The Implet (Jan-Jun 1912)

THE "IMPLET" THE KID AND THE SLEUTH. (Imp Comedy Release Monday, Jan. 29th.) The Kid dreams over a blood and thunder book that he puts Xick Carter, played by King Baggot, on the track of a Villain and Villainess, played by W. R. Daly and Miss Young, who have designs upon the personal safety of the heroine played by Ethel Grandon. Mock tragedy, mock heroics, mock sensations of the most deadly kind are enacted in the film, which ends, of course, with the Kid awaking to find it was all a dream. W. R. Daly as the burlesque villain gives a piece of the most finished travesty and looks the part to the life. If it were real, ''The Kid and the Sleuth" would make your flesh creep. As it is not real, it doesn't do that. It just shows how splendidly the Imp comedians can interpret the exaggerated actions of burlesqueing players. O'BRIEN'S BUSY DAY. (Imp Comedy Release Saturday, Feb. 3d.) W. R. Daly in this comedy has a film almost entirely to himself, and, like the fine character actor that he is, makes the most of his opportunities. O'Brien seems unable to ON THE SCREEN By "Lux Graphicus." I want the reader this week to realize the importance and vastness of the business in which he is engaged. To do this I must give him some figures. Some people don't like figures. ( >thers won't or can't understand them. "I've no head for figures," is a frequent complaint. These folk become authors, painters, poets, preachers, astronomers, missionaries; they are dreamers of dreams. But you and I, Friend Exhibitor, are practical, matter-of-fact business men, and we know that figures, and a knowledge of them, are essential to commercial success. Mr. Rockefeller would not, at his time of life, be playing golf peacefully if he had not in his early career grasped the fundamental importance of figures. Figures enable Mr. J. P. Morgan to do what he is doing. Figures and a few years' longer life would have placed the late Edward Harriman in absolute possession of the entire railroad system of the United States. So, let's do some figuring out in respect of the moving picture business, in order that you, Mr. Exhibitor, may be convinced of your own individual importance as part and parcel of one of the greatest — if not the greatest — entertainment enterprises on earth. In the United States at the present time there are 30,000 "places" at which moving pictures are being more or less continually shown ; 12,000 of these places are moving picture theatres ; the remainder are schools, churches, chapels, ordinary theatres, halls, etc. Who told me? A man in the business who sells carbons for projectors. He has a list of these 30,000 places. But let us deal only with the theatres, of which yours, Mr. Exhibitor, may be accepted as a type. Calculations, based upon available data, aver that the moving picture theatres of the United States are daily visited by 5,000,000 people, and that in the course of a week the total attendance is something like 30,000,000, or an average weekly attendance for each theatre of 2,500. This is probably under than over the mark. Multiplying the weekly attendance by 52, we arrive at the astonishing conclusion that in a year the moving picture theatres of the United States are visited by 210,000,000 people. Two hundred and ten million people — that is about one-eighth of the total population of the globe! This means that every man, woman and child in the country pays either two or three visits a year to a moving picture theatre. Does not this bring home \ ividly to your mind the enormous importance of the picture to the community ? Somebody has calculated that the people of the United States spent $300,000,000 a year in moving picture theatres. This means that people go more frequently to the theatre than I have suggested ; that the average admission fee is higher than five cents. The figures are probably exaggerated. But let us suppose, for argument's sake, that S 100,000,000 a year pass through the moving picture theatre box offices. Isn't that a business of some magnitude? In foreign countries the figures of the business are equally striking. The British Isles possess, it is said, 6,000 moving picture theatres— proportionately as many as in the United States, whose population is about 90,000,000, whilst that of the United Kingdom is about 45,000,000. So you see, the two principal countries of the world are supporting the picture in a definite ratio to population — proving that the people need the picture. They not merely want it : they NEED it. In London, England, just now the manufacturers are releasing 150,000 feet of new film every week ; in New York the figures are smaller, but still very large. The Eastman Kodak Company, of Rochester, sell, it is said, 600,000,000 feet of negative and positive film a year. At 3y2 cents a foot this is a tidy sum, eh? No wonder my friend, George Eastman, can pay 40 per cent, on Kodak stock. Makes your teeth water, Mr. Man, eh? And you just a teeny, weeny bit envious, maybe? Of course, all my figures are approximate — absolute accuracy would be difficult to obtain. I could keep up the parable all over this page, but it isn't necessary to do this. Such figures as I have adduced, however, should persuade the exhibitor (if persuasion be necessary) that the business he is engaged in is one of great magnitude, one of world-wide significance. Moreover, it should convince him that he personally, individually, he. his own self, is an important person in an important business. JL -* ■ng 1 h 4 ' kv^| Wkm I O'BRIEN'S BUSY DAY get a moment's peace either at work or play. We follow him in a series of mental disturbances through the whole of one busy day, which ends as it begins : with chagrin. In suggesting the tribulations of a disappointed and restless Hibernian, Mr. Daly scores a triumph of make-up, movement and