New York? Movie Theater & Famous Person in Crowd

Interesting guy, MillCove. But if he came over in the 1920's, wouldn't that be too late for this scene?

 

Are you thinking of this scene, with the horse of a different color?

 

That's the scene, but not the hat. Must have been somewhere else, but I know I've seen that hat before.

 

@Bakersgma, you're right. I'm still foggy.

 

No problem, Mill Cove. At this point any idea is a good idea.

 

There was a second Elite Theatre in Brooklyn that opened in 1914. Maybe that's close enough to the movie's premiere that it still would have been shown?
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/42131

Also, the New York Clipper newspaper was a New York City weekly entertainment paper. So that would fit with a Brooklyn theatre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Clipper

I was trying to puzzle out the writing on the semi-hidden posters. It wouldn't surprise me if the second word of the poster on the left is "Bottoms." And then I thought the word above could be "Fred" or "Alfred." No idea if that's right or is helpful, though.

It's a great photo!

 

Hmm... there was a 1919 film titled "Broken Blossoms," but that doesn't work with the word that ends in "red."

 

Something that can happen with films from that era is that many of them were lost due to the film stock they were printed on being the type that deteriorates. Also, I imagine that in the early days of cinema people did not think in terms of conserving the films nor the information about the films for future generations. So that makes it difficult to find.

 

I think you're right, Fig.

I was able to look at long lists of films produced each year, and went through the years that seemed most appropriate, but still didn't find a movie that seemed to fit the ends of the words on the poster.

My DH, who's done a lot of specialty movie projection, says most movies in those days were only about 30 minutes long so it was easy for them to produce a large number of films. For instance, the database I looked at listed about 1,500 movies produced in 1915, and they doesn't necessarily include all the movies made that year.

According to my DH, the "3 reels" mentioned below the ticket taker's window is an indication of the length of the movie showing. A reel was about 10 minutes of film, so a 3-reel film was about 30 minutes long.

 

Pat, you certainly did a lot of work on this!

I knew about the reels because Film Studies was my major for a while during my undergraduate years (but ended up with a Russian major, not Film Studies). I took classes where they talked about the reels, etc. And I've read lots of books, although not recently, on the topic of film.

 

Oh, I would have enjoyed film classes! Movies provide such a good glimpse into a different time or culture.