Moving Picture News (Jan-Dec 1911)

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.

20 THE MOVING PICTURE NEWS FROM THE OBSERVATORY By G. F. Blaisdell Beiilah Binford will not pose for moving pictures, according to the latest information. It is well. There never was any decent reason why she should. The only losers by this non-action will be the men who would prostitute an industry that should be above suspicion and also, of course, the girl herself. Her position is pathetic. Deluded into coming to New York through the belief that she was going to make some good money, she now finds all doors closed against her. Theater managers who were to put her on their stages in vaudeville have telegraphed the booking agent that they have changed their minds. The National Board of Censorship has announced its flat disapproval of the projection of any films showing Miss Binford in any guise. The supervisory authorities in other cities have given notice that Binford pictures will be barred. * * * .* AH of which is a healthy indication that stage ethics are improving in tone. A dozen years ago the appearance before the footlights of a notorious person would have excited no comment. It was simply what was expected. No one had the hardihood to protest in any effectual manner. That A^audeville managers now are throwing up their hands demonstrates that the forces put in motion by "legitimate" theater men intended to hamper and discourage the increasing popularity of pictures have rolled back upon their own heads. The public conscience has been aroused through the agitation against questionable films. It is but natural that the sentiment stimulated by so much discussion should have a restraining influence on theatrical men. Bless you, the theaterowner does not fear the public as such. He knows, and knows well, what his clientele will stand for. What he fears is the police authority. That is the point where public sentiment focuses and cry"stallizes. * * * * The Binford incident should mark a beginning in the effort to bring the morals of the stage up to the level of those imposed upon the screen. There is no sensible reason why license should be accorded the one and prohibition placed upon the other. It is in no retaliatory spirit that these things are said; it must be plain to every one that it is useless to conserve the morals of youth through the display of good pictures and at the same time sandwich in between these films vaudeville that is below the same high standard. ^ ^ ^ -'fi H. H. Claiborne, of the, office of the clerk of the district Court of Omaha, Neb., and Probation Officer Bernstein are preparing plans for the formation of a city moving picture league for the children. The scheme will be largely identified with the open school proposition, if the school should be opened for wider use, as well as with the various boys' clubs throughout the city. To start with, moving picture exhibitions will be given in schools and churches and homes. The parent organization will buy the first moving picture outfit and will then encourage the idea of neighborhood clubs, which may want to buy machines. Under the plan proposed, one or two suitable reels of films would be rented from the film agencies for a period of two weeks, for instance. During those tvi^o weeks, ten or fifteen gatherings could be entertained with the same films, the cost being apportioned to the various clubs. The promoters believe that the halls of schools not provided with suitable assembly rooms would suffice for these entertainments. Mr. Claiborne says that the Omaha public schools must be opened to the public. If they were not, he said some court action would be taken to compel them to be. The Talesburg (111.) Register says that the Congregational Church has been rented by Professor Drake and that, beginning October 14th, he will display moving pictures through the winter. * * * * According to a decision in Philadelphia, the display on Sunday of censored sacred, moral or comic moving pictures, although in a building arranged somewhat like a theater, is not within the meaning of a statute forbidding, the opening or maintaining of any theater on Sunday. * * * * According to the Manchester (N. H.) Union, Eagle Eye, proprietor of the Frankfort street tea and coffee store, has established a moving picture theater at Penacook, where he was formerly located. Eagle Eye plans to conduct a chain of theaters in different communities of the state. If the eyesight of this man is as keen as his name would indicate, it is a safe bet that he will decline to exhibit pictures containing burlesque Indians. 'i^ :K * * Elmer H. Coudy, of the Aubert Vaudeville and Motion Picture Show, of St. Louis, and Miss Eunla Parmalee, the pianist in his theater, were married recently. The bride declined to relinquish her work at the theater, and when, on the evening following the marriage, the newlyweds appeared at the theater, they were confronted by numerous facetious placards posted by their friends. ^ ^ ^ Through the explosion of acid used in developing films, Miles Brothers of San Francisco suffered $30,000 loss in an ensuing fire. Among the films destroyed were some of great historic value, one of which was made from pictures taken during the Spanish War. In attempting to save these James A. Sciaroni was painfully burned. A small crowd in a picture house in Hayes street, San Francisco, hurried for the exits when Ike Voorhies, the operator, had trouble with his projector. There were minor bruises. Voorhies was burned on the hands and face. The blaze was extinguished before the fire apparatus arrived. * * * * Augustus Snowhite, the operator at Russell's, Tenth street, Reading, Penn., sustained so severe an electric shock that the services of a physician were necessary to restore him to consciousness. As usual, the audience rushed to the door. ^ ■ ^ ^ >ii An operator in a Logansport (Ind.) house laid a hot carbon near a film, on the night of September 1, and, quite naturally, things happened very shortly. There was a flash of flame and some smoke, and the audience got away to a good start. There were damaged millinery and clothing as a result; also some slight bruises. The operator is still alive, and maybe he will, if permitted to continue at the business, be more careful in the future. On the same night, W. D. Snider, owner of the Air Dome Theater, of Harper, Kan., suffered an uninsured loss by fire of $500. The 500 spectators escaped uninjured. ^ ^ ^ Selig is engaged in making educational pictures of Indianapolis and of Cincinnati. The Commercial Club of Indianapolis and the Cincinnati Commercial Association are co-operating with the manufacturer. Strange what a strangle hold this picture business gets on some of us! If there be difficulties to be surmounted, promptly are they surmounted. Frank Jones was a patient in the South Side Hospital at Kansas City, Mo. The clock struck nine. Now to some people that slight incident would have no particular significance. But to many of us it signalizes the beginning of the last run of reels for the night. So it appealed to Farmer Frank. To be sure, he was garbed in his underclothes, the nurse having removed his outer garments to some inaccessible place, not necessarily for the safe-keeping of the aforesaid garments, but presumably necessarily for the safe-keeping of Frank. But Frank fooled the nurse. He did more than that. He amazed such of the populace as happened to be at large in the immediate neighborhood at that late hour. Clad in the habiliments which the usually thoughtful nurse had in an unusually thoughtless moment permitted to remain with him, Frank started north on a run, seeking the nearest picture show. Far be it from this writer to suggest that the average policeman is an artless soul, but there's one in Kansas City who has an artless soul; at least he has no soul for art. The marathon for educational films was rudely interrupted; the farmer was conveyed in a blanket and convoyed by the vigilant guardian of the peace to the General Hospital, preparatory to his decorous return to the South Side institution on the day following. All of which suggests a thought; or perhaps two thoughts: Wasn't it nice of the nurse to leave Frank his underclothes? How much more comfortable is he that is arrayed in a blanket than he that is garbed in a barrel? * * * * The New York Evening World on September 4 printed a romantic story of an elopement of Thomas Hopkinson, treasurer of the Manhattan Slide and Film Company, of 134 East Fourteenth street, New York, and Miss Sadie Harris, secretary of the firm. It printed this telegram, which had been received at the office of the concern: "Your treasurer and secretary have eloped. Please wire $300 to the Jefferson Hotel, Los Angeles, Cal. Will be back when our honeymoon is over. Hoppy." The story in circumstantial sequence described how the elopement resulted from the objections of the bride's father;