Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1914)

THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1065 Is the "Nickel Show" on the Wane? By W. Stephen Bush TIME was when the nickel seemed to be the keystone of dramatic kinematography. It was less than half a dozen years ago the dominant feature in our professional coat-of-arms. The motion picture and the nickel were so intimately associated as inseparable and conjunctive entities in the public mind that it was hard to think of one without making the other vibrate in the memory. To suggest to some exhibitors, even by a whisper, that they ought to raise the price of admission to ten cents was regarded by them as a counsel of destruction. Many amusing recollections linger in my mind of the heroic attempts made in those days to divorce the motion picture from the nickel. I recall how, in one small city in the East, the two proprietors of the only shows in town met in friendly converse and deplored the small returns from their investment. It was suggested by the writer that they add another reel to their program, pay a little more for quality and then announce an increase in the price of admission, telling the public the reasons therefor in perfectly candid fashion. The idea seemed to take root. There were deliberations and conferences and at last a solemn covenant was entered into by which both parties bound themselves by every consideration and every earthly advantage to raise the price of admission to a dime beginning the coming Saturday. I confess I was considerably elated over the action of my exhibiting friends and waited around the theaters, which were in close proximity to each other, to watch the ten cent sign go up. Alas for the cold feet of my friends. The ten cent sign had indeed been painted, but it was never displayed and promulgated. Instead, the time-worn legend, "Admission Five Cents," was reigning in both temples of art with unabated supremacy. There are to this day people who sincerely believe that he who strikes at the nickel strikes at the foundations of the industry. These men, quite well meaning of course, are not satisfied to have the higher-priced motion picture theater succeed. They believe with a steadfastness which is sweetly impervious to reason that the moment the price is raised from five cents to ten the exhibiting branch of the industry is doomed to early extinction and the producers will have to retire to their palaces to live on the returns of the past. AH of us are agreed, I think, that there will always be well-conducted and prosperous motion picture entertainments with no higher admission than five cents and a possible raise in the price on Saturdays and Sundays. There is an emphatic dissent from this view by some men who in their way are quite as dogmatic as the worshipper of the nickel. It is, however, extremely probable that the number of five cent theaters is going to diminish. There will always be a class of patrons to whom variety constitutes the chief spice and attraction in the motion picture entertainment, but it is not altogether clear why the more expensive oflfering cannot furnish both substance and variety and thus suit equally the most divergent of tastes. After all is said and done, the kinematographic art cannot thrive and surely cannot develop in the direction of its higher destiny and its greater artistic and ethical ideals if it is to depend on the nickel alone. Quality cannot be co-existent with cheapness. With all possible regard for the exhibitor who is, or believes himself to be, forced to adhere to the lowest price of admission, it cannot be denied that the future of kinematography rests very largely on the men who strive after better things. The more money the producer is able to get for his work, the more quality will be put back into his films. I do not believe that there is any man in the industry to-day who will be disposed to deny that the falling off of the demand for single reels is due not alone to the influx of the features but in no small contributory degree to the deterioration in quality from which single reels had begun to suffer long before the multiple reel made its appearance on the horizon. Charles Pathe was quite right when he frankly declared that the single reel had been stricken with the dread disease of monotony. Trace this deterioration in quality back to its source and you will find . that the convulsive loyalty to the nickel had much to do with it. If the features consisting of multiple reels had never done more than force a raise in the price of admission, their coming was not in vain. The feature, however, does not guarantee quality merely because it consists of more than a thousand feet. It is no more immune from monotony and other equally fatal defects than the single reel. Indeed, when the art was in its infancy the unit of thousand feet was perhaps the best, as it forced condensation, and without the art of compressing and condensing, there is no prospect for good dramatic kinematography. Cheapness of the destructive variety is just as possible with the feature as with the single reel and it is just as possible to run a nickel show composed of cheap features as a program of cheap single reels. The higher price of admission into the kinematographic entertainment is necessary, not alone for the benefit of the exhibitor, but for the maintenance and improvement of quality. There has been very little effort, we are sorry to say, to educate the public to higher standards and to higher prices. The public has educated itself. Close observers of events in the world of motion pictures are agreed that the public have been ready for higher quality and higher prices long before the exhibitors or the producers were ready to make the change. If an ability to anticipate the movements and changes in the public taste form part of a true showman's mental equipment we cannot boast of much clever "showmanship." The public ask for higher quality and they know that higher quality means higher prices. There is too much timidity in exhibiting circles and too much foolish fear of competition. There are too many exhibitors whose spines give way completely when their receipts on the first night of a new policy or experiment show a decrease, however slight. The thought that the nearest competitor may gain, or seem to gain, a slight advantage, paralyzes every effort at giving the new way a fair trial. Eventually, of course, the situation will clear itself and quality and better prices of admission will be found floating on the top. The men with foresight, daring and ambition will forge to the front, while the men to whom the nickel is an idol will drop further and further into the rear. The rear is necessary, to be sure, in every wellordered procession, but it is never the most profitable place nor the place of honor. If there be any doubters as to the situation and all its present aspects, let them look across the water. The quality of kinematography on the other side is not higher than ours, but it is improving more rapidly and it bids fair to beat us if we cannot readjust our prices. In even the poorest countries of Europe, such as Italy and Spain, it is rare to find a house charging less than ten cents.