Moving-Picture Shows

From, Michael M. Davis, Jr, The Exploitation of Pleasure
A Study of Commercial Recreations in New York City
(New York: Department of Child Hygiene of the Russell Sage Foundation, 1911, 23-4.

Read for a good description of early movie theater spaces, and some positive comments about types of movies shown in theaters and their influence on children.

The typical moving-picture theatre holds a common-show license, and has a seating capacity, therefore, of less than 300. It is in many cases an ordinary store slightly transformed, provided with a rear exit, through the insistence of the Building and Fire Departments; long and narrow, therefore not capable of good ventilation without using expensive artificial aids. An increasing number of these shows, however, are being established in halls constructed for the purposed, or in the buildings which have been partly re-constructed, so as to be adapted to an audience. The number of “store shows” has much diminished in the last few years, and their day is nigh an end. There is little reason for criticizing the moving-picture show because of danger from fire, particularly since the introduction of the “non-inflammable” or slow-burning film. Lack of cleanliness, and darkness during the performance are fair charges against the little shows. It is not generally known that moving-pictures can be presented in a room sufficiently lighted to read medium-sized print. This can be done if the lights are properly shaded, so as not to illuminate the screen or shine directly into the spectator’s eyes. At a very slight expense any show can be thus lighted, and the evils alleged to occur during the darkness of the performance are rendered impossible. The incredulous can be taken by any well-informed person into a dozen shows which the proprietors have thus fitted with proper lights.

Whether judged by the number of places in existence or the number of persons reached, the moving-picture is by far the dominant type of dramatic representation in New York. Wide observation of these shows has convinced every unprejudiced observed that the moving-pictures themselves provide in the main a wholesome form of recreation. The number of positively objectionable films displayed in New York constitutes a minute proportion. This is true even when the large percentage of children attendance upon these shows is considered. The “illustrated songs” are musically crude, and are set to one of three spiritual keys: the mawkishly sentimental, the patriotic, and the suggestively immoral. The last is rare; the first most frequent. Yet now warm-blooded person can watch the rapt attention of an audience during the song, and hear the voices swell as children and adults join spontaneously in the chorus, without feeling how deeply human in the appeal of the music, and how clearly it meets a sounds popular need. Some breaks amidst the flow of motion pictures are necessary, and almost every show thus brings in the illustrated song. A considerable proportion add also vaudeville, by far the least desirable element of the performance. The observer may thus pass by insensible stages from the moving-picture show per se to the low-priced theatre in which vaudeville is usually the main and moving-pictures are the subordinate attraction.