Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

Crooks that Follow the Movies The lure of every booming industry in which huge fortunes are being made is used by crooks and swindlers as a bait for their victims. So rich a field as the movies could not possibly be overlooked by these swindlers, and this article, the first of a series, tells how one class of them operates. By Roy W. Hinds ILLUSTRATED BY VICTOR PERARD llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliilllllliillllllllllllllW II1IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII11IIIIIII1I1IIIIIW s the news of the project spread around, a plan of the theater ivas produced and the most conservative business men were taken down to inspect the site. /^\N a certain bright spring afternoon of last May, 1 J in the bus which carried passengers from the station up to the Eagle Hotel — the principal one in Valeport, a Middle Western town — there sat a large, robust man whose appearance, under close scrutiny, might have been seen to give the impression of a strange combination of benevolence and shrewdness. It wasn't the benevolence of philanthropy nor the shrewdness of connivance. It was far more impressive than that, and one of the moods which the years had trained him to don easily as putting on his smart crush hat. He strove for that happy mixture of generosity and wisdom seen in men of big affairs — and achieved it. His whole aspect 'and demeanor glided into a preoccupied, intellectual calm. Wisely he forbore the snappy, peppery gymnastics — the "How d'you do?" bluster — which less discriminating four-flushers than he confuse with men of affairs. The stranger was something bigger than that, or at least, he appeared so ; wide of viewpoint and broad of grasp ; not too busy to be thoughtful and kindly to those about him and yet too busy to waste a detail of time or of motion. The newcomer presently reached Valeport's leading hotel, registered, and smoothed out the wrinkles of travel in his room. Then he set out upon a leisurely, though designing, walk. It was an early spring afternoon, and a splendid sun had drawn the population out of doors. Men, women, and baby carriages thronged Main Street. The stranger took in the outward business details of both sides of the street without apparent effort. When he had trav ersed the length of two blocks the first ripple of extraordinary interest fluttered within him, and he made his way to where a crowd uncommonly thick eddied in front of a motion-picture theater. Swiftly he absorbed the details of its exterior, and upon that basis calculated it was at best a second-rate house. The lithograph boards leered at him with "paper" which he knew to be of second-class films, and hard to tell of what degree of "run." "Is this the only picture show in the city?" the stranger inquired of a man idling near by. "There's another down the street a ways." the man told him, "but it isn't as good as this one. Better go in here." But the newcomer thanked him and turned away. He had no desire to view the show, particularly when the clamor on the outside betokened a packed throng within — and yet he was interested, very much so, in that motion-picture theater. Soon he verified the man's opinion that the other "movie" hadn't even the class of the first. "Valeport," thought he, with an inward smile, "is underseated." Whereupon he resumed his leisurely walk, occasionally wandering a block or so awav from Main Street. At a point half a block off Main Street and yet close enough to the business section to serve his purposes the inquiring stranger came to a vacant lot. He studied thoughtfully the aspects of the lot and its surroundings. Within an hour or so, by adroit questioning, he learned that the vacant lot was owned by an elderly, prosperous citizen, as well as intimate details of the citizen's business affairs and his standing in the community. Then he walked slowly back to his hotel, plunged in deep meditation. Thus was the stage set for the first act of the visitor's drama, which might well be called, "The Undoing of Valeport." Confidence games undoubtedly were inspired in the mind of some clever cave man when he gazed with avarice upon the hoards of bearskins and mastodon tusks accumulated by enterprising neighbors. These games have come down from age to age, and always their object has been to acquire by stealth and trickery the current medium of exchange, whether it be snake hides, beads, or precious metals. The progress of confidence games has kept pace with