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IN 19 10, narrow, dirty storeroom "houses" with wooden kitchen chairs, occupied by an audience whose appearance may be imagined by the fact that every hour or so an usher passed up and down the aisles, squirting a sickeningly sweet perfume to make the atmosphere humanly bearable.
In 1930, magnificent picture palaces with uniformed majordomos helping patrons from the contin-. uous procession of limousines and taxicabs that stop before them. The present movie audience numbers one hundred and fifteen million a week — fifteen million new movie fans this last year!
Once movie houses were known as nickelodeons and attracted the children with a few moist pennies of spending money, and the working people who could not afford to pay much for their good times. Now motion pictures at the same prices as legitimate stage shows often enjoy longer runs than their competitors of the legit. Once, smiles Sid Grauman, veteran picture showman, an auto-bus stopping in front of one of his movie houses to let off patrons was an event. Now automobile parking is a serious problem
At top, the Roxy Theater, New York City, whose weekly earnings average about $100,000; center, S. L. Rothafel ("Roxy"), who sells movies and music together; right, a pretentious movie theater of bygone days
Swing OalJoway
24
Lhe Changing
Pictures And Public
By DOROTHY CALHOUN
to all movie theater owners, and most large picture houses have installed a system of electric numbers which signal the chauffeurs after the show.
"The film audience to-day," says Grauman, "is largely made up of the people who used to spend their amusement money at the legitimate theater exclusively before the pictures attained their present popularity. The higher standards of the films themselves have improved the tastes of their fans and attracted more intelligent patrons who, a few years ago, were inclined to sneer at the movies as the entertainment of morons."
Theater Emigres
FIFTEEN million new movie fans weekly this year! What do they look like, these fifteen million, how do they dress, how do they think, how much money have they to spehd, and where do they come from?
From the orchestra rows of legitimate theaters, for one place! In 1929 the stage has had a discouraging time. On Broadway, last stronghold of the spoken drama, a dozen legitimate houses have found it good business to "go rnovie." All over the United States stock company theaters have closed their doors, unable to compete with the talkies. In Des Moines, the local stock sent far and wide for the best players available, but finally gave up the struggle. It seems safe to con
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