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16
THE PI CTU rs&GOE-P
DECEMBER 1921
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Many years ago the Spirit of Romance bade adieu to Fleet Street, E.C., and moved West to Wardour Street, Soho. Externally, Flicker Alley is dismal and depressing, but if you pass the portals of the various film renting-houses that line its pavements, you will reach that dreamer's paradise G.H.Q. Romance.
.1 district, Soho leaves a little more than much to be
desired, but it contains more Romano to the square
than anywhere else in the world For the vaults oi
tin. film-renters arc bursting with highly concentrated
Romance which, with tin addition of a white sheet
and some elcctrii light, may be expanded into an
entertainment th.u will have the Arabian Nights
Looking like a half-minute story.
The film renting-houses, although their stock-intrade is Romance, run their business on prosaic lines If they are not themselves producers, thej purchase films from producing companies or their agents, and lure them to exhibitors throughout the territory for which the} have bought the rights.
The system of film-renting is t>", complicated to he explained here in detail, but i brief glimpse of the passage of a film from producer to publii should prove interesting to the picturegoer
Exhibitors hire their films from the renting-houses paying an agreed sum for a three-day or six-day showing ot each subject The prices varj in accordance with the value and 'lie film, and
range from a few shilling vera! hundred pounds
for a week's booking. The average picturegoer would derive nun h amusement and instruction from a tour of the offices of n big renting-house The fireproof vaults, containing hundreds of reels of him neatly stacked in tins. .\m\ the bijou private theatre, would make him open his eyes; but there
is no doubl that he would find the film-joining o ..mi the mosl fascinating department t.f all Here films are doctored and cleaned, broken sections mended and sub-titles inserted, by a number of girl-workers who fulfil their duties with astonishing celerity. \n experienced filmjoiner, running a film through her fingers can follow the ston as accurateh as if she were watching its fulfilment on the silver-sheet
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