls in order to make a fascinating display before her young college man, it is certain that she will be publicly shamed by her friends and discredited in the eyes of her lover whose affections she seeks to win in this unmoral fashion.

On the screen we shall be sure to meet many old friends. The young American society nuts, in square-rigged coats, spacious trousers, and knobbly shoes, will buzz around the pretty girl like flies around a honey-pot, clamouring for the privilege of presenting her with a twenty-dollar bouquet of American Beauty roses. The bouquet she accepts will be the hero’s; and the other nuts will then group themselves in the background while she registers a glad but demure smile full in the eye of the camera.

The hero, however, loses his paternal expectations in the maelstrom of Wall Street. Throwing off his coat – literally, because at the cinema we are left in no doubt as to intentions – he resolves to go “out West” and retrieve the family fortunes.

Our old friends the cow-boys meet him at the wooden shack which represents the railway station at Waybackville, registering great glee at the prospect of hazing a tenderfoot. We know full well that he will eventually win their respect and high regard – probably by foiling a dastardly plot on the part of a Mexican half-breed – and we are therefore in no anxiety of mind when they raise the dust around his feet with their six-shooters, toss him in a blanket or entice him on to a meek-looking, but in reality record-busting, broncho.

In the middle of the drama we look forward to the “chases,” and we are never disappointed. Our pursued hero, attired in the picturesque bandarilleros of shaggy mohair and the open-throated shirterino of the West, will race through the tangled thickets of the picadoro-trees; thunder down the crumbling banks of amontillados so steep that the camera probably gets a crick in the neck looking up at him; ride the foaming torrent with one hand clasping the mane of his now tamed broncho, and the other hand triggering his shooting-iron; and eventually fall exhausted from the horse at the very doorstep of the ranch, one arm, pinged by a dastardly rifle-bullet, dangling helplessly by his side. (It is, by the way, always the arm or shoulder; the cinema never allows him to get it distressingly in the leg or in the neck.)

In the ultimate, with the wounded arm in a sling, he will tenderly embrace the heroine through a hundred feet of film, she meanwhile registering great joy and trustfulness, until the scene slowly darkens into blackness, and the screen suddenly announces that the next item on the programme will be No. 7, Exclusive to the Picturedrome.

We are greatly favoured with “exclusives.” It may be possible that other suburbs have these films, but it must be second-hand, after we have finished with them. The names of the artistes who create the róles are announced on the screen: “Captain Jack Reckles – Mr. Courcy van Highball,” or it maybe “Juliet, Miss Mamie Euffles.” Or it is a film taken at the local regatta or athletic sports, and the actors in it include all the notabilities of the district. We flock to see how we (or our neighbours) look on the screen, and enjoy a hearty laugh when the scullers of “The Laburnums” register a crab full in the eye of the camera, or “The Oleanders” canoe receives a plenteous backwash from a river-steamer.

But the staple fare is drama – red-blooded drama, where one is never in doubt as to who is in love with whom, and how much. Sometimes, to be frank, there is a passing flirtation, due to pique, between a wife and a third party, leading to misunderstandings, complications and blank despair on the part of the husband; but as there is always a “little one” somewhere in the background, we are never anxious as to the final outcome. It will end with the husband embracing the repentant (but stainless) wife, and at the same time extending a manly hand of reconciliation to the third party.

We also like the dying fiddler (with visions) and the motor-car splurges – especially the latter. In our daily life we are plagued with motor-cars, cycle-cars and motor-cycle side-cars, being on a highroad from London town to the country; but on the screen we adore them.

The cinema is very restful. There are no problems to vex the moral judgment; no psychological doubts; no anxieties. It will be “the mixture as before,” ending in the loving, lingering kiss.

Say what you will of Mr. REDFORD, he never deprives us of the kiss.

Comments: Punch was a British humorous magazine which frequently poked fun at the cinema and its audiences. George Redford was head of the British Board of Film Censors.

Links: Copy at Project Gutenberg

Maisie at the Movies

Source: Gertrude S. Walton, Maisie at the Movies (Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1922)

Text: CHARACTER – A Shop-Girl. She is overdressed, wears her hair in extreme fashion and her nose is powdered white. She is chewing gum vigorously.

(Gropes way down aisle and pauses — addresses companion LILIAN.) S’awful dark in here, ain’t it, Lil? I think I see a coupla seats in here. Pardon me. (Climbs over two or three seats and settles self.) Y’gonna take yer hat off, Lilian? Let’s slink down in the seats and take a chance — our hats is so small anyhow; in fact I thought the very day I bought the hat that it would be so small that I wouldn’t hafta take it off in the movies.

I hope this ain’t a sad picture, Lilian, because I’m sure to cry over it. I’m so sympathetic, Lilian, and I’m worse ever since Joe and I had our falling out — I cry at the least thing — not that I care so much about Joe, y’understand, only it’s made me so sympathetic or somethin’. Ma says I’m a fool but I donno. Joe was a nice fella but it was his fault a’course.

(Looks frantically from left to right in an effort to see the picture.) Good-night, Lilian, that man certainly takes his time taking his coat off. You’d think it was glued to him, in fact you’d think any man with any sense would take his coat off before he gets in front of the whole show and makes you break your neck trying to see the picture, but then, I don’t care so much for these comedy things anyway.

(Turns to person behind her.) Did you speak to me? My hat — it’s in your way? Well, can you beat that, Lilian? Some people are mighty fussy, believe me.

Thank goodness this crazy comedy is over. What didja say the feature picture was ? Oo-o, The Haunted House-Boat! Why, Lilian, I’ve seen this picture. No, we won’t go out — it’s a swell picture — you’ll be crazy about it, Lilian, it has such an original plot — so different from anything you ever saw before. Y’see the fella that takes the part of the crook is the hero but he really isn’t a crook at all. You’ll love this picture, Lilian. Just wait now — look, that’s him. Ain’t he grand though? His eyes is just like Joe’s. In fact he reminds me terribly of Joe. And look there, see the butler? Well, he’s the one who really takes the jewels in the end and he plays so innocent all the time you’d never think it. Why, the first time I seen this picture I was so surprised. Yeh, that’s the heroine. She wears the swellest clothes you ever seen. Wait until you see the dress she wears in the ballroom scene — gee, it’s a dream — no back to it and only one strap to hold it up — I mean what there is of the waist to it — only one strap to hold it up besides her strength of will. The ballroom scene is where she loses the pearls and the diamond bracelet and every one thinks the hero done it, but it’s really the butler after all. The butler is the real crook, Lilian.

Then this House-Boat that’s supposed to be haunted all the time is really the hiding place for all these crooks. See, that’s the House-Boat now. Gee, Lil, I get so excited when I think about the awful fight they have on it at the end of the picture. That’s when you discover that the hero isn’t a crook at all — he’s from the Police Department and the butler is the real crook. Any minute you’d think the butler will kill him but he doesn’t.

See that fella with the black moustache — well, he’s another one of the crooks and he ties the girl to the railroad track just as the train is coming. No — I’m wrong, it isn’t him that ties her to the track, it’s the half-breed. Yeh, that’s who it is. I kinda forgot it. Y’see, the half-breed is really the brother of the butler, who isn’t a half-breed — he’s a whole-breed, or whatever you call it — I mean the half-breed is the whole-breed’s half-brother. I mean the half-breed had an Indian mother, y’see, so that made ’em only half-brothers — if you get what I mean.

The butler is the brains of the jewel-robbing gang and the half-breed’ll do anything he tells him because he hasn’t got so much brains on account of his being a half-breed, y’know.

This is the sad part, Lil — see, the hero’s mother is going to die now. Gee, I hope I don’t cry. (Blinks.) Don’t he look just like Joe now — look, Lil — ain’t he the picture of Joe? Yeh, you said it, why did we have a falling out? I suppose it was my fault a little bit, but you really couldn’t blame me for getting sore. Joe’s an awful nice fella though. Look, Lilian, she’s going to die now just as soon as she falls on the floor. Ain’t it sad? (Fumbles in pocket.) Lil, have you got a handkerchief ? Thanks, I didn’t bring none. (Dabs at eyes.) Gee, I wish I wasn’t so sympathetic.

Good-night, Lil, I dropped my hat. (Gropes about on floor, sits up and accepts hat from neighbor on opposite side.) Oh, thank you ever so (Opens mouth and stares in astonishment.) Joe — you been sitting here all the time? And I never knew it; I never knew you were there at all. Gee, you surprised me so I guess I swallowed my gum. Lilian, look what was sitting right here beside us and me none the wiser. Yeh, I remember I said I’d never speak to you again, Joe, but I’ve forgotten all about that now. I wasn’t really mad, Joe. I just met Lil this afternoon and we thought we would go to the movies but I’ve seen this picture before. Y’see the butler is really the crook and the hero is from the Police Department and this House-Boat is really the hiding place for (Turns to usher in aisle.) Whadja say? We gotta stop talking or leave? Can you beat that! Don’t worry, little Sunshine, we’ll leave all right. I’ve seen the picture anyway. Cmon, Joe. (Slams on hat, climbs out into aisle.) Now I ask you, Lil, have I said two words since we been in here? You said it — I ain’t said a word — not — a — word. Believe me, some nerve!

Comments: The existence of several comic monologues around this time which satirise the talkative member of a cinema audience (generally female) indicates a general perception of certain modes of movie audience behaviour, in particular talking about what you saw on the screen.

Links: Copy on Internet Archive

Babycham Night

Source: Philip Norman, Babycham Night (London: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 98-100

Text: Mine was a universe completely without culture as it was defined in the early fifties. No one ever took me to an art gallery or classical music concert; the only music I ever heard was from the radio and our arcade jukebox, the only humour from seaside comedians and the saucy postcards in Mr Vernon’s outdoor rack. My attitudes became the cheerfully philistine ones of Grandma Norman – that opera was ‘a lot of fat women screeching’, that ballet was ‘all ballyhoo’. I realize now that I had a strong aesthetic sense even when I was no more than a toddler. In the late forties, you still saw pony-drawn Victorian milk-carts from which the deliveryman ladled milk straight from the churn. I remember, aged three or four, seeing one of those carts, with its fancily fretworked wooden sides, and thinking to myself that I liked the way it looked. Even to today’s over-attentive adults, a child would have difficulty in articulating pure visual pleasure; in the fifties, even had I the confidence or willing listeners, such a thing was unimaginable.

The only place where I could gratify such nascent, inexpressible impulses was the cinema. At Ryde’s three picture-houses (the sumptuous Commodore, the historic Theatre Royal, the fleapit Scala – pronounced ‘Scaler’), programmes changed at midweek, with an additional one-off show on Sunday nights. I saw every film I legally could, which is to say those with a ‘U’ certificate (‘Suitable for Universal Exhibition’) or an ‘A’, which children could see provided they were accompanied by an adult. If no grown-up in the family were available, it was common for children to stand outside the cinema and ask total strangers to take them in. The usherettes were up with this dodge, and during the performance conducted frequent checks to ensure that children were still seated with adults they had hijacked. One afternoon, I persuaded a young couple to act as my passport into a gripping ‘A’ Western, then unwisely moved several rows away from them. The film had reached its most exciting moment – some US cavarlymen, trapped in a Mexican pueblo village, tensely awaiting an Apache night-attack – when an usherette’s torch beam triumphantly illuminated me and an officious female voice ordered me out into the street.

The reason I loved Westerns so passionately was not the incessant violence between cavalry and Indians or rival gunfighters, but the sheer stylishness of everything – the huge white Stetsons, the black leather waistcoats, the neat, small Winchester rifles, the shiny-spurred boots, the long-barrelled Navy Colts. Hollywood musicals came next in my affection, with the richness of colour and texture that existed nowhere in Britain then. I saw Show Boat, with Howard Keel and Ava Gardner, five or six times: at the end, as the great paddle-boat dwindled down the Mississippi to the strains of ‘Ol’ Man River’, I felt I had passed through a profound and draining experience. I sat just entranced through black-and-white American films of modern times, detective and love dramas, despite having only the haziest understanding of their plots. It was enough to be in that parallel world where people lived in long, low white houses, and drove long, low white cars, and drank black coffee (pronounced ‘cor-fee’) with meals, and said, ‘I object, Your Honour,’ and spent half their lives in night-clubs, and where so many darkly handsome but unpredictable heroes bore such a striking resemblance to my own father. No feeling was quite so dreary as coming out of the cinema at five or so in the afternoon; leaving behind that magic, smoke-filled darkness for the bright sunshine and mundane slow motion of reality.

Comments: Philip Norman (born 1943) is a British novelist, biographer and journalist. He was brought up in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. Babycham Night is an account of his 1950s childhood. He had film industry relatives – his maternal grandfather was a Pathé newsreel cameraman, Frank Bassill.

Hale’s Tours of the World

Source: untitled, The Rinking World & Picture Theatre News, 25 December 1909, p. 14

Text: ‘Hale’s Tours of the World,’ in Oxford Street, hard by Messrs. Gilbey & Co.’s Pantheon, are at once the oldest-established and the most educative of all London’s picture shows. Nothing approaching them has in our day been designed or so effectively carried out. Time was when Hamilton’s Diarama’s were all the rage; these have no worthily supplanted them. Seated in a veritable Pullman car, which appears to be travelling on the ever-present metals through mountainous scenery, over bridges, across vast prairie lands, or Eastern deserts, as the case may be, the illusion is perfect. Not the slightest suspicion of cinematograph lantern rays have the quasi-travellers, for the reason that the views are thrown on the screen from a great distance behind … The conductor of the Pullman Car, who snips the tickets, lectures pleasantly all the time, though in the darkness he remains unseen. Moreover, throughout the imaginary journey, the travellers are treated to pervading sounds as well as sights. The shrill whistle of locomotive and steamboat, the fearsome syren [sic] of an ocean greyhound, the roar of falling waters or tossing sea waves, the pattering of rain, the rolling of thunder, and the shouts of people add a keen zest to the excursion. From a chat with Mr S.B. French, the Secretary, we learned that his company have a contract with the New South Wales Government for the regular supply of films, and also that their operating representatives enjoy a free run on the great American railroads, and on certain British railway systems.

Comments: Hale’s Tours of the World was an entertainment which placed the audience in a replica of a railway carriage, with a film taken from the front of a moving train projected onto a screen at the front of the carriage. The carriage rocked to and fro, there were sound effects, and the conductor served a lecturer to explain the films and the experience. It was invented by the American George Consider Hale and the first Hale’s Tours in Britain opened in London’s Oxford Street in May 1906. It was arguably the first cinema in London (the Daily Bioscope near Liverpool Street station opened the same month), hence the reference to it being the ‘oldest-established’ of London’s picture shows.

Hale’s Tours of the World

Source: untitled, The Rinking World & Picture Theatre News, 25 December 1909, p. 14

Text: ‘Hale’s Tours of the World,’ in Oxford Street, hard by Messrs. Gilbey & Co.’s Pantheon, are at once the oldest-established and the most educative of all London’s picture shows. Nothing approaching them has in our day been designed or so effectively carried out. Time was when Hamilton’s Diarama’s were all the rage; these have no worthily supplanted them. Seated in a veritable Pullman car, which appears to be travelling on the ever-present metals through mountainous scenery, over bridges, across vast prairie lands, or Eastern deserts, as the case may be, the illusion is perfect. Not the slightest suspicion of cinematograph lantern rays have the quasi-travellers, for the reason that the views are thrown on the screen from a great distance behind … The conductor of the Pullman Car, who snips the tickets, lectures pleasantly all the time, though in the darkness he remains unseen. Moreover, throughout the imaginary journey, the travellers are treated to pervading sounds as well as sights. The shrill whistle of locomotive and steamboat, the fearsome syren [sic] of an ocean greyhound, the roar of falling waters or tossing sea waves, the pattering of rain, the rolling of thunder, and the shouts of people add a keen zest to the excursion. From a chat with Mr S.B. French, the Secretary, we learned that his company have a contract with the New South Wales Government for the regular supply of films, and also that their operating representatives enjoy a free run on the great American railroads, and on certain British railway systems.

Comments: Hale’s Tours of the World was an entertainment which placed the audience in a replica of a railway carriage, with a film taken from the front of a moving train projected onto a screen at the front of the carriage. The carriage rocked to and fro, there were sound effects, and the conductor served a lecturer to explain the films and the experience. It was invented by the American George Consider Hale and the first Hale’s Tours in Britain opened in London’s Oxford Street in May 1906. It was arguably the first cinema in London (the Daily Bioscope near Liverpool Street station opened the same month), hence the reference to it being the ‘oldest-established’ of London’s picture shows.

Babylon at Brixton

Source: James Agate, extract from ‘Babylon at Brixton’, in Around Cinemas (London: Home & Van Thal, 1946), pp. 52-53 [originally published in The Tatler, 25 September 1929]

Text: … For the Brixtonian, Brixton is clearly the hub of the universe. There is a large railway bridge which bears to the Brixton landscape the same relationship that St. Paul’s bears to Cheapside. But I am convinced that the Brixtonians regard their railway bridge as a thing in itself and serving no purpose save the ornamental. That train should use that bridge to convey people to other parts of the world seems unthinkable There is no other part of the world that matters.

These things being so, it was obvious that Brixton must be provided with a cinema equal to any of those which, if the worlds of travellers might be believed, had been erected on the other side of the big river. But what Brixton wants, Brixton has, and that was why we alighted at a building which was certainly much less of an eyesore than, for example, the Regal Picture Palace, the exterior of which I take to be the biggest blot on the new London landscape. At the same time the architect had made a great mistake in despising the side street down which half his building runs. For this side street, which has no façade, is just as visible as the main Stockwell Road which is plentifully bedizened, with the result that the visitor receives the impression of a building only two-thirds completed. Inside, of course, completion has done her utmost. In the entrance-hall there is a running fountain in whose basin may be seen, disporting themselves, gold-fish, numbering, as Mr Belloc used to say in the old war days, more than fifteen and less than thirty. Marble stairs, lusciously carpeted, lead the giddy visitor into an auditorium alleged to resemble an Italian garden. Stars twinkle; fronds fan the fevered forehead, and, what is more important, the seats are admirably cushioned. The place is one of extraordinary, almost Babylonish magnificence. Tea-lounges abound. There are cubicles where the jaded shopper may repose; and wherever marble has a right to be, there marble is. The Directors, whose mobile, eager, and pleasantly acquiline features decorate the handsome souvenir with which the management presents you, have obviously not demanded any change out of their capital expenditure of £250,000 and will be satisfied, I imagine, with a return of something like 1000 percent on their money. I am not very good at figures, but the house holds over four thousand people at prices from sixpence to three shillings and sixpence, and there are three performances a day, at all of which up to now the house has been crowded out. Well, that is good business, but not better than such enterprise deserves. I guessed correctly the number of charwomen employed, to which must be added twenty-four brass cleaners. I was, however, £8000 out in my estimate of the organ. The instrument would appear even to the unskilled as a noble one, and fit for the performance in the best cinema manner of pieces written for the piccolo, pianoforte, and every instrument except the organ. On the afternoon that I attended, Mr Pattman played a selection from “Peer Gynt,” which I shall say, with bated breath, needs that drama to jog it along. But the reasons why I intend to be outrageously and unfairly favourable to his picture palace are, first, that it has not wholly gone over to the talkies; and second, that it has retained a first-class orchestra, the excellence of which has been made possible by the poltroonery and short-sightedness of those West End houses which have dismissed their orchestras. It is true that there was a talkie on that afternoon, but I took advantage of this to inspect the lighting plant, the drains, and the strictly business side of the venture. The talkie being over, I saw an admirable silent film about a New York journalist. “Get your street scenery on,” said that journalist to a chorus girl. “You’re going up town with God’s gift to literature!” But he had the sense to say it in a sub-title. While Mr Haines was delivering himself of this amiable nonsense, the first-class orchestra played Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld” Overture, Dowling’s “Sleepy Valley,” Montague Phillips’ “Arabesque (a piece I didn’t know), “Oh, Maggie, What Have You Been Up To?”, and if I mistake not, “The Lost Chord.” And I hereby announce that in the bosom of one cinema fan there is more joy over chords that are lost than over tongues that are found.

Comments: James Agate (1877-1947) was a British theatre and film critic. His film reviews, mostly written for The Tatler, often mention the cinema in which he saw the film. The cinema described here is the Brixton Astoria, London, built in 1929 and now the Brixton Academy. The architect was Edward A. Stone. The film about a New York journalist was Telling the World (USA 1928 d. Sam Wood), starring William Haines.

’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar

Source: H.M. [Harold Murray], ’Twixt Aldgate Pump and Poplar: The Story of Fifty Years’ Adventure in East London (London: The Epworth Press, 1935), pp. 102-110

Text: It is an unforgettable experience to enter the Stepney Hall when in the semi-darkness you hear those astonishing children shrieking with laughter at some comic antics on the screen or, as a contrast, find them holding their breath as some hero or heroine is seen in a perilous position. When there is a chase after the villain – what a chorus goes up! Time after time, with indescribable feelings, I have sat among those children and marvelled at their discipline, their good behaviour; most of all at their high spirits, their capacity for seeing the funny side of everything. Only one or two workers are there, quietly walking to and fro in the dark, occasionally asking for a little less noise, never having any trouble. For a short space the little ones are lifted out of the drab life of the mean streets into all sorts of romantic exciting worlds. Then when the satisfying show is over, out they troop, in good order, to the unromantic, everyday life of the slum.

Comments: Harold Murray was a clergyman. His book is a history of the East End Mission, a mission run by the Methodist Church located in Commercial Road, Whitechapel, London. This passage describes the films shows put on for children by the Reverend F.W. Chudleigh at Stepney Hall in the 1920s/early 30s. Chudleigh had been organising film shows for children since 1909.