Some motion picture houses in turn of last century Montreal.
With the movie The Artist coming out to rave reviews (it's a silent film, a French romance directed by Michel Hazanvicius and starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo and some well known US actors) there's likely to be renewed interest in the Silent Film Era.
I've written a great deal about nickelodeons in Montreal on this blog, as I wrote Threshold Girl, www.tighsolas.ca/page10. pdf.pdf
But you know, in my story Milk and Water, about Montreal in 1927, motion pictures figure more strongly.
In 1927, there was a fire in a Ste Catherine E cinema (the Laurier Palace) where 70 children died. My grandfather as Director of Services was somewhat implicated.
Because of that fire Montreal became the only jurisdiction in North America not to allow children in cinemas, until 1967.
Children had been going to motion pictures, attended and unattended by 'adults', since the beginning of the era. I assume parents felt these places safer than the streets, although the moral reformers did not.
From what I have read, in the Prohibition Era, children under 20 made up the largest proportion of movie patrons. And although there was a law against under 17's watching unattended, plenty did. Mostly boys as is it happens, and it is mostly boys who died in the Laurier Palace Fire in January 1927.
In Quebec, drive-ins were also banned, so I had to wait for our summer vacation in Maine to see a drive in movie.
Oddly, I also thought it was children under ten who couldn't attend movies in Quebec.. and I was sort of right. There were special viewings for children over 10, family viewings. I vividly recall watching the MUSIC MAN in a church basement, ST. Malachy's church on Clanranald.
(Pretty ironic as that movie is about prudery in the nickelodeon era. I wonder if the adults attending that show with me saw the irony in it. My father would have, but I went with neighbours who were Catholic.)
I remember, because it was a HUGE EVENT, I guess. I recall sitting crosslegged on the cold concrete floor watching.
Anyway, there were killer fires in theatres in the US too (These places were firetraps in general) but no such laws were enacted.
This must have truly hurt the revenues of the theatre owners in Quebec.
My grandfather's brother, as it happens, was the VP of American Theatre Amusements...(Can't recall exact name of company.) That company often fought in court with the Provincial Government over the Lord's Day Act, even before 1927. Monsieur Ouimet of Ouimetoscope fame did too.
Conventional Theatres that showed plays with live actors had to close on Sunday, movie houses were exempt.
Anyway, my grandfather is accused by someone testifying in the US at Senate Prohibition Era hearings, of pulling the strings of the police Chief, and of allowing theatres to stay open, even ones that let in children unattended. This is a few months before the fire.
Cops were given free tickets for their children to convince them to turn a blind eye to transgressions. I read that one Constable lost three children in the Laurier Palace Theatre fire and that underscores the point.
Who went to movie houses? The kids of the working class. The inquiry into the fire acknowledged this. It's the only entertainment they could afford. The Catholic Church joined with the Presbyterian types to get this unique law passed, jumping on this tragic event opportunistically. Both churches had lost a lot of their "customers" to the motion picture show since 1908 or so. Monsieur Ouimet said Sunday was his best day.
I will have Jules Crepeau and Thomas Wells discuss this in my play Milk and Water... Thomas Wells will say his older sons seldom went to movie houses as they were too busy with their school teams. They attended wealthy Lower Canada College.
And his younger children have been a few times, but always with their nanny.
Jules will say his older son, now 26, attended. Or he supposes. As the boy is an amateur actor. (That's my Uncle Louis.)
I heard a Brit reminisce about early movie houses on BBC Radio Four. It seems that in many cases, kids were the only ones who could read, so their parents and grandparents wanted them there with them.
As is well know, 1927 saw the first Talkie, the Jazz Singer.
Today, Quebec has very lax laws. I don't know if kids go alone..well, they do but in groups at the Cineplex.
I saw the movie Paul last year and I was astounded, because it was full of swearing, and a bunch of children sat in front of me and my husband.
Anyway, the Artist may have a trajectory similar to the King's Speech. It starts out sort of Art House and builds to great popularity. Yesterday, as it happens, I watched this 1988 movie THE WOMAN HE LOVED, with Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews about David, Edward VIII. On YouTube.
It was a very sympathetic view of the couple, no S and M, no Nazis. No George VI at all. How could it not be a kind portrayal with those particular actors. Anthony Andrews played Baldwin in the King's Speech.
Well, the King's Speech made David look like a Sadist, or a mean older brother.
I learned that he only met Wallis Simpson after 1928. So great. David, Edward VIII figures large in my story Milk and Water. It is because of him that my grandfather and my husband's grandfather meet to discuss life, business, politics and ethics. He's visiting Montreal, at the end of a long official visit. He is on his own time and I read he liked to party with Mayor Mederic Martin.
Irony. My mother in law, born 1917, tells me that she and her sisters and friends got into movies underage by dressing up like grown women, makeup and all. And by behaving properly, too. I don't think that's what the Moral Reformers had in mind....(Law of Unintended Consequences.)I found a picture of her dated 1929, and she did look very grown up. I was startled. They had no 'teenagers' in those days.
