Item Details:

PLEASE DO NOT SPIT

SILENT MOVIE GLASS SLIDE

GOLDEN AGE OF SILENT CINEMA, 1910s

Original Silent Movie Glass Slide

Edition: unknown

Publisher: unknown

Silent Movie Theatre Etiquette Glass Slide

Size: 3.3 x 4 in; 8.26 x 10.16 cm

Signed: unsigned

During the era of silent film, recommendations for behavior were displayed on title cards before a screening, offering advice including "Ladies, kindly remove your hats", "Loud talking or whistling not allowed", and "Please applaud with hands only". Modern cinemas often display a short reminder for patrons to turn off their cellphones, before the film begins. Some couples take advantage of the darkened auditorium of movie theatres to make out, such as kissing and physical intimacy, especially in the back row. This applies in particular to young people living with parents who tend to monitor or forbid certain activities, and in the case of other social or even legal problems with public display of affection. For one thing, the cinema was a place where classes, races, sexes, and ages “mixed much more freely than had been Victorian custom,” notes Rebecca Onion at Slate. There were the usual concerns about corruption of the “delicate sensibilities” of ladies. The Library of Congress writes: “As middle-class mass entertainments gained increasing popularity in the late nineteenth century, so did the impetus to instruct this new audience in the ways of appropriate public behavior. Moreover, these slides had another function. Most early movie theaters had only one projector so glass slides (or lantern slides, as they were originally called) were used as pauses when reels were being worked on or changed. As seen through these vintage photos, these glass slides often featured lighthearted instructions for proper behavior while viewing a film. Eager to expand their profits, early movie theaters, or “nickelodeons”, often put up slides between reel changes encouraging women to attend films (e.g. “Ladies and children are cordially invited to this theatre, no offensive pictures are ever shown here”), as theaters were not considered entirely respectable places.

Private Collection