FILMS IN VENEZUELA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22514, 23 September 1938, Page 7

FILMS IN VENEZUELA

A' cinema ticket in a Venezuelan first house is priced at 3 bolivars, 25 centimes. This is the equivalent of about 5s 6d, and it is for a single feature, without any stage presentations or vaudeville embellishments.

In spite of the cost, picture-going remains a favourite avocation and provides far more of an emotional experience in Venezuela, than in most other parts of the world. ‘ Both in the larger cities of Caracas, Valencia and Puerto. Cabello and in the smaller towns, audiences express their feelings with-almost unparalleled freedom. When they like a particular scene they let loose a crescendo wave- of cheering and hand-clapping; this keeps up till the. man in the projection booth respools the film and plays the approved episode over again. Ray Bblger’s dance in “The Great Ziegfeld” had to be repeated four times in one- theatre before the audience would calm down. ~ “Maytime,” the biggest hit of the present year, brought encores of this sort in virtually every house where it played. When the audience does not like the picture the situation becomes much more • ticklish. Protests, in far beyond the stage of hooting. The danger signal, in many theatres, is the lighting of matches, which are waved menacingly in the air, accompanied by a disturbing sibilant mutter. If this admonition is unheeded, it is not uncommon for .members of the audience to start .taking potshots at the screen, throwing any objects that happen to be in their pockets or close at hand. In such crises, the screen is often put out of commission, for the night or permanently. Knowing* their customers temperaments, most exhibitors keep a spare film stored away. This is generally an old picture, but one which has earned the public- test of approval. When 1 the waving of matches starts, the prudent projectionist sends his house boy scurrying for ‘ the spare reel. Then, breaking off if necessary in • the middle of a song, a dance or

Emotional Audiences

an ardent love scene, he flashes the quieting substitute photoplay on the screen. There is one instance of a stubborn manager who, keen about his current attraction, resolutely refused to unlock the closet and bring out his spare. His screen was reduced to a hopeless ruin.

• Patsy Kelly, now weighing'only Bst 51b, will have- an .important part supporting Fredric March and Joan Bennett in “Trade Winds.”,