MOVING PICTURES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 125, 3 June 1910, Page 6

MOVING PICTURES.

THEIR VOGUE IN AMERICA

THOUSANDS RUN CONSTANTLY

(Post Correspondent)

SAN'FRANCISCO, April 20

The travelling biograph is a thing of past years in the United States. Where every city, town and village has its own moving picture shows running day and night three hundred days in the year, there is no room for the casual visitor. How could a travelling show pay hall hire, cftst of transportation, advertising, and still hope to compete with the local man, paying but a small constant rent and needing no advertising? And how could a travelling show succeed charging only 5 cents (2£d) for admission? Five cents is the universal price., in this country. And, because a 5-cent piece is generally called a nickel, the moving picture theatres are universally known as nickelodeons. In child-talk the demand, "Poppa, buy me some candy," is heard hardly as often as, "Poppa, take me to the nickelodeon," Probably these shows provide more children with "amuse^ ment than does any other form of entertainment. And not the children only; for, while the nickelodeons are supported by juveniles in. the afternoon, they get no less patronage from adults in the evening. Some of them even open in the morning. Each theatre has a set of pictures which ,runs for an hour or an hour and a half. Then the same cycle is put on again. The spectators walk in when they like and leave when they like. In San Francisco there are about eighty moving picture shows, including those that run in conjunction with vaudeville. It probably takes at least 400 patrons a day to make these pay. That means at least 32,000 people—more likely as many as 40,000— visiting these theatres daily. And the city's population is reckoned at less than half a million. The proportion is about the same elsewhere. According to statistics published not long ago in a New York paper, Chicago has 313 nickelodeons, New York 300, St. Louis 205, and so on. From these figures it can be seen what a hold the moving pictures have taken on American life. They afford entertainment for every class, though they are often spoken of as "the poor man's theatre." Probably it is the poor Avoman more than any other that relies on them for her recreation.

Unfortunately the educational film is rare. It is only the best theatres that show good pictures of such, scenes as the Alps. Of course, the reason is that such pictures are the most costly. And yet they are so popular rtliat it is strange they are so rare. People who have studied the subject expect a great development in the use of the biograph for educational purposes, in the next few years.