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12 A HISTORY OF THE MOVIES
in to the Edison Company for vitascopes. "Living pictures" became known to theater audiences in all the principal American cities. Managers of some playhouses, assuming that movies were only a temporary sensation, lost interest in their projection machines in a short time, but films continued to hold a position on "variety bills" and in dime museums after more pretentious music halls concluded that the novelty had outlived its day.
Managers of phono-kineto parlors and arcades were keen to get possession of projectors, either by acquiring the discarded machines of music halls or by having machinists manufacture imitations of them. These showmen could take films from their peep-shows and paste them together to make up a reel of four or five hundred feet, giving a screen performance of five to eight minutes, which they presently extended to half an hour merely by adding more film to the reel. The rear part of the arcade was partitioned off, and, equipped with chairs and a screen, became a film "theater"; or the room above the store was converted into an exhibition hall, a miniature auditorium with seats for fifty, a hundred, or two hundred patrons.
The customers of the peep-shows were skeptical and suspicious. Barnum and his successors had convinced the common people that they were regarded as the legitimate prey of clever showmen, and they were constantly on guard against the humiliation of being swindled out of nickels and dimes by fake novelties and hokum mysteries. Some of them had heard of living pictures at high-priced theaters, but they had their doubts about arcades showing the genuine article for ten cents, and they dubiously regarded pitch-dark rooms "where pickpockets could go through you easy as an eel through water."
Thomas L. Tally, of Los Angeles, overcame skepticism by cutting a peep-hole in the wall of his phonograph parlor so patrons could look through and see for themselves the life-size images in motion on the screen in the dark rear room. After a brief glimpse, the doubters gave their dimes to the ticket-seller and rushed inside to enjoy a complete view of the marvel. Other showmen employed similar means of convincing suspicious pa