Movie theater

“ This is at the Grand Central Palace in New York.
If you don’t care for the comedy on the screen to the left, you can look at the romantic play in the center screen, or at the thriller on the screen to the right.
The chief advantage is that when you go in to see your favorite hero of the movies, who is billed on the posters outside, or go in to see a certain comedy, you aren’t compelled to sit waiting through a program of pictures you don’t care about particularly. It is an arrangement for busy folk who drop into a movie theater at the noon hour. ”

“ Sunday Movie Theaters destroy the rest and quiet of many people, especially those who live in the residential district of cities and in the neighborhood where such motion-picture theaters are located. ”

“ A group of movie theaters holds carnival at the entrance to the loop. People hurry under electric canopies, dig in their pockets for dollar bills and buy tickets. The buildings sleep along the river. The boats wait in the shadows. Movie signs, crossing cops, window tracks and different colored suits of clothes ”

“ Ahead of them opened the doors of the world’s largest theater and with their hearts beating faster than usual they purchased their tickets and walked into the grand foyer, the most majestic, breath-taking enclosure either of them had ever been in. Their feet sank into the heavy pile of the great carpet and their eyes feasted on the beauty of the towering bronze doors which led into the theater itself. ”

“ A cozy theater stands in the middle of an apple orchard—part of the one-time farm of the proprietress' father. Good taste and the delicate skill of architect and landscape gardener have gone hand in hand for its charm. You go out there and dine leisurely, and then you cross the long shady paths under the apples to the theater. And even if the play in that tiny playhouse were not all that might be expected—although the best of actors play upon its stage—one would be in a broadly generous mood, at having dined and spent the evening in so completely charming a spot. ”

“ I'll take you over and introduce you to some of those girls; here's a picture I took of one; she's a daisy. I took her to the theater last Saturday night. You know, it does a feller good to see good shows at the theater. This theater—it's a little place right near my gallery—I go there every once in awhile; they have better shows there than they do at the Opera House; I like 'em better. This was a fine show, 'His Mother's Son.' Yes, sir, it does a feller good to go to the theater. ”

“ Over some fifteen years a growing number of minds have been more or less actively seeking a way towards a new type of theater. They have been abusing the picture-frame stage, stamping on the footlights, pulling out the front of the apron, pushing the actors into the loges, down the orchestra pit, onto the prompter’s box, out upon runways or up the aisles. They have even gone clear out of the playhouse and into circuses, open air theaters, and public parks. All to set up a new and mutual relationship between the actor and the audience. ”

“ Compare the noisy, ill-judged, misplaced applause of provincial audiences with the eager, unerring enthusiasm and appreciation of the audience at a professional matinee, where, so far as the acting goes, everyone knows the precise means by which an effect is produced, and, therefore, knows the precise reward it should receive." That's warrant enough for me.
The theater is an extremely curious blending of art and business. Its art is lodged back of the curtain line and its business in front of the footlights. ”

“ On both sides of the wide, tree-shaded streets were hotels or stores of various sorts, but the most conspicuous building, both on account of its design and the flaming posters which adorned its front, was a moving picture theater. ”

“ The reality, however, exceeded my wildest expectations. I could never have dreamt of anything so utterly dismal, as an empty theater by daylight, or rather day-darkness. No, not even after a supper of beefsteaks and porter.
At first, I could see nothing; but, after a while, I got used to the dimness, and was able to look about me. The decorations of the place (such as they were—such as might be expected in a theater where the stalls were three shillings, and the gallery fourpence) were shrouded in dirty white cloths. ”

“ What movies – giving in to the instincts of the crowd – offer can never be produced in the same dimensions and amount by theater, bound as it is by its limits. Shaking its head, the public notices the helpless effort. And runs to the movies. For what should bind the public most to the theater: art, is for the most part shamefully neglected. ”

“ In the evening to the theater, which was crammed from the floor to the ceiling; they are a pleasant audience, too, and make a delightful quantity of sympathetic noise. I did not play well, which was a pity and a shame, because they really deserved that one should do so; but my coadjutors were too much for me. ”

“ The scenario writer sits down in the morning and works out a scene; he wakes up the director, who packs some actors and a cameraman in an automobile, together with a picnic lunch, and goes out to make the picture on some lovely hillside. Then, having finished the photoplay, they take it around to your local theater and exhibit it at twenty-five cents a seat.
As a matter of fact, the movies, now the fifth national industry in the United States, has as many phases, and as many complexities as any other industry in the world. ”

“ Gordon Craig's new book is called The Theatre Advancing, but we rather hope that when it reaches his goal line we will be elsewhere. To our mind the theater is the place where Art should beam upon the multitude and cry loudly, "Find out what everybody will have and don't forget the boys in the back room." ”

“ In this theater you perceive audience and actor alike occupy the stage, as they used to do in the old London playhouses; and poor little flower girls are pushing their way through our throng, also offering the roses that fade so fast after they are plucked. ”

“ The people of New York City have the reputation of being the most tireless theater-goers in all America; a statement which is verified by the ever-increasing number of large and well-filled places of amusement. Of late years the growth of the popularity of the style of entertainments which are classed under the name of “vaudeville” has called into existence a special type of theater, which, in addition to the regulation stage and auditorium, includes special halls of entertainment, with lounging-rooms, cafés, etc., and, for use in the hot summer months, the inevitable roof garden. ”

“ You do go to the theater sometimes, though, for I've seen you there. Don't you just love a good play, Jim? I can't stay at home in the evening if there's one in town. I'd be willing to work like a slave, it seems to me, to live in a place where there are theaters. ”

“ I will give you all part of some play to masquerade on the stage with, and if any prying spies intrude, you will be supposed to be rehearsing for to-night’s performance. As evening approaches, the theater will be lighted up, and before the real artists arrive you must so dispose yourselves as to be able to join the audience unobtrusively. ”

“ It is the most attractive of all amusements, and that this attraction, as an amusement, has continued to increase, or, at least, has not diminished, would seem to appear from the number of theaters there is now in London, in New York, in Paris, and in other cities of Europe. ”

“ It is "the theater"—an open car of puppets—but the puppets are men; all attached to cords held in the hand of the giant, who sits in imposing state above them on the top of the car which is on a level with the third-story balconies. ”

“ In the theater, bright though the footlights are, and greatly as they dim what lies beyond them, you can still see the white faces of your audience. At least, you do see something—your eyes help you to know the audience is there, and, gradually, you can see perfectly, and pick out a face, maybe, and sing to some one person in the audience, that you may be sure of your effects. ”

“ It was once felt that a theatre was not a theatre if it was not adorned with a wealth of gilded cupids, masks, tambours, and daggers, surrounded by stucco wreaths and garlands in high relief, and interspaced with pictured panels of the muses, especially those most at home in a playhouse. And, indeed, about those old houses, their garishness now mellowed, there is a glamor peculiarly of the theatre, and a sweet mustiness in the air bespeaking audiences of perfumed ladies, long since dead, the grease-paint and pomade of a long line of players, old scenery, the fine fustian of the old plays. ”

“ I have been thus particular in describing the place and its inhabitants to show that it was just the kind of capital that had alike the taste and the means to erect and support a theater, if not regularly, at least for a certain period of the year, or what, in theatrical parlance, is called a “season.” Although, according to another writer, it had only about eighty houses and consequently but a small resident population, there must have been a considerable influx of visitors for business or pleasure, and this is the class upon which [Pg 30] a theater is chiefly dependent for support. ”

“ The theater was darkened when she entered and, a quick glance apprizing her that no one followed her in immediately, she continued on down one of the side aisles and passed through the doorway into the alley. ”

“ He decorated the theater with the best paintings of his time, and the ancient, like the modern stage, exhibited temples, sepulchres, armies, fleets, flying cars, and apparitions. He mounted the actors on stilts, and gave them masks to augment the natural sounds of their voices. ”

“ With what unction, from an actor’s lips, falls his manifold and glowing praise of theatres! What a pretty picture, a broad wash of rose-purple and white, he can make of the interior seen from the wings! “There’s such a hurry of pleasure to transport us; the bustle, noise, gallantry, equipage, garters, feathers, wigs, bows, smiles, ogles, love, music, and applause!” And again, in another mood: “The playhouse is the element of poetry, because the region of beauty; the ladies, methinks, have a more inspiring, triumphant air in the boxes than anywhere else. ”

“ Our cinema theatre is, I venture to state, of a far superior order, both as to drama and as to morality. It is not a mere lantern-hall, close and stuffy, with twopenny and fourpenny seats (half-price to children, and tea provided free at matinée performances) , but a white-and-gold Picturedrome, catering to an exclusive class of patrons at sixpence and a shilling, with neat attendants in dove-grey who atomise scent about the aisles, two palms, one at each side of the proscenium (real palms) , and, in addition to a piano, a mustel organ to accompany the pathetic passages in the films. ”

“ The cinema, like most new and virile things, has split opinion, and has collected round itself more unwise friends and unthinking enemies than any other form of entertainment. Few people like cinemas; they either love them or loathe them, while a few, I suppose, fall into my section of feeling and hate them for not being better than they are. For I believe in the cinema; I do not think that the cinema will do away with the theatre and the novel, but I do believe that it is destined to play a still larger part in the amusement of the people. ”

“ A successful theater must be on good terms with the grogshop and the brothel.
The whole thing is one of strategy and calculation. As the skillful angler puts on his hooks the bait at which the fish will bite most eagerly—no matter what it is, worm or bug, or artificial fly—so the crafty manager of a theater surveys society, and considers what plays, what style of acting, what style of dress among the actors and actresses will most surely attract the crowd. ”

“ There was among the people a great deal of refinement and cultivation. They were much more disposed to enjoy the recreation of the theater than the mixed English, French, and Dutch population of New York, and consequently the theater there was a permanent institution, and continued to be so for many [Pg 12] years. ”

“ In the theater the actor projects his personality, on the screen the camera projects it—a very different thing. Still, however, the theater is needed by the screen and there is no reason for a feud between 208them. In fact, the dangers and the problems that confront the theater are less complex than those the screen is called upon to face. We have but one—to do good plays. I have another silver cup for any one who can persuade me that a really fine play has ever failed. ”

“ No expense or precaution was omitted to make the theater as fireproof as it could be made, there being nothing combustible in the construction of the house except the trimmings and furnishings of the stage and auditorium. In the building of the theater we sacrificed more space to aisles and exits than any theater in America. ”

“ Every theater was always sold up to that row, no matter how early in the day I got to the box office. I have an invention in mind that will register every seat sold or given out, and show it on a diagram, to put an end to the usual practice. ”

“ Subtle emotions it cannot express, for pantomime cannot figure that ‘she thought this, because she thought that he thought that.’ (If a cinema company will film The Golden Bowl, I will burn seven candles as an offering to the Albert Memorial.) All that, the cinema must leave to the play and the novel. It cannot risk wearying the audience by leaving it for half an hour before the same scene; the theatre can do that because the voices of the actors afford relief; the cinema, being unable to reproduce footsteps, is compelled to reproduce flying feet. ”