Movie & home
Sent home to parents $10.00
It is funny how I am trying
to pass my idle hours,
nothing seems to cheer me.
Its a period of one great
longing for me.
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Matt’s Notes
Movies Papa might have seen in this day included:
- Sporting Youth, a car-racing comedy starring Reginald Denny (“a good-looking, virile young man who does not overact,” according to the New York Times)
- Try And Get It, a farce about competing salesmen, accompanied by a short film of boxing match recreations called Great Moments in Great Battles (the latter sounds more interesting to me)
- Woman to Woman, a Moulin Rouge drama with Betty Compson condemmed by the Times for its overuse of rain effects, a bad habit perpetuated, unfortunately, by modern movies
- Three Weeks, an adaptation of an Elinor Glyn novel by the same name (Papa probably saw this if he was in the mood for a first-run movie at a big movie palace, since it was playing at The Capitol Theater, one of his preferred venues)
- Beau Brummel, starring John Barrymore in the title role and Mary Astor as Lady Margery
- Virtuous Liars, a light comedy dismissed by the Times as “a modern entertainment, the story of which does not bear close scrutiny.”
Papa’s local theaters like the Loews Delancey or the Clinton Theatre probably showed movies a few weeks after they had opened rather than first-run movies, so if he was in the mood to pass his “idle hours” in the neighborhood he might have seen:
- The Covered Wagon
- America
- Secrets
- The Thief of Bagdad
- The Ten Commandments
And for those of you just joining us, note that Papa’s $10 disbursement to his family back in the old country was larger than usual. He was no doubt worried about his father’s ongoing convalescence from an injury sustained in a fall a few weeks earlier. This, along with a bevy of romantic woes including his infatuation with an aloof woman named Henriette, would have contributed to his ongoing malaise.
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Additional notes
We’ve talked about the Loews Delancey Theatre and Clinton Theatre before. Both were within walking distance of Papa’s apartment on Attorney Street.