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46 Transactions of S.M.P.E., September 1926
understand better the big cities. You see, it is with the advent of the motion picture that the small towns have had regular and continuous show places. These folks used to go to the larger centers for theatrical entertainment. Now, the entertainment comes to them. The small town's insistence upon clean pictures is not because its people are better morally than the dwellers in the large cities; in fact, I am inclined to believe that it is the small town visitor in New York who supports, mostly, its shady plays. But it is one thing for the adults to sit among entire strangers in a city playhouse and quite another to take the family along and rub elbows with neighbors in the home town movie theatre. Just as people subscribe to magazines they can place proudly in sight on the library table, so they want movies they can take the young people to see and at the same time be honored themselves by the attendance.
I spoke just a moment ago of the prevalent type of movie goer and inferred that there were other people in each neighborhood who rarely attend the theatre. That is perfectly true, as we all know. They are the kind of people who greatly prefer that acting of ''Moana (of the South Seas)" to that of Bebe Daniels, and, of course, pictures should be made for these people if that is commercially possible. There again, however, comes up the same matter of segregation. You cannot sell such different kinds of pictures with the same machinery or at least by the same methods. You are appealing to different customers; so you must reach them in different ways. Mv own opinion is that one of these days the non-theatrical halls of the country — churches, schools, lodges, Y.M.C.A. auditoriums, etc., — will be served by producers and distributors dealing only in programs especially acceptable to this particular clientele, which is a very large one. And I also believe that this new outlet tor motion pictures and this new patronage for them will actually prove a boon to the motion picture theatres by creating new patronage.
I also alluded to vaudeville just a moment ago, and here again we have another new phase of picture theatre entertainment. It is stated that Al Jolson was recently offered a staggering sum and so, I believe, was Nora Bayes and other vaudeville headliners to leave their present circuits for those of the picture houses.
It is rather a curious situation. In the early days of pictures as show attractions they were of such minor consideration in vaudeville houH(;H that they were actually used at the conclusion of the bill to get people out of the theatre. Then, as pictures continued to absorb