Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1918)

Metropol Out'of'town visitors, to whom are those who ma\e possible By Dr. J. (Director of Publicity, whom the super-photoplay attractions had weaned away from the theatres in the theatre's capital city. He couldn't be the only one! I began to watch our nightly audiences for the occasional regulars — if you gather what I mean by that apparently contradictory expression. The regular Mon "^^"Afews^ "When I first he answered, lack. B ON an evening in May, 191 7, I was standing in the lobby of the New York Strand, watching the seven o'clock crowd slowly file out, and the "last show" aggregation file in with equal slowness. Midway between the box-office and the entrance was a gentleman who, as far as a field-glass would have found him, would have borne only the appellation: "Southern Colonel." He was least seventy years of age, but he was erect, soldierly, his chin bore a small tuft just beneath his lip, he had a fierce moustache and his large Stetson did not hide a bushy mass of snow-white hair. An interesting specimen. And as he came abreast me he spoke, bowing elaborately. "Good evening, suh!" I returned the salutation, a bit confused, for I feared I had been on the verge of cutting some old family friend So I made it a point <to waylay him on the way out. I asked him, perfunctorily enough, as to his seat, and how he enjoyed the show. 'When I first came to New York suh," he answered, "it was to see Lester Wallack. But Wallack is dead, and damme if I've seen play-acting on the boards since your house has been opened. I come here twice a year, for I visit New York in May and September. I see the screen shows twice a week in Shreveport, and — the theatre isn't what it once was, suh!" He was a planter, and his business interests, as he said, brought him to our town twice in a twelvemonth. But it was what he said, more than the rare flavor of his unique personality, which interested me most. Here was an habitual visitor, of intelligence and wealth, 42 came to New York, suh,' 'it was to see Lester Wal ut Wallack is dead! " day-nighters, the Saturday-nighters. and so on, as well as the Sunday folk, were of course residents, near or far. I remembered, presently, a bustling old lady who appeared at the Strand only at long intervals. But, almost as if the matter had been pre-arranged, the interval came to an end, and she came to our show. I made \ . bold to question her. I discovered that she was from Erie, Pa.; a woman of wealth, who had considerable real estate in New Jersey, and, handling it, stopped in New York, a week at a time, about four times each year. She was not a first-nighter — as I imagine my old Shreveportian had been in his day — but she visited the approved best plays in a sedate manner. Of late, she had been giving her dramatic attention entirely to the screen, and the speaking theatres had known her not at all. Now I was entirely interested. My next photoplay converts were a woman buyer from Los Angeles; a family which had a habit of commuting from Chicago; a Pittsburg banker; an Indianapolis manufacturer, and an assortment of varied pursuits from the New England States. When I met my Southern friend I believed myself on the verge of a discovery; -now, I had proved it. "Metropolitan movies," by which we may designate the big and varied screen-and-music entertainments put My next photoplay convert was a woman buyer from Los Angeles.