MOVING PICTURE SHOWS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2691, 10 February 1916, Page 3

MOVING PICTURE SHOWS

CONDITIONS IN AMERICA. During his seven months' holiday trip to the Western States of America, California, and British Columbia, Mr. Henry Hayward, a member of the firm of Haywara's Pictures Enterprises, Ltd., who returned by the Niagara on Monday, has made a special study of the picture theatres and kinema palaces in those parts. In conversation with a "Herald" reporter, Mr. Hayward stated that competition among the picture show films in the States and in Canada was much keener than was the ease in Australasia. There were, Mr. Hayward said, more picture theatres in proportion to population, and thb prices were cheaper than in New Zealand. There was, continued Mr. Hayward, a tendency on the part of the large film proprietaries to "enchain" the exhibitors, and the whole business of supplying films to proprietors of picture palaces was fast being turned into a trust. There was a growing disposition on the pa'rt of the public to forsake the "legitimate" theatre—drama and musical comedy—for the kinemat-ograph theatre, Some of the • greatest dramatic artists in America had realised that there was more money in acting in photo-plays than on the "legitimate" stage. There had been a great deal of talk in the State, said Mr. Hayward, regarding equipping the kinematograph with the phonograph, but as yet the proposal was only in an embryo stage. Mr. Hayward said he had little faith in the proposal, because" he considered the kinematograph had taught the public to think rapidly, and there would, lie thought, be a tendency to "slow lip" the screening of pictures if the phonograph wore introduced and made to act in concert with the kinematograph machine. o