Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/740

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694
CINEMATOGRAPH

owners of the majority of property on both sides of the street. In 1920 the city's aggregate receipts, including balances on hand, were $24,346,445 and disbursements $17,330,791 leaving a cash balance, practically covered by authorizations, of $7,015,654. The tax valuation for that year was $737,4.72,310. The rate of taxation was $20.02 per thousand. The municipally owned waterworks and the Southern Railway, also municipally owned, were more than self- supporting. As a result the net debt not self-supporting on Dec. 31 1920 was $37,887,582.

Education and Charities. In the decade 1910-20 extensive additions were made to the Jewish, Good Samaritan, Bethesda, and Christ hospitals, and to the tuberculosis sanatorium. The General hospital with its group of 24 buildings, occupying 27 ac. and con- sidered the best example of the pavilion type on the continent, was finished in 1915 at a cost of $3,500,000. Its capacity in 1920 was 850 beds. It is under the administration of the university of Cincinnati, whose new medical school adjoins it. Other new buildings and de- partments of the university (3,565 students in 1920) included the law school, the college of engineering and commerce, the college for teachers, the training school for nurses, the school of household arts, a department of hygiene and physical education, a new gym- nasium and athletic field, evening departments, and a woman's building. The cooperative system, originated in Cincinnati, of sup- plementing college instruction by practical training in various shops and manufacturing establishments, was greatly expanded between 1910 and 1920. Several new high-school buildings were erected, with improved class-rooms, laboratory, and gymnasium facilities which served to complete an educational system which carried the student at public expense from the kindergarten through the graduate schools of the municipal university. The public school expenditures for 1920 were $4,749,605. The enrolment of the day schools was 51,104 and night schools, 14,864, with 1,625 teachers in 70 school buildings, including 5 high schools. The Roman Catholic university of St. Francis Xavier in 1919 removed its college depart- ment to a 26 ac. tract in the suburbs adjoining the newly developed boulevard system of the city and constructed administration, science and recitation buildings. The colleges of music increased in build- ings and faculties; and in 1915 the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra received an endowment of $1,000,000 as a bequest from Cora M. Dow. Of special importance was the recent establishment of the American House for the training of aliens for citizenship, and for social service work.

Building. Between 1900 and 1919 nearly $100,000,000 was spent in new buildings, among which were the Union Central Life of 34 storeys, 495 ft. high, the tallest building west of New York City; a court house, in modern Ionic style, completed in 1919 at a cost of $5,000,000; and the Dixie Terminal for the Kentucky traction lines.

World War. During the World War Cincinnati supplied 1,200 men to the Marine Corps; 1,400 to the navy, and 15,000 to the army. To the Liberty and Victory Loans Cincinnati subscribed $212,946,300. (C. T. G.)


CINEMATOGRAPH OR MOTION-PICTURES (see 6.374). The word "cinematograph," frequently shortened to " cinema," designates primarily the mechanism by which motion-pictures are projected on to the screen, but the term has come to be used generically to refer not only to the entertainment but to various phases of its production. In the United States, the designation ' motion-picture " or " moving-picture " (colloquially, " the movies ") is much more frequently used, though " photoplay," referring specifically to dramatic compositions, is commonly employed.

In 1910 the cinematograph as a means of entertainment was making its first bid for public favour ; it was still a novelty, and many persons, including experienced showmen, thought its appeal would decline as soon as the novelty had been thoroughly exploited. Before 1920, however, it had become by far the most popular form of commercialized amusement throughout the world. The production of motion-pictures on a large scale was in 1920 confined to a few countries, chiefly the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, and France, but their exploitation was world-wide. Their appeal was apparently limited by no ordinary conditions of age, race, or degree of civilization, and it was asserted, a little grandiloquently perhaps, that they con- stituted the one universal language. In 1920 it was estimated there were throughout the world at least 40,000 cinema theatres, of which perhaps 17,000 were in the United States, 5,000 in the British Isles, 3,200 in Germany, 2,700 in France, 1,000 or more in Italy, 1,000 in Spain, 800 in Australasia, 700 in Sweden, 600 in Japan, and so on. There was hardly a country too remote not to have at least a few motion-picture theatres, and occidental films had penetrated where occidental ideas were still regarded with

prejudice and disfavour. Constantinople, for example, had ir cinema theatres, Canton 10, Bangkok 9, Rangoon 8, and Tientsin 6. Such theatres, of course, exhibit American, English or European films almost exclusively. It is perhaps interesting to note that in Constantinople only religious pictures were subject to censorship. In South America the cinema was as popular as elsewhere; Buenos Aires, for example, had 131 theatres, and nearly every Argentine town of more than i ,000 population had its moving-picture palace. In the United States the daily attendance at motion-pictures in 1920 was estimated at a little less than 10,000,000, while a British estimate in 1910-20 was that a number equal to half the population of the British Isles attended the cinematograph twice a week which would be equivalent to a daily attendance of more than 6,000,000. If this estimate is correct it indicates that the cinema attendance in the United Kingdom practically doubled after 1916-7, when a careful estimate placed the daily attendance at 3,375,000 (see The Cinema, 1917). The same report gave the following analysis of seats occupied in the course of a year (week-days) :

Price of seat id ......

2d ......

3d ......

4d ......

6d ......

9d ......

is ......

Total

No. occupied 78,250,000 58,844,000 400,640,000 186,235,000 195,468,500 97,812,500 39,125,000

Per cent of total

7-4 5-6 38-0 17-6 18-5 9-2

1,056,375,000

100-0

(This tabulation is based on an estimate of 4,500 theatres with an average daily attendance per theatre of 750. In 1917 the price of seats had begun to go above is. ; in 1920 in London it was frequently 2s., 33., and higher in the best houses.)

From the business point of view remarkable progress was made during the decade 1910-20. In the United States, where the in- dustry had reached its highest commercial development, the gross receipts of all exhibitors in 1920 were placed at $800,000,000 (as against $675,000,000 in 1918 and $65,000,000 in 1907). The price of admission was usually from 25 to 50 cents; in small towns or poorer neighbourhoods it was sometimes less, while the best houses in New York frequently charged from $i to $2.50.

U.S. Government statistics show that the total gross income of American motion-picture producers (manufacturers) was about $90,000,000 annually. Capital invested in the producing business was estimated at $100,000,000, while the amount of positive film "consumed " each week was said to be 10,000,000 ft., as compared with 3,000,000 ft. before the World War. The following table shows the operations of one of the leading American film companies (Famous Players-Lasky) :

1919 1918

Gross income ..... $27,165,327 $18,090,500 Cost of film production . . 16,815,636 12,647,320

Cost of selling and distribution . 5,822,860 3,904,918

Other expenses ..... 1,393,846 257,087

Operating profit 3,132,985 1,281,175

The outbreak of the World War favoured the growth of the industry in the United States to such an extent that it became by far the leading producing country in the world. In most European countries, as well as elsewhere, the majority of films displayed after 1915 were of American origin. About 75% of the films shown in Great Britain in 1920 were of American manufacture. The extent of American exports in that year is indicated by the following table:

U.S. Exports of Exposed Films.

Linear Ft. Value

United Kingdom .... 45,538,55' $2,348,256

France ...... 22,250,847 943, 781

Canada ...... 17,952,511 1,226,514

Australia ...... 14,238,587 653,047

Argentina . . . ." . 9,920,491 330,104

Brazil ...... 8,416,158 363,544

Cuba ...... 6,761,701 248,226

Japan ...... 6,302,468 233.028

Spain ...... 6,071,560 242,569

Denmark ..... 5,816,537 233,646

Norway ..... 3,410,232 33O,77

Newfoundland and Labrador . 1,950,337 79,54'

Italy . . . . . . 677,120 30,273

Other countries .... 39,220,065 1,625,236

Total ...... 188,527,165 $8,888,535