Motion Picture News (Jul-Oct 1915)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

July 31, 1915. â– â– illililllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll MOTION PICTURE NEWS New Laws And Court Decisions : iiiiiiiiiiiEiiiii! â–  â–  -mm This department is designed to keep the industry inrormed 01 all news concerning new or projected laws, Federal, State, County or Municipal, that may affect the business, and all events involving any branch of the trade with the authorities in all sections of the country 26 CASES OF SUNDAY VIOLATION IN DALLAS COURTS Twenty-six cases have been filed in the courts at Dallas, Texas, by the Council of Churches against managers of moving picture theatres, alleging violations of the state Sunday law, and one arrest has been made at every motion picture theatre in Dallas. The managers of the film theatres are vigorously fighting for their rights, claiming that the showing of pictures on Sunday is not a violation of the law. Whether motion picture shows on Sunday are morally right or wrong is not the issue, but that they are run in violation of the laws of Texas and should be suppressed for this reason, is the gist of an official statement issued by the Dallas Council of Churches. Many of the prominent citizens of Dallas have been interviewed on the question whether or not they favored Sunday pictures. Many said that they favor Sunday pictures, but that they did not favor Sunday pictures in violation of law or any other violation of law. Should the Sunday law be enforced, several of the picture theatres in Dallas, Texas, will have to go out of business, as Sunday is the best day in the week for business and the deficits on week days is more than made up on Sundays. The cases are to be tried soon in the district court. OMAHA THEATRES UNDER FIRE FROM ATTACK ON ONE HOUSE A sensational newspaper of Omaha, Neb., has started a big-type attack on motion picture theatres that show vaudeville. Lower town theatres, it was charged, not only showed indecent pictures, but staged vaudeville shows that were almost obscene. Children, it was charged, were allowed to attend and listen to and see such plays, and young girls attended in numbers. The matter was before the juvenile department of the county government, and before the police. The city commissioners were also lined up on the proposition. The newspaper, not satisfied with the tirade against all picture theatres in general and this one in particular, began an attack on the officials for not closing it up. The theatre, which has been called to the attention of the authorities before, was visited and a warning given the proprietor. Other exhibitors disliked the demands that strict censorship ordinances be passed. They were in favor of closing the objectionable house, because it is not a true type of Omaha theatre, but they did not believe all picture houses should be made to suffer. continue from time to time, but the exhibitors are quietly awaiting until they die away. In the meantime, the exhibitors themselves may take a hand in telling the one under attack what he should and should The demands of the sensational daily not do. Pennsylvania Censors Find Films Exhibited With "Cuts" Retained Following Investigation THREATS to prosecute motion picture exhibitors in several sections of Pennsylvania for alleged violation of the new censorship law are being made from the Harrisburg, Pa., office of the State Board of Censors. In a statement given out at the censor's office it was alleged that eighteen cases of violation have been discovereed in Pittsburgh and six in Scranton and that smaller numbers have been reported in several other cities of the State. Joseph Berrier, chief clerk of the board, recently returned from a tour of investigation during which he visited Pittsburgh, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and smaller places in the vicinity of those cities. The purpose of his trip, he said, was to learn whether uncensored films are being shown. Berrier asserted that in every city he visited he found the law is being violated by some of the exhibitors and that pic tures that have been censored and from which certain parts have been ordered eliminated are being displayed with the censcored parts not removed. He said that in some cases it has been discovered that persons submitting films for the approval of the censors have been in the habit, first of making four or five sets of duplicate films, and have been sending these duplicates out without eliminations, after some parts have been ordered removed by the board. The parts ordered removed, he said, are cut out of the original film and the film thus emasculated is shown in Philadelphia and other cities where a picture is most likely to come under the eyes of a censor when offered by an exhibitor. The other, or duplicate films, with the censored features still in, said Berrier, are then sold throughout the state and placed on exhibition. Indianapolis Attorney Refuses to File Affidavits for Sunday Opening; No Arrests at Anderson FIVE moving picture theatres were opened Sunday, July 11, at Anderson, Ind., for regular business with admission fee. There were no arrests. It is understood that the same theatres will also give night performances next Sunday. During the last two Sundays the theatres decided to avoid a conflict with church hours, and were open only between 1:30 p. m. and 6:30 p. m. There has been no prosecution of the two theatre men arrested three weeks ago, when a Sunday performance was given in a local theatre. The two men gave cash bonds of fifty dollars each for appearance in a city court. Since that time they have not been summoned to appear in court, for the reason that S. L. Brooks, prosecutor of Madison county, has refused to file affidavits against theatre men for Sunday performances. Churches have protested by resolutions and by standing vote of congregation, but the prosecutor remains unchanged in his attitude. He says it is not his duty to file affidavits, but that he will prosecute theatre men provided other persons file affidavits and obtain the evidence. PROPOSED OMAHA LAW FIXES AGE OF OPERATORS ABOVE 21 Dave Clifford, proprietor of a downtown theatre in Omaha, Neb., was fined fifty dollars in a police court on a charge of employing a 15-year-old girl, in violation of the child labor law. This resulted in an ordinance introduced before the city commission prohibiting boys under twenty-one years of age from working as motion picture machine operators, and forbidding all tobacco smoking in the projection machine booths.