USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 30
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nt In the field of production, the revolt against Hollywood followed simi- fo ar lines. Those who had come to regard the cinema with intense serious- veness sought to drive home their strictures by example. Isolated experiment- enters tried to develop a new camera technique that would liberate the film rom the Hollywood idiom. Others made films that were clearly under the in- of a go in luence of the English documentalists, who apply their creative imagery to uch ordinary undramatic topics as the fishing industry, the radio and the postal service. Ralph Steiner made films without actors-the hypnotically hythmic Surf and Seaweed and H2O. Robert Florey made The Death of a forHollywood Extra and The Loves of Mr. Zero; James S. Watson and Mel- Lity. ille Weber produced Lot in Sodom; and news of even more daring ven- tern ures began to filter across the ocean from France and Spain and Germany. einRecently, the traditions of this energetic if somewhat directionless move- hent have been absorbed and revised in a trend toward the production of ocumentary films under Government auspices, resulting thus far in two ness listinguished efforts, The Plow That Broke the Plains and The River, both thatnade by Pare Lorentz.
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No matter where these new films were made, they had their greatest repercussions in New York. They spurred the intellectuals to louder cries against Hollywood and stronger efforts to make their own films. Unof- ficially, Hollywood producers welcomed although they did not support this movement, because it diverted pressure formerly exerted on them for the production of unprofitable films. Labor groups turned to movie-making in a valiant effort to counteract what they considered anti-labor propaganda incorporated in many Hollywood films. They even avowed the intention of taking Hollywood's audiences away from Hollywood. The Workers Film and Photo League, probably the most energetic and clear-headed of these insurgent groups, produced a series of newsreels, the documentary film of a hunger march on Washington, and the semi-documentary Taxi. Nykino Films made Pie in the Sky, an experimental satire of high cinematic quality" and engaging ribaldry. Significant in this connection was the cooperation of actors from the Broadway legitimate stage. The rapid development of amateur film equipment, which made it easier and cheaper to get high- caliber results, gave further stimulus to the movement away from Holly-+ wood.
New York's importance as a center of advanced ideas, coupled with its dominant position as an exhibition center, has made it the logical mecca of the serious film student. What cinematic work cannot be seen in New York? There are new releases, old pictures, foreign pictures. AcademicH research in the film art is further facilitated by the existence of the Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library and the Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art. The latter, a privately endowed project, has at- tained international importance, in the few years since its foundation, as an institution that serves with equal facility the demands of the industry| and the investigations of the film esthetician.
The art of the cinema has grown apace since the first public exhibition. of the Edison-Armat Vitascope in 1896, drawing without discrimination from all the intellectual treasures of the ages on which it could lay a prof- de itable if heavy hand. But New York, fountainhead of the nation's con-to temporary culture, fostered the motion picture palace that has made a place,e for itself in every metropolitan community.
Its origins were probably innocent of any motive save profit. In 1912,ne when Adolph Zukor imported the four-reel picture Queen Elizabeth, movieno houses were for the most part unpretentious. His importation demonstrated the success of pictures longer than the customary two reels. As a more ordo less direct result, George Kleine, one of the leaders of the Motion Pictures
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Patents Company, brought over the eight-reel spectacle, Quo Vadis. Be- cause the film's length put it beyond the scope of the nickelodeon, Kleine esorted to the large legitimate theaters and succeeded, intentionally or ac- identally, in giving an impressive setting to his spectacular film. It opened t the Astor Theatre on April 21, 1913, and ran for 22 weeks at a one- 18 lollar top.
When Mitchell Mark opened his Strand Theatre in 1914 and the Tri- ngle Film Corporation followed suit with the Knickerbocker Theatre, here was more than immediate profit at stake. These houses represented conscious effort on the part of the motion picture industry to cloak an ccomplished fact in respectability. The motion picture had become a pur- eyor of culture and amusement to the intellectually hungry immigrants f the lower East Side during the first teeming decade of the century.
The nickelodeons, when silent movies had barely developed the elemen- ary device of written subtitles, were offering primitive two-reel versions f Romeo and Juliet to the accompaniment of passionate but unpolished endition of Shakespeare's lines by an off-screen reader. From the wells of ontemporary reminiscence there often bubble up stories by born-and-bred its New Yorkers who tell how "we used to take our lunch to the nickelodeon ccand stay all day."
Long before Mitchell Mark achieved the splendor of the Strand, earnest iscussion raged in trade papers and general publications about the nickel- deon as a substitute for the saloon; about the nickelodeon as the poor an's theater ; and about the motion picture as an agency of great potential not actual social value.
But Mark's pretentious theater was more than the first modern "cathe- stry ral of the motion picture." It was the star to which were later hitched ich stratospheric wagons as those of the late Roxy (Samuel L. Rothapfel) tionnd Hugo Riesenfeld. The quoted phrase is Roxy's-in concept, if not tionterally. Until Mark's and Roxy's arrival in the field of exhibition, the prof- spectability of the motion picture had been in doubt. Mark's money and con oxy's resourcefulness allayed that doubt forever. Music, originally a su- placeerficial refinement, became essential to cinema expression. The physical tting of film exhibition became important. Mark's coup in the establish- ent of the Strand on Broadway set the inexorable laws of competition in novie otion.
The old Rialto and the Rivoli rose on Broadway in quick succession. In 19 the Capitol opened as the largest theater in the world and the era the super-movie house became an accepted fact. The Paramount, the
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Roxy and Radio City Music Hall followed at comparatively short inter- vals. Perhaps the evidence of a distinct pattern in the motion picture cathe- dral's development is due to the fact that all of those named, save the Paramount, felt the guiding hand of the same man-Roxy.
Unfortunately the magnitude of these theaters outstripped the caliber of the films they sheltered. Perhaps also because vaudeville still made strong competitive claims as a form of popular entertainment, the cathedrals con. tinued to present stage shows; and the term "presentation house" became common in the industry's parlance during the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era.
These presentations grew increasingly lavish and spectacular, but their quality remained negligible. They were, for the most part, competently pro- duced, but they lacked the intimacy and informality of vaudeville; and they failed to make good their claim as spectacle, partly because the images or the movie screen dwarfed the live actors and dancers on the stage.
The super-theater was, on its economic side, a reflection of the struggle for monopoly control of the motion picture industry. In the years following the war, the major film companies were preoccupied with consolidating their positions as producers and distributors. The competition for markets always keen, assumed a new and two-fold aspect in the 1920's. Each majo. producer turned his energies to the acquisition of a nation-wide theate. chain large enough to insure the minimum of showings consistent with : profitable return on every picture he produced. At the same time, the super theater in New York became a potent force in attracting bookings fron independent theater owners. The phrases "three smash weeks at the Roxy' and "a box-office record-breaker at the Paramount" are still frequent in ad vertising intended for exhibitors. The glamor of a gala first night made good publicity for general consumption. In cities like Chicago, Cleveland Detroit, Philadelphia, the huge presentation houses yielded a profit; il New York, the super-theater was often a financial liability maintained onl' to heighten the prestige of a producing company and its interlocking thea ter chain.
If the super-movie house began life as an awesome and forbidding ca thedral, it now exists as a castle in whose sheltering shadow the humble serf and artisan may work and play. "Early-bird matinees" and "midnigh shows" have made it a haven for the footsore and discouraged job-hunter the venturesome housewife, the impromptu family party and the city-bound victim of summer's heat or winter's cold. The interior of the moderr super-cinema is far more than an auditorium and a screen. The galaxy o
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paintings on the walls, the elaborate lounges where one may sit for hours upholstered comfort, are standard equipment. The immaculate and im- osing appointments of the washrooms are almost a consolation for the ccasional disappointments of the screen. No cathedral is without an in- rmary for emergencies; one even boasts a maternity ward. Of all the uper-houses, the Radio City Music Hall has been least compromised by he tastes and practices of misguided architects and decorators. Its archi- ecture is recognizably modern, and its decorations bear the effective stamp f muralists and sculptors whose esthetic sins, if any, are easier to forgive han those of their predecessors.
The sound film and the era of economic depression have wrought hanges in the cathedrals. The stage show persists in the larger ones, but has lost the hectic overtones attendant on its determination to be regarded s super-spectacle. The stabilization of the industry and the improved qual- y of films have contributed a quieter atmosphere and tone.
The heyday of the presentation palace for silent pictures was concurrent ith the rise of the little cinema movement. Discriminating intellectuals nd faddists alike shrank from the ballyhoo, the impersonal and often ill- onsidered splendor, of the big houses, as well as from the mediocrity of he films. The little cinema houses, as they sprang up in response to the emand for unusual films, sought to create an atmosphere of intimacy and formality. The architecture and decoration were frankly modern, in con- ast to the corrupted classicism of the big houses. Unable to offer mother- f-pearl washroom fittings, the little cinemas held out ping-pong tables, emi-tasses and cigarettes in the lounge. One such house with a Park Av- que clientele installed a checkroom for pets. The intimacy and informality these theaters are more than artificial atmosphere; they help to induce oods of lively and intelligent reaction to the program.
The newsreel theaters, particularly the Trans Lux houses, have contrib- ed notably to the architecture and decoration of small theaters. They have so given a new and healthy direction to movie-going habits. The wide triety encompassed by their programs in the course of 60 minutes-news, medy, travel and educational films-is making for a greater catholicity audience tastes. Again, the newsreel theater offers the usually articulate ew Yorker a public forum for the expression of his political and social ith, whatever it may be, in a period when aloofness from politics has come a rarity. During the Roosevelt-Landon campaign in 1936 the news- el houses resounded perpetually with cheers and hisses, applause and pos, as the opposing candidates appeared on the screen. Any student of
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politics and government might have gauged New York's reaction to Pres dent Roosevelt's proposal for enlarging the Supreme Court by the applau. and dissent of newsreel audiences, as protagonists or opponents of the plate spoke from the screen.
Booing has become a prevalent form of expression for movie audience carried over perhaps from the tradition of the baseball park; and political minded film-goers seem to consider two current European dictator 20 especially as fair game. Following the outbreak of the Spanish civil wa in 1936, many a theater resounded with cries of "No Pasaran," slogan Off the Spanish Loyalists and their sympathizers. Such expressions have bee emphatic and widely distributed.
In one instance, probably unique in movie history, audience disapprov: was aimed, not at the content of the newsreel, but at the producer. Hears Metrotone News was compelled to withdraw its name from the screen b cause of wide public displeasure at the policies espoused by publisher Wi liam Randolph Hearst. An account of the matter in the issue of Tin magazine for November 23, 1936, contains the following: "Unfortunatel while Metrotone was scrupulously avoiding every trace of partisanship, i famed producer's newssheets were doing nothing of the sort. By last sun mer cinemaddicts who objected to Hearst's newspaper policies had take to booing Hearst Metrotone News whenever it appeared on the screen picketing theaters that showed it. First move of theater managers was 1 cut the titles with the Hearst name on them and insert substitute titles an sub-titles. Last week, after his return from Europe, William Randolf Hearst made the change official."
The wedding-cake architecture of many American office buildings, th elaborate appointments of business offices, the glimmer of a young girl platinum blonde hair, the familiar utterance of words derived from us familiar lexicons-these are the externals of the influence the cinema wiel on New York and Kamm's Corners alike.
The more basic forms and content of this influence, however, have bee subjects of perennial discussion by sociologists, clergymen, clubwomen ar art critics. None has hesitated to cast a stone in the direction of the scree (though perhaps only the little cinema has been immediately constructive The sociologists and clergymen have approached unanimity in their charg that the cinema is dangerous as a social force; they sometimes fail to tal note of the social forces that shape the cinema and are reflected in it.
Art critics have protested (though not so loudly in recent years ) that th cinema is per se not an art at all, because it employs industrial method
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achinery and organization; they ignore the fact that artists in all ages .ve sought to make their art greater by applying to it all the resources science. No one reproached Leonardo da Vinci for his work as a scien- it-or for discovering, incidentally, the principle of modern photography. nd no one effectively discounted the French impressionist painters for eir preoccupation with Cherreul's spectrum analysis and the physics of ght.
For the rest, the social ends and esthetic resolutions that this most social the arts may attain in the future are limited only to the progressively gher levels of social organization and cultural development achieved by merican civilization itself.
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World of Wireles.
N THE world's intricate spiderweb of radio communication, New Yor th forms a central node. The city's radiotelegraphic facilities, day and nightec keep up a running conversation of war, business and politics with thea rest of the world in the dot-and-dash language of telegraphy. The cit is also the central link of two international chains in the transmission by radio of the human voice. International short wave programs, original In ing abroad, are retransmitted from New York to other radio stations if the country via the broadcasting chains and telephone wire systems, an the city is the radiotelephone "bottle-neck" where international message at are handled. Yet these are by now commonplace aspects of the routin ar workings of civilization's underlying machinery of communication.
It is in broadcasting, where radio most vividly touches the lives of th th people-where it enters their homes with words and music to becom part of the daily routine of living-that New York plays one of itt most significant and popularly appreciated roles.
Much of radio's latter-day development may be credited to Americaf and in that development New York has played an important part. Knowlf edge of the fundamental phenomena upon which radio is based date back nearly 26 centuries, when the Greek experimenter, Thales of Miletust caught a glimpse of electrical attraction induced by friction. More than 22 centuries passed before this phenomenon was described by the Engo lish scientist, William Gilbert, in his work De Magnete, where thi word "electric" appears for the first time. Gilbert heads the long list of distinguished experimenters who formulated the basic laws of elect tricity, a list that includes Volta, Coulomb, Gauss, Ampere, Ohm, Caven? dish, Faraday and a host of others. But the birth of radio proper dic not take place until the 1870's, when the great Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, developed the wave theory of electromagnetism He calculated that electromagnetic waves travelled at the speed of light
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nd showed that the length of these waves depended on the electrical length" of the circuit producing them, just as the pitch of a harp's ote depends on the length of the string that produces it. Thus radio as born-on paper. In 1888, a German professor, Heinrich Rudolph Iertz, succeeded in producing the radio waves Maxwell had predicted y discharging sparks of "static" electricity across the gap between a air of small metal balls, and was able to send his "Hertzian" radio aves over a distance of several hundred feet. In the 1890's, Guglielmo Marconi took Hertz's apparatus, connected one of the metal balls to he earth, the other to an "antenna" strung in the air, and shot his sparks cross the gap between them. By 1903 he was sending and receiving adiotelegraph messages across the Atlantic Ocean.
Shortly thereafter the American physicist, Professor R. A. Fessenden, ointed out that radio could be used to carry the human voice as well. h 1905, J. A. Fleming, an English inventor, produced his two-element valve" or vacuum tube; and in September 1906, Professor Fessenden gras able as a result to install an experimental radiotelephone transmitter gett Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Here he arranged transmissions of voice und music that were picked up by startled ship operators at sea in what as undoubtedly the first successful radio broadcast in the world. In the same year, Dr. Lee De Forest of New York added another element the Fleming "valve," and thereby evolved the three-element radio inibe, called by him the "audion." This third element was the "grid"-a ind of electrical trigger which made it possible for a tiny electric cur- ent to reproduce an exact duplicate of itself on an enormously ampli- caed scale. This invention above all others was responsible for the mevelopment of radio as it is known today.
te In the winter of 1909, Dr. De Forest used his audions to arrange a radiotelephone broadcast of Caruso singing Pagliacci at the Metropolitan Opera House, and picked it up at his home for the benefit of a circle gf invited guests. Radio broadcasting as a commercial possibility was When just around the corner. But De Forest's radio tube was technically in improvement on the Fleming "valve"; the Marconi Company held che Fleming patents and by court decision was able to enjoin De Forest com manufacturing his tube, but could not itself make the three-element udion so far superior to the Fleming tube. Other patent holders entered their claims as well; and there matters stood deadlocked in one of the host costly, infinitely complicated and confused series of patent litiga- tons on record-until October 1919, when the various conflicting inter-
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ests pooled their patents and formed the Radio Corporation of America
In 1919, the ban on amateur radio which had been imposed durin the World War was lifted, and amateurs returning from military servic opened their radiotelegraph and radiotelephone stations again. Amon them was Dr. Frank Conrad, an engineer of the Westinghouse Electri and Manufacturing Company, who rigged up an experimental radic telephone amateur station at his home in East Pittsburgh, and conducte regular musical broadcasts for the benefit of an audience of 15 or 2 fellow amateurs. By the summer of 1920 his audience had grown to sev eral hundred, and Pittsburgh department stores were advertising "af proved radio receiving sets for listening to Dr. Frank Conrad's concerts. Now fully aware of the implications of this experiment, the Westing house Company installed a new radiotelephone transmitter in one of it buildings under Dr. Conrad's supervision, just in time to broadcast th Presidential election returns of 1920 to an audience estimated at 1,000 The broadcast was an immediate success.
The new station-the first regular broadcasting station in America- received the call letters KDKA. Other stations followed rapidly and th sale of radio receivers and parts began to boom. By 1922 there wer several stations in New York, among them station WEAF, establishe" by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company as the first statiof offering its facilities for rental on a time basis to commercial sponsor: By 1923 the licensed radio stations in the country numbered 573.
In 1922 a New York station sent its program by wire to a Chicag station to be broadcast there simultaneously, in the first successful "chain broadcast. WEAF, the pioneer toll station, then became the central poir. where programs were originated and sent by wire to other stations. c. the country in a broadcasting chain of ever-growing size. The cost o these programs was distributed proportionately between the commercia sponsors and the chain stations using the programs. In 1926 the Nationa Broadcasting Company was organized by Radio Corporation of America the General Electric Company, and the Westinghouse Electric and Manu facturing Company to take over stations WEAF and WJZ in New Yor. for service as the cores of two national broadcasting chains-the so-called "red" and "blue" networks. The Columbia Broadcasting System an.10 other chains were quick to follow the precedent set for nationwide prof gram release.
Until recently, New York's dominant position in the nation's broad casting scheme remained unchallenged in every phase, but New York
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nce supreme as the point of origin of chain programs, has since given ay to Hollywood. A current report shows that of 44 top-bracket com- ercial radio programs, Hollywood was originating 36, Chicago six, d New York only three. Yet New York is still the financial and admin- trative headquarters of more than half the country's stations; the point here radio-control circuits are planned and managed; the focal point here radio advertising-the life-blood of American broadcasting-is ought and sold; and the center of radio's comparatively new subsidiary dustry, the making of "electrical transcriptions"-the phonograph rec- :ds that are used by all the smaller stations.
New York City is now the home of the four largest national broad- sting networks, of two regional networks, and of a tributary station a seventh chain. Of the "big four," the National Broadcasting Com- any owns and operates two-the "red" (WEAF) and "blue" (WJZ) etworks. Though their studios are in Rockefeller Center's "Radio City," teir transmitting equipment-the real "station"-is housed outside the ty boundaries: that of WEAF at Bellmore, Long Island, and that of 7JZ at Boundbrook, New Jersey. The Columbia Broadcasting System, or which station WABC is the local outlet, maintains four "studio the- ers" in the city; all of them connected by wire circuits to the station's ansmitter at Mountain View, New Jersey. Station WOR, the metro- litan outlet of the Mutual Broadcasting System, is a New Jersey station wned by the Bamberger department store in Newark. A number of its udios are in New York; others, along with its transmitter, are in Newark. The smaller regional networks are the Intercity, with station WMCA, id the Empire State, with the Hearst-owned station WINS, as New ork City outlets. Station WHN, noted as the original home of the Major Bowes Amateur Hour," is an affiliate of the country's most power- 1 station, WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio. How powerful this station is can grasped from the fact that its maximum power reaches 500,000 watts compared to 50,000 each for such well-known stations as WEAF, ABC, and WOR.
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