THE LIVING PICTURE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1457, 4 June 1912, Page 3

THE LIVING PICTURE.

• —-—« WHY IT CHARMS. [By Sylvitjs.] A great many people witnessed the review at Ncwtown Park yesterday, more visited,'the review-and the football games, but if is added to that numtier those who journeyed to Otaki to see the races, the crowd would not equal the number who sat in tho gloom of the moving picture halls and gazed at pictures. A sober estiinato of tho number of people in Wellington who patronised the "kiutopps" (as tin? Germans call the picture shows) puts it down roughly at about 12,000, but with matinees thrown, in it may easily have been U,ooo—an a city of a total population of about 80,000. With this form of entertainment so deeply rooted in the beins of the community there is hardly anything to wonder at in tho subject of _ pictures cropping up at council meetings, church gatherings, and even at political meetings. That only proves the case that something comparatively new has entered into tho life of the people. The figures tjuoted above are for a holidaystill they are an indication of the great hunger for pictures. Tho enormous popularity of moving pictures, ■ not only in our own little country, but throughout the entire world engenders tho reflection that no othei amusement or entertainment peculiar tc a theatre has ever been devised in th< history of the world which has so completely captured the people. The historj of the drama has been one of hard struggle on the part of those engaged in it up to some fifty years ago or less. An actor of a century ago no matter what hi; poai'tion or talent happened to be, was classed as little removed from a rogue and vagabond. He was a diversion for those whose taste was considered depraved. But behind the vice and depravity, the sniril of the drama burned with a pure flame, and gradually, very gradually, it-became to bo acknowledged as one of the arts, and its exponents as respectable member: of the community. It was practically th< same with opera, and other phases of tht theatrical profession. Their redemption and elevation hns been a slow evolution. But pictures swooped .down and over the world from an American laboratory, and have flooded the countries from, London to Siam, from New York to Taihape. Five years ago, managers said tho bcom was bursting—to-day those men are building picture theatres firmly convinced that t-ht "photomobile" will go for ever. There were no ages nastod on developing the public.'s taste for the living scene —it was developed and fixed after tho first pirturo was seen. And the reason is all very simple. Pictures, be they oil paintings from the brush of famous artists, such as arc to bo seen in the Baillie collection, or pictures in a magazine, always hold the attention. The doctor knows it—that is why he strews the table of his waiting room with picture magazines; the dentist is also aware of it, as he seeks to entertain the man with a raging toothache with the latest Munsey; barbers—wise men— aro sure of it. The man who is in a desperate hurry to be shaved can bo calmed down in a moment by being handed tho latest "Sketch" by the assistant. Every child loves pictures—the gaily-coloured picture-books hold their own against all other toys and recreations. Picture postcards struck a deadly blow at the old Christmas card. Is it therefore any wonder that the world has fallen a victim tc the moving-picture habit. Here is the picture—alive, animated, human. It shows a placo as it is. not as an artist imagines it to be; it tells a. story, madly merry, sorrowful, exciting, romantic; it transfers one to the wild peaks of tho Rockies or the sweetly odorous hop-fields of Kent; it brings to our doors the glare- of Pittsburg's furnaces; the dust of the prairie; the ice-fields of Greenland; and the suniiy reclusiveness of a Surrey vale. AH alive! That is the point—the grass bends before the breeze, tho trains speed along; the cowboys rush and tear, tho machinery whirrs; the mammoth liner slides from tho stocks into the swirling water, and men and women, like the reader, move. Is it then such a marvel that the picture theatre is so popular—that 12.000 people visited picture theatres in Wellington yesterday?