Reel and Slide (Jan-Sep 1919)

18 REEL and SLIDE School Board and Home League Show Films for Juveniles EDITOR, Reel and Slide : "The writer acknowledges that Boys' and Girls' Matinees have been tried by various exhibitors the country over. The writer agrees that there is no money in them. Still he maintains that the best thing he has done for his theater was started over two years ago. Every Saturday morning, the past two weeks excepted (because of influenza), Boys' and Girls' Matinees have been in order at the Paramount Empress, Salt Lake City, during those months schools have been in session. What is more to the point, they have been an unqualified success. We haven't made big money with them, jut we certainly have built up a reputation. Knowing a number of members of the Home School League personally, we had several informal chats and finally entered into an agreement to rent the organization every Saturday morning at a nominal rental — an absurd rental any business man would call it. Then we gave them our time — oh, lots of it — and helped them pick the programs. The committee in charge was very enthusiastic. Eventually, they turned over to us the selection of the programs. The committee went to the Board of Education and insisted that half-sheet hangers be placed on the bulletin boards in every school. Each week a different school has charge of the matinee, teachers being on hand to act as ushers, see that the children get on the right cars and generally take a hand in affairs. Rivalry has been worked up among the various schools on the question of which school has the biggest attendance, while little between-reel stunts are pulled in the form of selections by school orchestras, etc. The big feature is that parents know that they can send their youngsters to the matinees and know that they will be safe. A flat admission of five cents is charged and a show consisting of second run features, a Paramount Pictograph and a weekly is presented. Yes, Children's Matinees are worth while, but don't call them Children's Matinees. The writer maintains that no exhibitor should be content to look at immediate returns in the box office. Too many of us are prone to look after to-day with no thought of to-morrow. "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you many days — buttered," is a pretty good maxim for any line of business, not excepting motion pictures. The Home and School League and ourselves have learned a lot about entertainment for young people. A Salt Lake City' Exhibitor. (Note — The committee of the Home and School League of Salt Lake City, of which Mrs. Malick was the head, is one of the Affiliated Committees. This committee's influence extends beyond Salt Lake City. It is a satisfaction to receive this testimonial from a practical and progressive exhibitor as to the value of the work which has been done for the young people. Many persons forget that the young people of to-day ■will be the patrons of motion picture theaters to-morrow. While the National Committee does not support the idea of allowing children under ten years of age attending picture performances, it does consider it quite a proper thing to permit young people to make the acquaintance of good motion pictures, for it will give them a background of taste regarding pictures which will ultimately effect the production of pictures from the point of view of quality. — Editor.) Aliens in America to See Our Country by Means of Government Pictures, in Schools THOUSANDS of feet of celluloid are now awaiting a drive that will carry the gospel of 100 per cent Americanism to every corner of the land. The pictures will visualize for the foreigners the message that is being sent out to them through the Bureau of Naturalization. One series of pictures will project before the eyes of the newcomers the history of the United States from the landing of Columbus to the present day; the battles of the revolution for independence ; the growth from a child-nation occupying but a strip of land along the Atlantic to a country of many millions of free people spreading over a continent; the conflict of 1861-65 to preserve the united nation; the agony of reconstruction; the development to a world power and the final participation of America in the world war against autocracy. There also will be travelog pictures displaying the splendors of America's scenery and films showing the service rendered the citizens by each of the federal departments. Reproduction will be thrown on the screen of, for example, the latest scientific methods of farming, the highest development of industrial machinery, penmanship, letter writing, marketing by mail through the parcel post, and household economy. Nineteen hundred schools throughout the country already have expressed their willingness to co-operate with the depart ment of labor in the campaign. The films will be distributed from twenty-eight centers and will reach practically, every community that has alien inhabitants. The classes will be transferred for the pictures from schoolhouse to movie theater through co-operation between the leaders in naturalization work and the motion picture industry. Naturalization and Americanization are practically the same thing and it is very probable that in the course of time they will become merged with the department of immigration with headquarters in Washington or the state capitols. Sunday^School Holds Varied LFilm|Program The progressive Sunday school of the Central Baptist Church, Knoxville, Tenn., made a radical departure from its usual methods of encouraging attendance and stimulating the educational features of its class work recently. Arrangements were made for the installation of a modern moving picture apparatus for the exhibition of Bible stories adapted to screen production, which will be supplemented with films of an -educational nature, such as nature studies, travelogs, and films depicting current events. The exhibitions are free to the members-of the Sunday school, admission being by ticket handed out the Sunday previous to each exhibition to those who are regular in attendance and to prospective members. It is hoped by this plan to stimulate the attendance of the Sunday school, supplement the class work, encourage the individual taste for clean pictures of an educational nature, as well as provide an enjoyable social get-together meeting each week for the members. This Sunday school has an enrollment of something like six hundred, using the graded system of lessons. The Baraca class, composed almost wholly of men above sixteen years of age, enrolls about 150. The young ladies' class has a membership of about seventy-five. Geo. T. Wofford is superintendent of the Sunday school. National Tube Film Shown at Engineers' Meeting in Illinois At a recent meeting of the Springfield, 111., Engineers' Club, the National Tube Company loaned the club the use of their moving picture lecture on "National pipe manufacture," which was read and discussed by Mr. C. A. Ayster, treasurer of the Engineers' Club, who has had personal experience in the National Tube Company's plants. Other points on pipe manufacture were discussed by Mr. H. E. Allen of the Springfield Gas & Electric Company, Mr. J. H. Raymond of the Central Union Telephone Company and Mr. Patterson. At the conclusion of the lecture the four reel motion picture donated by the National Tube Company, and entitled "From Ore to Finished Product," was shown. This film illustrated in a vivid and striking manner the mining of the ore — its transport from the mines to the smelting plants — the blast furnaces, the conversion from crude iron to refined pipe steel, scenes in the rolling mills — testing and inspection work, panoramic views of the plants at Lorain, Ohio, and McKeesport, Pa., and details of the welfare and safety work done by the company for its employes. Government [Camera Man Films Southern^ Farm Scenes to Inform the North An excellent herd of Hampshire brood sows and pigs played the leading role in a motion picture at the Kaul Lumber Company's farm, Tuscaloosa, Ala., recently. The entire repertoire, however, included that ever-superior, meat-producing animal, the Hereford steer, assisted in each act by the brush-killing, mohairproducing, profitmaking Angora goat. Photographer W. O. Runcie of Washington, D. C, made the pictures. He was sent to Tuscaloosa by the -U. S. Reclamation Service of the Department of the Interior for the purpose of getting actual life-size photographs of live stock produced in the South. The picture will be shown in the leading theaters in all towns in the United States, and also to the boys in France. It is the opinion of government officials that the picture will be the direct result of considerable interest in southern agriculture and live stock production among northern farmers, as advertising of this kind will greatly assist in changing the common opinion of the average northern farmer with regard to southern conditions.