THOUGHT BIOGRAPH WAS REAL.

Northern Advocate, 5 June 1912, Page 6

THOUGHT BIOGRAPH WAS REAL.

PICTURE PALACE PANICS,

CAUSED tV SENSATIONAL

FILMS.

A month or so ago a sudden panic broke out in a picture theatre in a small town in the south of Spain. The film was a'natural history kind, and represented the loathsome codings o? a huge boa-constrictor. Suddenly there was a flash of light from the apparatus, and the hall was in darkness. Somebody shouted: "'The boa-constrictor has escaped!" There was a wild rush to the doors, m which many people were seriously hurt Similar odd things keep happening in picture theatres, though, luckily seldom with iuch serious results. Nine months ago a hall in Manchester began showing a sensational Series depicting a steeple-jack climbing a tall chimney. The pictures taken from another factory chimney only a few yards off showed a steeple-jack working his way up by driving spikes into the brickwork above his head, and lashing ladders to them. At last the great overhanging ledge at the top had to be/surmounted, and the pictures showed the steeple-jack crawling up; like a fly. The ladder was longer than the sloping lower side of the ledge, and jutted out into infinity. The climber had to climb out to the end of his ladder, pull himself over the last rung, and crawl back along the upper side of his ladder down to the comparative safety of the ledge. Chimney, ladder, and all were distinctly seen swaying in the wind;

TWO LADIES FAINTED., It was an amazing piece of realism, but the pictures were not shown a second day. At the critical moment; when the steeple-jack was hanging over infinity out at the end. of his ladder, several people in the audience were suddenly taken ill, and two ladies fainted. The giddiness that the tseeple-jack escaped had seized the audience.

It is not only the human members oi. the audienc3. however, that take the pictures ~ very seriously. Last summer a London picture palace was showing hunting down a criminal. At the sight cf the mad raco through the streets a cog in ihe audience rushed barking to the stage and hurled himself at the screen. Picking himself up in bewilderment he tried again, only to topple over a second time. Then he stood staring at the audience in such a wistful, dazed fashion that the whole hall howled with laughter. India, which is taking very kindly to the "flicker show"—scores are being opened there every week —takes what it sees oh the screen much as a child does. Last summer an open-air performance; was - being given at night in a coal-mining village, in Bengal. The 'pictures showed- an elephant hunt. The elephant .stood in a clearing angI rily waving his trunk, and trying to catch sight of his unseen assailants —whose spears flicked him from smbng the trees. MASTER, WE PERISH!" Catching the gleam of the camera, he swung round and rushed straight at the photographer (who, in reality, barely escaped with his life.) The gigantic beast loomed bigger and bigger till it filled the whole screen before the plucky photographer dodged. As it came, its furious trumpetings were cleverly imitated by a man behind the screen. At first sight of the elephant there were frightened murmurs throughout the audience of "The king is angry," but- when Jlie darkness suddenly fell on the charging elephant the audience fled frantically, some to their huts, but hundreds to the mine manager's bungalow, a few yards off,* shrieking, "Master, master, we perish!" Five or six were trampled underfoot in the rush. The wrathful manager* a Mr Burley, ordered the biograph men to pay compensation, and stay in the village till it was paid. But biograph realism has its lighter side. When pictures Of the BurnsJohnson fight were showing in a Yorkshire town one small Yorkshireman was so carried away that after one swinging hit from the negro, ilp|i<jji Burns "Just succeeded in dodging, he sprang up and shouted reproachfully:, - "Eh, by gum, lad, that'll knock 'im off tf sheet!"