Los Angeles herald., 1909-02-21
In the Spotlight

H HE history of the moving picture
business in New York, and in
lesser cities which reflect closely
the affairs of the metropolis, is full OF
significance for the managers of nick
elodeonS and small picture shows, such
as those now being operated in Main
street. A few years ago big eastern
cities were crowded with houses show
ing vicious, sensational pictures. Scores
of juvenile crimes were traced to the
influence of such pictures, which
caused an attack which practically has
resulted in ridding New York, Chicago,
Boston and Philadelphia of these Of
fenses. Many have been driven to the
smaller cities, and Los Angeles has it's
full share of crime incubatOrs, display
ing luridly sensational pictures of mur-
ders and holdups. There are full half
dozen of these places in Main street,
housed in i'll ventilated, germ infected
buildings constructed with but little
regard to the city fire ordinances, and
thronged hourly with idlerS who find
ample suggestion for wrong doing in
the meretriciOuS pictorial displays of
crime and vice. While occasionally ed
ucational and instructive pictures are
shown, nearly every bill contains one
or more wild west or tenderloin picture
which would be kept from exhibition
by police censorship in better regulated
tional predominant in all these houses,
and as many of the attendants are
children the possibilities, or rather the
certainties, of evil suggestion are tre-
mendous.
Most Of the films are exhibited by
managers enrolled on moving picture
circuits, and the central management is
largely responsible for the melodra-
matte character of much of the mate
rial; but there are plenty of decent
pictures which, as experience in larger
cities has shown, are even better draw
ing features than those now exhibited
There are a number of theaters in Los
Angeles exhibiting high class films.
This fact should prove significant
enough for the offenders who control
the cheap houses to induce them to
raise the standard of their entertain
ments.
Paul la Croix, who will be at the
Orpheum this week, is a favorite with
the hatters. La Croix juggles, and in
his act uses mainly silk hats. He buys
brand new ones and uses up more than
one at every performance, and he has
no arrangements with the makers for
wholesale quantities, or prices, either.
T. bulk of hats and the fact that he
cannot carry them about with him is
responsible for this. In every town
that he visits he has to contract ahead
for silk hats, and in Los Angeles,
where he remains two weeks, he easily
exhausted the visible supply of plugs
and several weeks ago, when he was
first booked, had to procure an extra
lot. They are the most expensive
rough handling.
Willie Ervast of the Burbank theater
box office for the last three days has
worn the shy and retiring look of a
man who has just been run over by a
dray, or inadvertently broken into a
SuffragistS' convention. Mr.. ErVast
usually wears a smile of bright as
surance and his chastened and sad
dened mien has been the cause of much
solicitude among his friends. 1T has
gradually become known that his de-
preston is the aftermath of a rhetori-
cal passage at arms last Sunday after
noon with voluble young woman who
objected when one of the ushers re-
quested her to remove her hat
The hat, which was the cause Of all
the trouble, made its appearance in
the upper right box at the Sunday
matinee. 1t looked like an inverted
footbath thrown into the midst of a
garden plot and the audience admired
it. About a half hour later the right
side of the house began to notice that
the left side was applauding and won
dered what it was all about A,wom-
an called an usher to inquire and was
told that the curtain had been up half
an hour. 1t was then that some women
in the upper box began to insinuate
that perhaps the ostrich plumes were
not real after all. But the young wo-
man under the hat was enjoying the
show too much to be disturbed and
those behind did not even know when
the act ended. An usher was called
and asked to request the woman to re-
move the hat. Outraged at this indig-