Moving Picture World (Mar-Dec 1907)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD. 233 The building will have a frontage of 27 feet on Water street and a depth of 87 feet. The structure will be four stores in height. It is expected that the alterations will cost $50,000 and will be completed within three months. * * * Vaudeville on a roof garden above a church is the plan projected by Rev. Charles E. McClellen, D.D., pastor of the Fairhill Baptist Church, at Lehigh avenue and Fifth street, Philadelphia, Pa., as a means of attracting young people and others to the church, in competition with the theater and the saloon. His plan also includes the erection of a big auditorium in which to hold his entertainment during cold or inclement weather. The sum of $12,000 was promptly subscribed to carry out the project, when Dr. McClellen laid it before his congregation. “It is time that Christians,” Dr. McClellan said, “who would win unsaved men and women from the playhouse, the card table and the saloon to the church should provide practical means of making the latter attractive. We are confronted with a serious problem. We find men and women flocking to the theater, we find men frequenting the saloon, we find the number of theaters and saloons rapidly increasing. A radical departure in church work is needed if we are to appeal successfully to non-church-goers. “Here in Kensington we must appeal to the workingman and his family in a sensible way. If we are to draw him and them from the baleful influence of the saloon we must furnish him and them with a means of recreation. If it should be necessary for us to supply the workingman with free lunch, one of the attractions of the saloon, in order to bring him to our church and interest him in God’s work, then I would be in favor of doing so. “This is my suggestion. Let us raise ten, twelve, fifteen thousand dollars that our church may be so enlarged and reconstructed as to enable us to have it surmounted by a roof garden where, weather permitting, we could have vaudeville, moving pictures, illustrated songs, vocal and instrumental music on a Saturday night, when our streets, playhouses and saloons are crowded, to be concluded with gospel services of a practical sort conducted by a layman. Then let us provide an auditorium in which we could have such Saturday night shows in cold or inclement weather.” * * * R. C. Jackson & Sons, of York City, Pa., have leased the large room on the first floor of the Martin building, corner of George and Philadelphia streets, where, it is said, they will make extensive improvements and open a moving picture and vaudeville show. • * * * During the exhibition by the International Moving Picture Show Company of Trenton, N. J., recently, in the Tullytown Methodist Episcopal Church, someone entered and robbed the home of Contractor Joel Davis, ransacking the house and securing $110 in cash, a lot of silver ware and other valuable plunder. The robbery was discovered immediately after the entertainment and the patrons of the exhibition formed themselves into a posse to run down the thieves. This co-operative detective work nearly resulted seriously for Peter E. Wurfflein, of Trenton, manager of the show. He was waiting in the darkness for a trolley car when attention of part of the posse was attracted by two small boxes (picture reel receptacles) which he carried. The next minute Mr. Wurfflein was struggling in the hands of his captors. His screams for help brought a crowd to the scene, among the others being the Rev. Oscar J. Randall, pastor of the church. “Don’t arrest that man, he is the manager of the show,” protested the preacher. So Wurfflein was let off. The real thief escaped. * * * Austin, Tex. — An important ruling was made by the comptroller’s department affecting moving picture shows which are now flooding the various cities of the State. The comptroller ruled that any person, firm or corporation which operates a moving picture show and also additional attractions in addition thereto, such as singing and vaudeville, is subject to an occupation tax of $25 to the State and a tax of $12.50 to the county. This is in addition to the regular tax on moving picture machines, which is also $25 for the State and $12.50 for the county. The question arose over a moving picture concern at San Marcos, which was operating other attractions in connection with the moving picture show. * * * Albany, N. Y. — The Senate on June 4 killed the Prentice bill, prohibiting admission of children under sixteen to the penny arcades. Senator McCarren and almost all the up-State Senators were against the measure. Senator Grady fought hard for it, declaring that these places were the worst agencies for corrupting young girls in the land, and that the bill was demanded by the clergy, whose work showed them how bad these places were. Senator McCarren branded the bill as the work of a crank. “The Lord knows that the business community is being restricted every day by some species of crank legislation,” he exclaimed, fervently. The measure was under discussion in general orders. On a vote to advance it, the measure was overwhelmingly beaten. Later, Senator Grady moved to disagree with the report of the Committee of the Whole, but was beaten on that motion. Failure to advance any measure to third reading at this stage of the session signs its death warrant. * * * I went in a room the other day that was stocked with something like three or four hundred canned stories, stories literally canned, in flat round cans with just a label giving the title, but no injunction to keep in a cold place. It wasn’t a Carnegie library, either. It was a room in the office of manufacturers of moving pictures and those stories were the thrilling tales flashed out before auditors at the theaters and other places of amusement. There are stories behind those stories, which, if not quite so vivid, are equally as interesting, I found. One of the authors of the canned romances and comedies sat at his desk, and, pausing between plots, explained to me some of the intricacies and some of the difficulties of making and welding toegther these picture stories. The stories are written just as other stories are, with not so much care as to diction and detail, perhaps, but written with close enough coherence for the man that makes up the pictures therefrom to understand every movement and situation. Sometimes the author must even write dialogue, for often in a moving picture one sees the figures in vigorous conversation expressed by motions of the lips and gestures, it is true, but intelligible to the spectators, says the Brooklyn Eagle. To make clear just what those gestures should be and what the expression should picture it must be clear what the persons are saying. The task of the author of the cinematograph stories, therefore, is much the same as