Published May 9, 2021
By Joseph Newkirk
Thomas
Edison believed his invention in 1888 of a motion picture camera and seven
years later a “kinetograph,” which projected these pictures onto a surface,
novelties without practical uses. Soon, though, “moving pictures” dazzled
people around the world by presenting a dynamic way to view images.
In
December 1896, the Empire Theater on 8th and Maine Streets in
Quincy—a venue for live theater, vaudeville, and burlesque performances since
soon after the Civil War—showed a brief moving picture of German soldiers
galloping on horses and brandishing sabers. “Movies,” as they were later
called, consisted
simply of recorded images like these rather than those crafted into coherent
stories.
The
Orpheum and Bijou Theaters in Quincy offered moving pictures as a side
attraction to live productions, but as technology developed “Nickelodeons” created
a sensation. Several of these small theaters started business in town, and
their weekly attendance rose to an estimated eight to nine thousand. Trick
photography pictures proved the most popular, followed by comedy and westerns.
Before long, moving pictures started competing with other forms of
entertainment, and their lower prices and flexible show times heightened
appeal.
For
use by a single viewer, engineers redesigned kinetographs into kinetoscopes,
colloquially called “peep shows,” and they sprang up across Quincy and
increased exposure to this new medium. Peep shows could be found in businesses,
lodges, and even the Adams County Courthouse.
Hailed
as the first moving picture to have a story line, “The Great Train Robbery”
mesmerized audiences in Quincy and around the world. Here and elsewhere, people
not used to illusions of reality screamed and ducked for cover when the train
appeared to rush headlong off the screen and into the theater. “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” for over two decades one of the most popular local live theater
productions, premiered here as a film in 1904 and received rave reviews.
Although
considered “silent,” early moving pictures had live piano or organ and
sometimes singing accompaniment. This would change in 1926 when Lee DeForest
invented a technique to splice sound directly onto film, ushering in the era of
“talkies.” As early as 1909, though, Quincy’s Bijou Theater advertised “Talking
Pictures” made from playing film on one reel and recorded sound on another and
attempting to synchronize them.
Many
municipalities-imposed age limits on attendance to moving pictures, but Quincy
did not. Local burlesque shows—with children often in the crowd—had been
popular since the 1870s and usually featured scantily-clad women on stage.
While burlesque (and minstrel) did not arouse public indignation, moving picture
portrayal of showgirls in “Ziegfeld Follies” provoked outcries of “immorality”
and “sinfulness” from some community members. A Censor Board of Pictures with the mission of
“securing for Quincy the cleanest of pictures” formed and existed for a few
years, but without policing power did little to limit the offering of shows.
Educators
remained divided about the instructive versus corrupting value of moving
pictures. Some saw them as good teaching tools which provided images that had
before only been visualized. Others argued that they fostered “lazy pupils,”
like those who read comic books instead of their texts. The Quincy Daily Herald
serialized an abridged version of Alexandre Dumas’ novel “The Three Musketeers”
for its young readers and asked them to “read the story, see the picture.”
Churches
were equally divided. Evangelists like Rev. E. A. Lacour of Quincy’s Kentucky
Street Methodist Episcopal Church railed against the “theater habit” and
compared it to the evils of dancing, tobacco, and liquor. The Christian Endeavor
Union proposed a state-wide ban on “demoralizing” scenes ranging from
elopements to robberies to prize fights and kissing or “spooning” by anyone but
relatives or married couples.
The
Western Catholic Union, though, hosted a “Strawberry and Picture Day” for
children at St. Mary Church, and St. Francis Solanus Church presented moving
pictures of the European conflict that would eventually lead to World War I.
Many local churches endorsed the showing of “Open Your Eyes” about the dangers
of venereal disease, a scourge that sometimes proved fatal in an era before
penicillin.
By
the summer of 1907, Quincy had nine theaters devoted exclusively to moving
pictures. Soon the largest venue in the city, the Empire, changed its name to
Hippodrome and stopped presenting live theater and musicals and only offered
“movies”—the new epithet for moving pictures.
The
city of Quincy entered movies in 1911 when the Selig Polyscope Company filmed
10,000 yards of the Gem City in their production showcasing construction of Keokuk’s
Mississippi River Power Company Dam. This film played across the country
highlighting hydroelectric work on the river and brought an economic boon to
Quincy.
Promoters
billed D. W. Griffith’s 1915 movie “Birth of a Nation” as “historical cinema”
and “American’s first epic film.”
President Woodrow Wilson praised the movie at a White House showing
declaring, “It’s like writing history with lightning. My only regret is that it
is all so terribly true.” People willing to pay a dollar (the equivalent of $25
in today’s currency) lined up outside Quincy theaters.
Civil
War Union Veterans of Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy and the local Censor
Board condemned “Birth of a Nation’s” sympathetic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan
as upholding Southern morality by protecting the purity of white women against
the threat of former black slaves. Quincy Mayor William K. Abbott, though,
failed to see any objections to the movie.
Motion
pictures had become a mainstay in most people’s lives by 1920, and rarely had
someone reached old age without having seen one. During that year’s Christmas
season, Frank Anerino, a well-known movie projectionist, showed a film to
elderly residents of the Anna Brown Home, the first ever for most of them. The
local Congregational Church ran the facility and its pastor, Rev. E. A.
Thompson, chose “Satan’s Schemes.” This movie stunned the audience and riveted
them in their seats, bringing, in the words of a staff member, “Christmas cheer
and an unforgettable experience.”
Sources
“The
Censors of Pictures.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Oct. 20, 1915, 2.
“Censorship
Board Holds a Session.” Quincy Daily Whig, Nov. 27, 1913, 2.
“Dancing,
Theater and Tobacco Habit Hit By Evangelist.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, March
28, 1921, 3.
“First
Movies in Quincy Just 20 Years Ago.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Dec. 20, 1916,
6.
“Had
Never Seen a Moving Picture.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Dec. 27, 1920, 4.
Kornhaber,
Donna.
Silent Film: A Very Short Introduction
. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press, 2020.
McLuhan,
Marshall.
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
. New York: McGraw
Hill Book Co., 1964, pp. 248-59.
“Quincy
in the Films.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Nov. 23, 1911, 3.
“Read
the Story, See the Picture.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, April 17, 1914, 7.
“Talking
Pictures, Moving Pictures.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, July 26, 1909, 9.
