Tweet New web site devoted exclusively to Coming Attraction slides

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce www.starts-thursday.com a new web site devoted exclusively to the art and history of coming attraction lantern slides.

Though I'm just getting it off the ground, I promise to keep it interesting and active with regular updates. I also very much encourage and appreciate any and all comments, criticisms, complaints, and contributions you may have to share.

As Joe Bob Briggs was so fond of saying - Check it out.

All the best,
rob

[silentfilm]

Wow, very nice!

Beautiful images, and very nice history too. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful!

Nice!

Bookmarked. This one is a keeper.

Bob

A beautiful website and some beautiful Coming Attraction slides, definitely worth a long look.

Although I also saw a few advertising slides on display here, there were no "singalong" slides as far as I could tell. I have been fortunate to acquire copies of a few of these from the George Eastman House, but have never seen any other examples, although I know they were quite popular at one time.

Does anyone know of any sources for such antique singalong slides? SETH

I've got a mostly complete set of song slides for "I've got rings on my fingers" (1909) and two partially complete sets of British slides for "Mother Machree" and "Tom Bowling". I've also got odd slides from a couple of other songs.

The Library of Congress has the negative collection of the Scott and Van Altena firm online so you can see quite a few song slide sets, alas without tinting.

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look at LOC. I never thought to look there, but I certainly should have!

In its heyday, Blackhawk Films offered for sale 35mm slide copies of many glass "coming attraction" and advertising slides. I bought some of them in the early 1970's, and they are quite beautiful. I understand that David Shepard acquired the masters when he acquired Blackhawk, but don't know what became of them when Blackhawk ceased business under his ownership. Perhaps he still has them. SETH

[silentfilm]

Ned Thanhouser of Thanhouser Preservation Inc. is the guest blogger on the Starts Thursday blog this week. He shows several coming attraction slides for Thanhouser.

Last week's post is about a glass slide for Charlie's Stormy Romance (1916), a film cobbled together (by Essanay?) of scenes from other films like Triple Trouble (1918) and Zepped.

(OBVIOUS QUESTION ALERT) Did movie runs at theaters usually start on Thursday? Was there a standard weekday that films changed, or was that unique to each theater?

(OBVIOUS QUESTION ALERT) Did movie runs at theaters usually start on Thursday? Was there a standard weekday that films changed, or was that unique to each theater?

Fred, I'm not sure. At the bigger houses, perhaps. I know a lot of the used lobby art I've seen for silent films (slides, WCs etc.) mention a film running for 2-3 days only.

[silentfilm]

In the teens especially, the program changed almost every day...


Regent Theatre, Albany, New York - September 24, 1917


In the 1920s, second-run theaters were pretty much the same, changing every two days or so.
Keystone Theatre, New York City, New York - May 4, 1925


Bigger theaters would show a film for 3-4 days, especially early in the film's run.
Loew's Greeley Square, New York - October 18th, 1926


The really big theaters in New York and Los Angeles would show the same film all week. This program starts on Sunday.
Strand Theatre, New York City, New York - November 14, 1915


And this showcase theater in Philadelphia starts their weekly program on Monday.
Loew's Aldine Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - March 9, 1925


In the 1930s, the same still applied. Smaller theaters or second-run theaters changed every two days or so.
Lyric Theatre, Rochester, New York - October 19, 1930


While big first-run theaters showed the same film all week.
Strand Theatre, New York City, New York - October 14, 1938

In the teens especially, the program changed almost every day...

Bruce, thanks. Boy, they disappeared even faster then than they do today--you really had to keep on your moviegoing toes to catch everything, didn't you?

We now return you to those thrilling days of your original conversation.

[Christopher Jacobs]

(OBVIOUS QUESTION ALERT) Did movie runs at theaters usually start on Thursday? Was there a standard weekday that films changed, or was that unique to each theater?

In Grand Forks ND, a typical middle-American small city/big town of about 20,000 in the teens and twenties (now about 50,000), there were several movie theatres, anywhere from three or four up to eight at its peak in 1922. Most theatres during the silent era ran three features per week with two-day runs: Mon-Tue, Wed-Thur, and Fri-Sat. Some theatres would run two features per week, Mon-Tue-Wed and Thur-Fri-Sat. A really popular film would sometimes be held over for a third or fourth day. On rare occasions, a big title like THE BIRTH OF A NATION or BEN-HUR would get a full week's run of six days. (Movies were not allowed on Sundays in North Dakota until after WWII sometime, so a theatre/ballroom across the river in East Grand Forks MN would have big bands and dancing during the week and on Sundays only would show a movie that day.) Interestingly, a couple of theatres specialized in low-budget westerns and revivals of hit films from a few years earlier, and certain films lke THE SPOILERS kept coming back year after year, while many others from the mid-teens would get at least one or two more bookings in the late teens and early twenties.

I have a bunch of slides and would like to make them into digital files for folks to see. Including two stereopticon sets with narration scripts from the mid 1910s.

What is the proper scanner to do this with or is another way to do it???