Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1919)

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.

eDrvxxy^ l)rocfireer>^ The fan enjoys going to a certain theater and has a miserable time at others. The reason for this is not analyzed. This article explains why there are so many bad pictures — why pictures are getting better and why they are still going to improve The old-fashioned type of movie house contrasted with the beautiful Rialto interior. In circle, Marcus Loew, one of the best known exhibitors, and owner of an endless string of theaters ago — motion pictures were regarded in the light of an optical freak and a short-lived fad ; they were to endure for but a brief time. The producer took a few people up on the roof of a building or out in the country, had them perform certain gyrations that comprised a story, and the exhibitor rented — on a short-term leas e — an abandoned store, put in rows of chairs, secured a projecting machine, and for the sum of five cents gave the wayfarer a few minutes' amusement. At that period the motion picture theater was a good place to go to keep out of the rain, spoon with your girl or take a nap. Managers of continuous vaudeville houses found pictures a great thing to chase audiences out of the theater so a new audience could come in. No one could see any long life to the flickering films. Also at this time there were two warring factions in the ranks of the producers. Each faction con ^^bbbbi trolled certain patents connected with the cameras or projecting machines, and each sought to dominate and control, with their product, the small field of exhibitors. The unit for running a picture was one day, and each Photo Gould & Marsden, N. Y. Photo White, N. V. morning the exhibitor went to the branch office or exchange of the particular faction from whom he bought pictures and haggled for his daily supply — : three or four reels, or as many as he felt the public should have for the amount of money they paid to get into his theater. Each producer was striving with every effort to give the exhibitors all the film they could use — to produce the stories as cheaply as possible and charge the exhibitor every cent he could afford to pay. It was a "getthe-money" policy on both sides, the producer making pictures for as little money as possible and selling them for a 1 1 the 37 PA6 f \