Moving Picture World (Mar-Dec 1907)

248 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD. lias made exhaustive studies of the tribes, and will complete them this year. To him also the camera will be of great benefit. “Our schooner will not go into the smaller bays and inlets, for the risk of getting caught in the new ice would be too great, so we have procured a 25-foot whale boat and put in her a 10-horse power engine, and on her a hooded cabin with accommodations for four men. She is of light draught and can go anywhere, and if she should be caught by the ice we can abandon her.” Mr. Bradley said this would be his last big hunt because, so far as he knows, the globe has no other big game country unexplored by him. * * * The social settlement workers of St. Louis, Mo., have been active in a crusade to purify the five-cent theaters here. Philip Seman, of the Jewish Educational Alliance, estimates that there are about 250 of these nickelodeons and penny arcades in St. Louis. A short time ago the members of the Social Service Committee reported that some pictures in these machines were undesirable and it was criminal to allow children to attend such exhibitions. A committee was appointed consisting of Messrs. Philip Seman, of the Jewish Educational Alliance; R. N. Baldwin, of Self-Culture Hall; Harold Johnson and the Rev. Mr. Bassler, of Kingdom House, to investigate and prosecute if necessary. No prosecutions have been made, but Mr. Seman reports the closing of the Biddle street hall, and that the managers of some of the nickelodeons and penny arcades have elminated obnoxious pictures. Mr. Seman next season proposes to utilize the dramatic talent of children in the afternoon by the production of fairy plays and in the evening parents will be given more pretentious theatrical performances. * * * We learn from Chicago that, according to Lieutenant Alex McDonald, the head of Chief Shippy’s dance hall and five-cent theater bureau, the proprietors of the cheaper places of amusement have greatly improved the character of the attractions they are giving the public. Lieutenant McDonald said that he and his men keep under constant watch 158 five-cent theaters and cheap vaudeville houses whose patrons are, for the most part children. Where formerly pictures of “the train robber ’ type were exhibited, more instructive and still equally amusing are now used. * * * Mayor McClellan, New York, and the chief of the Bureau of Licenses, Mr. Corrigan, have been temporarily enjoined from interfering with the moving picture exhibitions throughout the city. Justice Charles H. Truax, on the application of A. Muller, of 125th street, near Third avenue, a keeper of a moving picture place, granted the injunction. Florence Sullivan, the petitioner’s counsel, said to the Court that the Mayor had peremptorily deprived many of his clients of their licenses without due process of law or cause. Since the crusade against these places of amusement began the proprietors have formed an organization which they call the Moving Picture Exhibition Associa tion, and it is through the efforts of this association the injunction is granted. * * * The Scenic 'theater, Spokane, Wash., located at 419 First avenue, opened on Thursday evening, June 13. The theater seats 260 people and will exhibit moving pictures and have illustrated songs. The theater company has the exclusive right of using the “Viascope,” a Chicago moving picture machine which is said to do away with the "liicker,” which has been tfie main objection to this class of amusement. W. H. Bell, of Chicago, will have charge of the moving picture machine. * * =K “That’s the stunningest of all of them,” Otis Snowden moving picture machine operator, had often declared to the other workers at an East Ninth street theater, Cleveland, O. “The Lovesick Soldier” it was entitled. There were brass buttons a-plenty, a good-looking private, a pretty country girl, a wicked sergeant. Through difficulties and troubles the soldier followed his sweetheart in spite of his superior officer. It was noble and inspiring, and Snowden, thinking of the days when he was second lieutenant of the high school cadets, would start that film time and again. You could almost hear the bugle calls as he rushed it through. But one day the roll of films disappeared. So did Snowden. He had secured another job. Last Saturday Snowden, who lives at 4927 Woodland avenue S. E., was arrested and taken to central station. * * * N. C. Williams, Sr., N. C. Williams, Jr., and F. J. Kyle, of Atlanta, Ga., applied for a charter for the Atlanta Moving Picture Machine and Film Renting Supply Company, whose object it is to manufacture and sell supplies for electric theaters. The capital stock of the company will be $3,500. »ji 'k Portage, Wis., is soon to have a new amusement enterprise in the shape of an electric theater. One of the largest theatorium construction concerns of Chicago has about concluded arrangements for the opening of one of then theaters in this city. The management of the local institution will be under Fred E. Fink and H. H. Niemeyer. It is the intention of the management to produce only refined and educational entertainments, those that appeal to the ladies and children as well as to the gentlemen. The theater will be located in Emporium block, De Witt street. “Nothing of a sensational nature or pictures that can possibly offend the most refined taste will be shown at this new theater,” said one of the managers. The shows will start every night, excepting Sunday, at 7 o’clock. The pictures furnished at the entertainments will come direct from the largest theaters of Milwaukee and Chicago, arrangements having been perfected to include Portage in the Klien circuit, which is acknowledged the best the large cities can afford. ^ ^ * PROPOSED NEW UNION. — A meeting of all those employed in operating moving pictures has been called for the purpose of organizing themselves into a union for Montreal, Can. * * * The corner room, Fourth and Main streets, of the Price Building, Paris, Ky., has been rented to Wellard Hcnly & Norris, of Cincinnati, O., to conduct a first-class moving picture show, which will likely open to the public next week. * * * A correspondent in St. John, N. B., Can., sends the following information : Robert J. Armstrong has gone to St. Johns, Nfkl., where he will open a nickel show presumably for Keith. St. Mary’s Hall, Halifax, has also been converted into a “Nickel” and as a result of negotiations with Mr. Armstrong, Alexandra Hall, Sydney, also advertises under the same name. Wonderland, the second