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The Constant Watchfulness of Irish Cinema in March 1916

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Irish-American James Mark Sullivan, who co-founded the Film Company of Ireland in March 1916. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002706157/

Irish-American James Mark Sullivan, who co-founded the Film Company of Ireland in March 1916. Image from the Library of Congress.

Although Ireland is celebrating the centenary of the 1916 Rising in March 2016, Easter was celebrated in 1916 in late April. Nevertheless, March 1916 saw such momentous cinematic events as the founding of the first major indigenous film production company. And even if Easter itself was still some way off, Irish cinema hit the beginning of the Easter season. In what was clearly a coordinated move by the Irish Catholic hierarchy, several bishops mentioned cinema in their Lenten pastorals, the letters from them read out on 5 March 1916 in churches in their dioceses to mark the start of the 40-day fasting period leading up to Easter. “Immodest representations in Theatres should be reprobated by every good man, and every effort should be made to discountenance them,” ordered the Bishop of Cork, but he had a particular warning about cinema:

We desire to direct your attention particularly to cinematograph and picture shows. The films come from outside, and from places where what concerns Christian modesty is made little of, and there is always a danger that what is unfit to be seen may be exhibited unless constant watchfulness is exercised to exclude what is objectionable and offensive in a Catholic country.(“Lenten Pastorals.”)

This call for “constant watchfulness” was an intensification of the hierarchy’s involvement in the church’s efforts to control cinema. If the church could not prevent people going to picture houses altogether, it was determined that it would shape what, where and when people would watch. The initially mainly lay Vigilance Committees had in late 1915 been put under centralized clerical control as the Irish Vigilance Association, which held a mass meeting at Dublin’s Mansion House that sent a renewed demand for the introduction of a specifically Irish film censorship (“Mansion House Meeting”). The many local campaigns against the opening of picture houses on Sunday were also led from the altar. “At different Masses on Sunday last in the four parish churches, as well as in the Black Abbey and Capuchin Friary,” reported the Kilkenny People, “a strong appeal was made to the people to abstain from attending the local Picture House on Sundays, particularly during Lent” (“Sunday Cinemas in Kilkenny”).

Ad for Stafford's Longford Cinema in St Patrick's week included an episode of The Exploits of Elaine (US: Wharton, 1914), the serial that featured the master criminal the Clutching Hand. Longford Leader 11 Mar. 1916: 3.

Ad for Stafford’s Longford Cinema in St Patrick’s week included an episode of The Exploits of Elaine (US: Wharton, 1914), the serial that featured the master criminal the Clutching Hand. Longford Leader 11 Mar. 1916: 3.

In making their calls for vigilance, the bishops could indicate the harmfulness of cinema by citing the ongoing trial of a gang of boys in Mullingar who had committed robberies inspired by onscreen criminals. The papers reported many similar cases including the prosecution of 20-year-old ex-sailor James J. Sloan who told the Belfast Assizes that his house-breaking equipment was “the materials Charlie Chaplin works with” (“Items of Interest”). The prominence of such stories led James Stafford of the Longford Cinema to refute publicly the claim made by a boy charged with larceny at the local petty session that he had committed the robbery to get money to go to the pictures. “I have made it a point not to admit to the Longford Cinema Theatre boys of this class,” Stafford contended, “and this boy in particular is one of several of his class whom I frequently refused admission” (“Unfounded Allegation”). As the Mullingar case suggests, the class he referred to was the poorest of the working-class.

The cinema industry long feared the imposition of crippling taxes, going so far in this cartoon as to identify the British government with the zeppelin raids then terrorizing southeast England. Bioscope 7 Oct. 1915: 16c.

The cinema industry long feared the imposition of crippling taxes, going so far in this cartoon as to identify the British government with the zeppelin raids then terrorizing southeast England. Bioscope 7 Oct. 1915: 16c.

The British government also had a vigilant eye on the cinema industry in Britain and Ireland as a way of raising needed war funds. Months before the imposition of an amusement tax in the May 1916 budget, there was much discussion of its likely effects on the industry and how it was to be collected. “The view which at present commends itself to the authorities,” reported the Irish Independent, “is that the Government should print the tickets for the cinema shows, and these should be purchased from the Government by the trade at a price which would cover the tax” (“Proposed Cinema Tax”). As well as further binding the cinema industry to the British war effort, the tax would alter the working-class nature of cinema. “Upon the injustices of a penny per seat tax there can be not two opinions,” argued Frank W. Ogden Smith in the trade journal Bioscope,

and if such a tax be allowed to pass unchallenged this point must be borne in mind – when we revert to peace times it will mean the cinema as a poor man’s amusement and recreation will have ceased to exist, for the Government having tasted the fruit and found it refreshing in actuality not theory, will not be likely to relinquish the tax. (“Passing of the Penny Cinema.”)

Longford and Mullingar were just two of the Irish places where this process could be most clearly seen in March 1916.

Metro ad featuring Ruffells’ parrot, Dublin Evening Mail 6 Mar. 1916: 2.

Metro ad featuring Ruffells’ parrot, Dublin Evening Mail 6 Mar. 1916: 2.

The industry as a whole – including the Bioscope – had long courted an audience far beyond the penny cinemagoer, and it did so in a climate in which many doubted that cinema represented a quality contribution to culture. At a meeting of the Cork County Council, the chairman complained that the large amount of money spent on technical education was wasted because “the people for whom it was intended showed no disposition to profit by it.” Instead, the popularity of Charlie Chaplin and picture houses were proof, he believed, of the failure of the art classes provided to raise the public taste (“Cork County Council”). Publicity strategies to counter such views and promote films and picture houses as quality entertainment were important, and one ad campaign stood out in Ireland in March 1916. Metro’s British agent Ruffells’ Exclusives was pioneering in marketing film brands to the Irish public. Ads for Metro had been appearing in newspapers for some time when the Bioscope reported that Ruffells in Dublin abandoned their trademark parrot for another animal in order to stage a spectacular publicity stunt: “This consisted of six donkey carts, all passing the leading station and advertising on large boards the display of Metro pictures. The houses showing the films were the Bohemian, the Carlton, the Grafton Street and Grand” (“Trade Topics”).

Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1916: 4.

Dublin’s Carlton showing Metro drama Cora. Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1916: 1.

These named picture houses were among Dublin’s most prominent cinemas, and each watched what the others were doing. What they were doing to ensure success was to provide lavishly comfortable buildings, feature such highly publicized films as Metro’s and offer novel musical accompaniment. Located in Phibsboro outside the city centre, the Bohemian had attracted patrons since its opening in 1914 by advertising the best musical attractions in the city. The Bohemian’s orchestra consisted of 16 musicians under musical director Percy Carver. With the increasing competition for cinema patrons in the city centre, the Carlton as the latest-opened picture house sought to secure its audience by adding to its musical attractions. Beginning on Patrick’s Day, 17 March, the Carlton challenged the Bohemian’s musical pre-eminence by engaging the concert violinist Erwin Goldwater. The Irish Times called this “[a] new departure in connection with cinema entertainments [that] takes the form of a violin recital by Mr. E. Goldwater, a pupil of Sevcik, and formerly first violin at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Mr. Goldwater will conduct the orchestra at the Carlton” (“Platform and Stage”).

Clontarf reopens 17 Mar 1916 ET

Ad for reopening of the Clontarf Cinema; Evening Telegraph 17 Mar. 1916: 1.

Goldwater’s engagement was not the only significant event that picture-house proprietors planned for the holiday of the Irish patron saint. A company led by I. I. Bradlaw, David Frame and Henry Grandy reopened the Clontarf Cinema in the former Clontarf Town Hall. “It has been re-decorated and reconstructed throughout in the most luxurious manner,” the Evening Telegraph announced, “and will be found to be equal in every respect to the very best picture houses in the city” (“The Cinema, Clontarf”). Several picture houses offered special programmes of Irish films and/or music. Perhaps the most surprising of these was at Belfast’s CPA (Central Presbyterian Association) Assembly Hall. “Five reels of well-selected cinema were screened, and the premier place amongst these was taken by “Brennan of the Moor,” a three-part filmisation of the Irish story,” revealed the Northern Whig. “Mr. F. J. Moffett presided at the organ, and also acted as accompanist. Mr. W. R. Gordon sang several Irish folk-songs in a most pleasing manner” (“C.P.A. Entertainments”).

“Mr. Erwin Goldwater.” Irish Limelight May 1917: 17.

Although Brennan of the Moor (US: Solax, 1913) was revived on occasion, the most popular films to constitute an Irish programme were still those made by Sidney Olcott and Gene Gauntier for Kalem and other companies in Ireland between 1910 and 1914. Nenagh’s Ormond Kinema Company provided films – including an unnamed Chaplin and The Colleen Bawn (US: Kalem, 1911) – free of charge to the Toomevara and Nenagh Hurling Club after their fund-raising concert in Nenagh’s Town Hall on 17 March (“St. Patrick’s Night’s Concert”). “Some unique films of the famous Tubberadora, Toomevara, and Thurles Teams” were also shown (“The Coming St Patrick’s Night Concert”). The Colleen Bawn was the most popular of Dublin-born Dion Boucicault’s stage melodramas, but productions of his more political Arrah-na-Pogue and The Shaughraun were particularly evident in March 1916. In early March 1916, The Shaughraun (US: Kalem, 1912) – which featured an escaped Fenian – was revived at both Dublin’s Rotunda and Bohemian; during the same period, a stage version was produced at Dublin’s Father Mathew Hall by the Barry Sullivan Society, while at the Hibernian Hall, Parnell Square, the Hibernian Players staged Arrah-na-Pogue. The Olcott and Gauntier’s Arrah-na-Pogue (US: Kalem, 1911) was shown at the newly refurbished Omagh Picture House on St Patrick’s night (“Omagh Picture House”). The Rotunda’s programme for St Patrick’s day and the two days following included two other of Kalem’s Irish-shot films: the 1798 drama Rory O’More (US: Kalem, 1911) and The Fishermaid of Ballydavid (US: Kalem, 1911).

Small ad from the Film Company of Ireland seeking Irish scenarios; Freeman's Jorunal 9 Mar. 1916: 2.

Small ad from the Film Company of Ireland seeking Irish scenarios; Freeman’s Jorunal 9 Mar. 1916: 2.

The Kalem films were so regularly revived in part because no fiction films had been shot in Ireland since Olcott had stopped coming to Ireland following the outbreak of the war. In March 1916, this situation was about to change with the founding of the most important indigenous Irish film production company of the silent period. On 2 March, Irish American lawyer and diplomat James Mark Sullivan and Henry Fitzgibbon registered the Film Company of Ireland (FCOI) at Dublin’s Companies Registration Office. The FCOI had little early press coverage. “The objects are to establish, organise and work in Ireland the manufacture and construction of cinema films of every description,” reported the Freeman’s Journal, seemingly reproducing the information on the company registration form,

and to engage in the making of scenic and dramatic moving pictures, and in the sale and exchange of cinema pictures, and to engage in the employment of skilled and unskilled labour, and of all such artistes, authors, and performers as the development of the business may require. (“An Irish Film Company.”)

Ads that appeared in the papers on 9 March specifically sought authors of “photo play scenarios, preferably with Irish atmosphere and background.” These ads gave the address of the FCOI’s offices as 16 Henry Street, uncomfortably close to the GPO, soon to be the major site of the Easter Rising.

J. M. Kerrigan with Sara Allgood in a 1911 Abbey touring production of The Playboy of the Western World. Image from Wikipedia.

J. M. Kerrigan with Sara Allgood in a 1911 Abbey touring production of The Playboy of the Western World. Image from Wikipedia.

The FCOI also sought actors, and here Joseph Holloway’s diary offers an intriguing early insight. When actor Felix Hughes answered an FCOI ad for actors, he “was astonished on entering the manager’s room to see Joe Kerrigan quite at home there with his back to the fire – the manager was seated at a table & spoke with the twang of a Yankee.” Kerrigan was one of the Abbey Theatre’s leading actors, and Hughes was surprised to encounter him seemingly embedded with Sullivan in the FCOI. However,

Kerrigan spoke up for him & said to the manager, “he’s the very one we want,” (evidently K is to be the star actor in new Co. & has some monetary interest in it as well.) “He has played at the Abbey & travelled with Co to London.” So the manager said, “We must have Felix,” & entered his name & address & said, “he would hear from him in the course of four or five weeks time when all arrangements were fixed up to begin operations. (Holloway, 21 Mar. 1916).

As its operations began, the FCOI gave the hope that cinema would not just be something that the authorities constantly surveilled but would produce challenging films for burgeoning Irish audiences at a historical moment.

References

“The Cinema, Clontarf.” Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1916: 2.

“The Coming St Patrick’s Night Concert.” Nenagh News 11 Mar. 1916: 4.

“Cork County Council: Annual Estimate.” Cork Examiner 1 Mar. 1916: 3.

“C.P.A. Entertainments.” Northern Whig 20 Mar. 1916: 7.

Holloway, Joseph. Holloway Diaries. National Library of Ireland.

“Items of Interest: A Youthful Burglar” Irish Independent 17 Mar. 1916: 4.

“An Irish Film Company.” Freeman’s Journal 4 Mar 1916: 2.

“Lenten Pastorals: Diocese of Cork.” Cork Examiner 6 Mar. 1916: 7.

“Mansion House Meeting: Message from the Pope.” Freeman’s Journal 14 March 1916: 3.

Ogden Smith, Frank W. “The Passing of the Penny Cinema.” Bioscope 9 Mar. 1916: 1008.

“Omagh Picture House: Extensive Alterations.” Ulster Herald 18 March 1916: 5.

“Platform and Stage.” Irish Times 18 Mar. 1916: 7.

“Proposed Cinema Tax.” Irish Independent 23 Mar. 1916: 4.

“St. Patrick’s Night’s Concert.” Nenagh News 18 Mar. 1916: 3.

“Sunday Cinemas in Kilkenny.” Kilkenny People 18 Mar. 1916: 5.

“Trade Topics.” Bioscope 30 Mar. 1916: 1377.

“An Unfounded Allegation Contradicted.” Longford Leader 25 Mar. 1916: 2.

Monopolizing the Limelight: Irish Cinema and Politics in Autumn 1915

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“Valentine Grant in All for Old Ireland, the first of a series of Lubin comedy dramas made in Irelnad.” Pictures and the Picturegoer 11 Sep. 1915: 461. Courtesy of the Media History Digital Library.

In late August 1915, a Dublin Evening Mail columnist urged readers to pay more attention to such politicians as Winston Churchill than to celebrities. “It would undoubtedly be very bad for the nation,” s/he argued,

if its greatest heroes were, say, Mr. Harry Lauder […] or Charlie Chaplin, who is said to be making a colossal fortune by comic performances for the cinematograph films. These people deserve our respect, no doubt; they scarcely ever fail to get our applause; but we must not give them the monopoly of the limelight. (“Town Topics.”)

Given that limelight was the late 19th century’s favoured theatrical lighting, this was precisely what one should expect such star performers as Harry Lauder and Charlie Chaplin to be monopolizing, had not “limelight” already become synonymous by 1915 with public attention. Churchill, Chaplin and limelight: even as the Mail reporter denies it, the juxtaposition is suggestive of an early celebrity culture that made little distinction between a personality’s reasons for occupying the public’s gaze, be his or her forte politics or pratfalls. In Irish picture houses in mid-autumn 1915, politics – if not Churchill – were important, but Chaplin was everywhere.

Evening Telegraph 13 Sep. 1915: 2.

Lord Kitchener, all but pointing his finger at us in this illustrated ad from the Evening Telegraph 13 Sep. 1915: 2.

Churchill did not appear on Irish cinema screens at this time – or at least, he was not noted to have done – but politics both international and national was visible in films and in the picture-house auditorium. Irish-born Horatio Herbert Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War, was a more visible and commanding presence in pictures houses than Churchill in September 1915. His image appeared on illustrated ads for the film Lord Kitchener in the Firing Line (Britain: Gaumont, 1915). “At one point Lord Kitchener is seen observing the German positions,” noted the Freeman’s Journal, “at another he is reviewing the French troops. Taken altogether, the film is of great historic interest” (“Grafton Picture House”). Film’s usefulness as a recruiting tool was also being recognized in Ireland, where the Dublin Recruiting Committee awarded Norman Whitten’s General Film Supply a contract to produce an Irish recruiting film (Paddy, 9 Sep.).

Bioscope 23 Sep. 1915: 1380.

Full-page from the Bioscope 23 Sep. 1915: 1380.

It was not only in such newsreel specials that the war was represented but also in fictional propaganda films (see more here, here and here). In late September, Eclair publicized “Give Up your Gold, It’s for Britain!!” (France, 1915), which aimed to increase public subscription to war funds. Although the War Office had begun to make and commission films itself, this film was produced by a commercial company that expected the film to be popular by catching widespread support for the war. “Although we have had many ‘war films,’” the Bioscope observed, “[i]n too few cases has the wonderful power of the cinema drama in propaganda work been realised and made use of” (“Give Up Your Gold”). As was the Bioscope’s practice, such significant if modest progress in British – or in this case, Franco-British – propaganda was said to be more than matched by developments in Germany. The paper reprinted a report from the Daily Chronicle outlining the expansion and increased coordination of the film department of the “‘Central For Foreign Service,’ whose mission is the circulation of ‘true information’ about Germany in neutral countries” (“German Film Campaign”). The article emphasized that this was a well-connected and competent committee that included “Baron von Mumm, late German Ambassador at Peking, and the notorious Herr Dernburg,” a film producer. The worrying damage its films could do in neutral European countries might be bad enough, but “an American has had duplicates of all the new films supplied to him and […] he is pledged to exhibit them in the United States” (ibid.).

Irish loyalty and commitment to the war effort was by no means unanimous, but it was widespread given the number of Irishmen serving in the British armed forces. In the initial months of the war, the Bioscope had kept a tally of cinema personnel, including those from Ireland, who had volunteered, but as the war wore on, the journal had discontinued the practice. However, in August 1915, Paddy – the Irish correspondent – had reported on a ceremony at the Princess Cinema in Rathmines, Dublin, honouring James Ball, Thomas Butler and James Burke, members of staff who had recently joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers. “Each of the boys was presented with a suitable gift” from managing director Izidore Bradlaw, Paddy observed, “and they were informed that their places would remain open for them on their return” (Paddy, 12 Aug.).

Catherine Countiss and Lionel Barrymore in A Modern Magdalen. Moving Picture World 13 Mar. 1915: 1614

Catherine Countiss and Lionel Barrymore in A Modern Magdalen. Moving Picture World 13 Mar. 1915: 1614. Courtesy of Media History Digital Library.

Such events suggest that a consensus existed in picture houses, but descriptions of certain happenings in the auditorium make one wonder how anything on the screen could have monopolized picture-goers’ attention. The Catholic Dublin Vigilance Committees’ campaign to ensure that cinema would be suitable for their vision of Irish society had gained momentum in 1915, thanks particularly to William and Francis Larkin’s series of protests in picture houses (see here, here, here and here). William Larkin was busy again on the evening of 14 September, when during a screening of A Modern Magdalen (US: Life Photo Film, 1915) at the Bohemian in Phibsboro, Dublin, he shouted that Ireland needed film censorship. His shouting caused people to leave in a hurry, and on the steps outside the building, he continued to harangue the departing patrons. By now familiar with Larkin’s antics, proprietor Frederick Sparling had him arrested on a charge of offensive and riotous behaviour. This was, of course, exactly what Larkin wanted: the guaranteed extra publicity that would come with a court appearance (“A Scene in Picture Theatre”). And as in previous cases, the judge demonstrated at least tacit approval for Larkin’s actions by dismissing the case on the basis that it was not possible to behave offensively and riotously – as least not as the law defined it – in a theatre or picture house (“Scene in a City Cinema”). This was the end of the matter for a while, but Sparling would pursue it further later in the year (Condon).

The Catholic nationalist press supported the Vigilance movement. This photo was captioned “The Freeman’s Journal and ‘Evening Telegraph’ Section of the Procession, including motor vans.” Evening Telegraph 6 Sep. 1915: 6.

The Catholic nationalist press supported the Vigilance movement. This photo of the Vigilance demonstration in Dublin on 5 September was captioned: “The Freeman’s Journal and ‘Evening Telegraph’ Section of the Procession, including motor vans.” Evening Telegraph 6 Sep. 1915: 6.

Larkin was not acting alone in his policing of the morals of popular entertainment but was part of a mass movement. On 5 September, he had addressed an overflow meeting of people who congregated outside Dublin’s Mansion House for the now-annual demonstration of Ireland’s Vigilance Committees. Larkin had not been invited to speak at the main meeting in the Mansion House, but his audience numbered about 20,000, who heard him relate his experiences of protesting with impunity in Dublin’s theatres and picture houses (“Fighting a Plague”). Perhaps inspired by Larkin’s words, two days later, on 7 September, a group of men associated with the Catholic Arch-Confraternity of the Holy Family chased the artistes performing the variety revue Everything in the Gardens from the stage of Limerick’s Rink Palace (“Limerick to the Rescue”). The Rink Palace was part of the circuit operated by Ireland’s best known film exhibitor, James T. Jameson, who ran occasional weeks of pure variety revue but mostly offered programmes of pictures accompanied by one variety act. With over ten-years’ experience of Irish show business, Jameson should have known his audience well enough to avoid such a confrontation, but it appears that he fell afoul of a vigilance revival (“Vigilance Revived”).

“Limerick to the Rescue.” Leader 25 Sep. 1915: 153. The verse below the image explains that it “[r]epresents the raided revue with the performer flying, the audience clearing out, and the rotten Press man tearing up his puff. Wee Lorcan [Sherlock, theatre owner and Dublin’s former mayor] is seen gazing in consternation form a box.”

The pro-vigilance press was delighted with this action, perhaps none more so than D.P. Moran’s Leader. In July, Moran had published a Tom Lalor cartoon with accompanying verse by A.M.W. (John Swift) that characterized the Dublin popular audience as degenerate. Now just over two months later, the Leader published the reverse angle of this image, portraying and praising not a typical degenerate audience but the actual members of the audience of Limerick’s Rink Palace, who vowed – among other things – that “No Cockney dirt shall e’er disgrace / The fame of this historic place” (“Limerick to the Rescue”). While these popular actions continued, some of the members of the Vigilance Committees who had been inside the Mansion House were meeting with members of Dublin Corporation (“The Corporation”). Newspaper reports put particular emphasis on the discussion of objectionable film posters and of suggestive music-hall revues. Alderman J.J. Farrell, who as proprietor of the Phibsboro Picture House had experienced protests by Larkin, was adamant that none of the picture houses he controlled showed objectionable material and challenged the delegation to name the offending premises. However, Lord Mayor James Gallagher assured the delegation that “any machinery in the hands of the Corporation would be set in motion at once” (ibid. and Rockett 44-51).

Freeman's Journal 16 Sep. 1915: 8.

Classified ad for Chaplin imitators, Freeman’s Journal 16 Sep. 1915: 8.

That the Vigilance Committees did not fully understand cinema is seen in their lack of attention to Charlie Chaplin. The pattern of Larkin’s protests, the Leader’s articles and the terms on which they approached the Corporation indicate that they saw cinema as a kind of theatre. For them, it was a recorded version of the scandalous plays that Larkin also disrupted or the suggestive revues that the Arch-Confraternity men scattered. Although cinema certainly included these kinds of entertainments, Chaplin worked the other way around. His tramp character had been created on film and was assumed into a diverse range of cultural contexts. All picture houses showed his films as soon as they got them, but some created special Chaplin-themed events. The Electric Theatre in Dublin’s Talbot Street did not often advertise, but it did so during the period of 27 September-2 October, which it dubbed Chaplin Week. The management was confident that this would repay the cost of publicity because they had run a very successful Chaplin Week at the end of August. During the same week, ads for Dublin’s Coliseum Theatre promoted the live revue Charlie Chaplin Mad, featuring “A Stage Full of Charlie Chaplins” and “The Only Charlie Chaplin Girl Extant.” The last claims seems unlikely if a Bioscope item on a women’s fashion trend was to be taken seriously. “Mr. Charles Chaplin, whose ears at present must be in a chronic state of tingling,” the item began, “[h]as further added to his unique reputation by inspiring a well-known firm of ladies’ costumiers to the designing of a Charlie Chaplin costume” (“Trade Topics”).

Ads featurng Chaplin, autumn 1915. Left, Evening Telegraph 12 Aug. 1915: 2; right, Dublin Evening Mail 11 Sep. 1915: 5.

Ads featuring Chaplin, autumn 1915. Left, Evening Telegraph 12 Aug. 1915: 2; right, Dublin Evening Mail 11 Sep. 1915: 5.

Chaplin attracted an audience but also inspired an expressive fandom. The editor of the Sunday Herald claimed to have received thousands of replies when s/he offered readers £10 for the funniest story in response to the title “Why Charlie Chaplin makes me laugh.” The Masterpiece Theatre, also in Dublin’s Talbot Street, held what it called a Chaplin Revue in the week of 13-18 September, but this was a “real Chaplin week” – a jibe at the Electric for the relatively few Chaplin films they had shown in August – offering six Chaplin films for the first three days of the week and seven for the second three days (“Chaplin Revue”). During the week, the management encouraged audience interaction when it invited local Chaplin imitators to compete against one another by being filmed and having the public judge the best impersonation. “A very large entry has been secured,” the Evening Telegraph reported, “and the pick of these when filmed should make a picture of more than ordinary interest” (“Masterpiece”).

In this context at least, Chaplin certainly was monopolizing the limelight.

References

“Chaplin Revue at the Masterpiece.” Evening Telegraph 13 Sep. 1915: 6.

Condon, Denis. “‘Offensive and Riotous Behaviour’? Performing the Role of an Audience in Irish Cinema of the mid-1910s.” Performing New Media, 1890-1915. Eds. Kaveh Askari et al. New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey, 2014. 193-202.

“Fighting a Plague: Vigilance Committee’s Crusade: Annual Procession and Meeting.” Irish Catholic 11 Sep. 1915: 2.

“German Film Campaign: Herr Dernburg – Film Producer.” Bioscope 23 Sep 1915: 1360.

“‘Give Up Your Gold, It’s for Britain!!”” Bioscope 30 Sep. 1915: 1473.

“The Grafton Picture House.” Freeman’s Journal 14 Sep. 1915: 7.

“Limerick to the Rescue.” Leader 25 Sep. 1915: 153.

“The Masterpiece.” Evening Telegraph 21 Sep. 1915: 2.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 12 Aug. 1915: 679; 9 Sep. 1915: 1176.

Rockett, Kevin. Irish Film Censorship: A Cultural Journey from Silent Cinema to Internet Pornography. Dublin: Four Courts, 2004.

“A Scene in Picture Theatre in Dublin: Young Man Charged with Causing Disturbance: ‘Modern Magdalen’: Production of a Film and the Sequel.” Evening Herald 15 Sep. 1915: 5.

“Scene in a City Cinema: ‘Irish Censor Board Wanted’: Charge of Creating a Disturbance: The Case Dismissed.” Dublin Evening Mail 22 Sep. 1915: 5.

“Town Topics.” Dublin Evening Mail 23 Aug. 1915: 2.

“Trade Topics.” Bioscope 23 Sep. 1915: 1319.

“Vigilance Revived: Rink Palace Stormed.” Limerick Leader 8 September 1915: 3.

“Experiments Against the Public Taste” in Irish Picture Houses, August 1915

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Evening Telegraph, 23 Aug. 1915: 1.

Evening Telegraph, 23 Aug. 1915: 1.

In its reviews of entertainments on Tuesday, 24 August 1915, Dublin’s Freeman’s Journal departed from the usual blandly favourable tone of newspaper notices to criticize the choice of film at the Bohemian Picture Theatre. Although the reviewer praised the “discrimination exercised by the management in the selection of films” since the picture house had opened the previous year, s/he regretted that the “inclusion of ‘Sapho’ this week introduces an unedifying subject” (“Bohemian”). Although the reviewer conceded that the film actually contained “very little to which exception might be taken,” s/he argued that “these experiments against the public taste are very dangerous, as might have been gathered from the attitude of the audience” (ibid).

The reviewer neglected to say, however, what had been the audience actual reaction to Sapho. Others were a little more forthcoming. Attending the Bohemian’s 7pm show on Monday evening, Joseph Holloway thought that the “unpleasant love story of Jean & Sapho was well enacted – a crowded audience witnessed it & many were waiting outside to see the 9 o’clock show as I came out” (Holloway, 23 Aug. 1915). Holloway did not mention any manifestations of dangerous attitudes among this apparently enthusiastic audience, but a report in the trade journal Bioscope some weeks later perhaps accounts for the Freeman’s hints about agitation among the audience. “During the screening of ‘Sapho,’ at the Bohemian Theatre,” Paddy, the Bioscope’s Irish correspondent, claimed that “the Vigilance Committee – or what purported to be the same – held a massed meeting at the corner of the street, and also secured a brass band which did a few triumphal processions past the theatre” (Paddy).

The Bohemian had been and would continue to be a target of Dublin Vigilance Committee (DVC) activity, but the use of a brass band was not repeated there. This may be because this tactic failed to attract the same level of publicity as the disturbance in the auditorium, arrest and court appearance favoured by such DVC activists as William and Francis Larkin.

A poster for Olga Nethersole’s theatrical version of Sapho, written by Clyde Fitch. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In any case, few audience members – and certainly not the journalists, Holloway or members of the Vigilance Committee – can have been unaware that Sapho was about a woman’s extramarital affairs. Alphonse Daudet had adapted his own popular 1884 novel for the stage, and it had been lent further notoriety when in 1900, Olga Nethersole produced and starred in a US stage version written by Clyde Fitch that told the story from Sapho’s point of view. Both the French and US versions had played in Dublin in the 1900s. So well known was the novel and play that when Nethersole returned to the Gaiety in 1906, the Irish Times commented that it

is unnecessary at this period of time to discuss the morals of the play, or argue the question whether its enactment is calculated to promote a wholesome spirit or not. The subject is one on which people have made up their minds one way or another, and judging by the constitution of last night’s audience the vast bulk, if not the entire of those present, understood perfectly the class of production which they had gone to witness.” (“Gaiety Theatre.”)

Any experiments against the public taste had long yielded their results, it seems, at least as far as the audience at the Gaiety was concerned. However, cinema had altered Ireland’s mediascape by bringing entertainment out of the city centres to the suburbs, small towns and rural areas, and because it was cheaper than theatre, it was more accessible to the working class. With these shifts in entertainment, the definition of “public taste” and “audience” was up for grabs.

In any case, not all journalists were as accepting of the taste experiments represented by plays such as Sapho as the jaded Irish Times reporter appears to have been. In July 1915, D.P. Moran, editor of the Leader, reminded readers of his 15-year-long “campaign against music hall and theatrical filth” (“‘Dirty Dublin’ Again”). He claimed this campaign was necessary because of the complicity of the newspapers with theatre owners:

The names of such plays as “Zaza” “Sapho,” and “Kitty Grey” will recall that campaign to the recollection of our older readers. But the daily Press was then as it is now rotten. We took a big start out of the dailies of that time, and they were cautious of their puffs of imported dirt, but they stuck like wax to the advertisements of the entertainments and plays however dirty. (Ibid.)

Sapho had been one of the key works in Moran’s long-running crusade against the laxity of the mainstream press. And he was right to indicate that theatre and picture-house owners paid to advertise and expected that reviews would at least pay sympathetic attention to their entertainments, if not outright reproduce promotional materials masquerading as criticism. This also makes reviews of limited use for historical purposes. In contrast to this commercial motivation, Moran was – as a self-styled Irish-Irelander interested in Gaelic culture rather than Nationalist politics – hostile to popular entertainments for their Anglicizing influence, which included promoting forms of sexual expression at odds with Irish Catholicism.

“A Review of the Audience.” Leader 17 Jul. 1915: 541.

Moran’s campaign was not limited to the content of theatrical shows or press complicity but also aimed to refashion the Irish audience. This aspect of his crusade took visual form in July 1915, when he published Tom Lalor’s cartoon entitled “A Review of the Audience.” The accompanying verses by A.M.W. (John Swift) directed readers to contemplate the “dirty degenerates ever so keen / To welcome the smut of a music hall scene.” Among these were the “Johnnie, or nut,” “the College effeminate brat, / Ne’er keen on a lesson that’s wholesome or nice, / But apt in the study of music hall vice,” as well as “the old reprobate well to the fore / In years far advanced but in vices much more.” The press was also excoriated:“Our Press lends its aid to the stuff it should drown, / The ‘Freeman’ and ‘Mail’ that should give it hard knocks / Encourage the same from a seat in a box.”

Although the picture houses were not yet on Moran’s agenda in July 1915, they soon would be when he supported the DVC coming campaign for film censorship, and the appearance of a well-publicized film adaptation of Sapho would no doubt have put him on the alert. The version of the film shown at the Bohemian in August 1915 was one of two film versions released into the British film market in 1913. When the French company Éclair released its version, starring Nethersole, in Britain in March 1913, it became a cause celebre within the industry. The film was banned in Leeds and other places, and when an exhibitor was prosecuted for showing it in Darlington, the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association took up his defence (“The ‘Sapho’Case”).

But it was the US version, released in Britain in November 1913, that would eventually make its way to Ireland. It was made by the Majestic Motion Picture Company and starred Florence Roberts. Whatever its other faults, the adaption to the screen met with approval: “Daudet’s work loses nothing in its production on the cinema, and the large audiences followed the picture through its six parts with interest” (“The Bohemian Picture House”). However, if Irish exhibitors hoped to avoid controversy by waiting nearly two years before booking the film, they miscalculated not so much the public taste as the growing power of the Catholic guardians of morality.

References

“The Bohemian.” Freeman’s Journal 24 Aug. 1915: 2.

“The Bohemian Picture House.” Dublin Evening Mail 24 Aug. 1915: 6.

“‘Dirty Dublin’ Again.” Leader 10 July 1915: 519-20.

“Gaiety Theatre.” Irish Times 20 Sep. 1906: 6.

Holloway, Joseph. Holloway Diaries. National Library of Ireland.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 9 Sep. 1915: 1176.

“The ‘Sapho’Case.” Bioscope 31 Jul. 1913: 349.

In the Grip of Spies: Irish Cinemas and War Propaganda, March 1915

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On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day 1915, several Dublin newspapers reported on an exciting chase of a suspected spy through the city. “For the past couple of day,” the Evening Telegraph revealed,

the military authorities have regarded with suspicion the movements of an individual in the city. To-day the man was seen in the vicinity of O’Connell Bridge, where he again attracted the attention of the military, and when they proceeded to approach him the man immediately made off. (“City Sensation.”)

The pursuing soldiers commandeered a car when they were unable to catch the man on foot, but he was eventually caught by a passing cyclist who responded to the soldiers’ calls to stop the spy. However, although the man was arrested, he was released without charge when he turned out to be a respected Kildare cattle dealer named Murphy. It is unclear why Murphy expected that expressing his view to British soldiers “that the Kaiser might smash the British army and dominate the world in the end” would be uncontroversial, even though such views were common among militant nationalists and radical labour activists (“‘Stop Spy’ in Dublin Streets”).

Evening Telegraph 15 Mar. 1915: 2.

Evening Telegraph 15 Mar. 1915: 2.

What is interesting, though, is that the expression by an Irishman of such anti-British sentiments led him to be labelled a spy. Indeed, this story fitted into a discourse on spies and spying spread by newspapers and other popular media including the cinema that dovetailed with the British government’s war policies (see also, for example, in same issue of Evening Telegraph “Imaginary Spy” and “Danger of Spies”). For three days in mid-March, Dublin’s Dorset Picture Hall showed In the Grip of Spies (Britain: Big Ben, 1914), and this title offers an apt description of the state of fear of “the enemy among us” that this discourse aimed to spread. “From end to end of the British Isles they are talking of the German Spy menace,” a press ad claimed. “This Film deals with the theft of a naval Code Book, which is equivalent to saying that it is of absorbing interest at the present time” (ibid). But spying was also a suitable subject for comedy, with patrons at the Picture House, Sackville/O’Connell Street enjoying Wiffles Catches a Spy (France: Pathé, 1915).

In general, however, the discourse on spies and the cinema was not comic. Spies brought the war even closer to Ireland and Britain than the German naval blockade blockade to which this ad linked it. Suspicion could be cast on anyone who used a film camera, which purposely or inadvertently could provide intelligence for German attacks. Echoing an incident in Dublin in September 1914 when Norman Whitten was threatened with being shot for filming troops embarking at Dublin port, an article in the Evening Telegraph in early March 1915 reported from the Gateshead Police Court on the arrests, fining and confiscation of the footage of Stanley Dorman and Edwin Joseph Jennings who had filmed a Tyneside naval installation without permission (“Film of a Warship”).

We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser banner and its removal from Liberty Hall in Evening Herald 21 Dec. 1914: 1.

We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser banner and its removal from Liberty Hall in Evening Herald 21 Dec. 1914: 1.

More importantly, the discourse on spies served the useful ideological purpose of suggesting that the divisions of prewar society had been overcome in the face of a common enemy and that any organization or individual not engaged in the war effort was – wittingly or unwittingly – an agent of the Kaiser. Draconian legislation was put in place to deal with such individuals and organizations. Passed just after the outbreak of the war, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) introduced strict censorship and gave the police and military widespread powers of arrest. In Ireland, unionists and the mainstream nationalist who followed John Redmond supported the war, but militant nationalists and radical trade unionists condemned it, and some openly supported a German invasion. “When it is said that we ought to unite to protect our shores against the ‘foreign enemy,’” wrote labour leader James Connolly,

I confess to be unable to follow that line of reasoning, as I know of no foreign enemy of this country except the British Government, and know that it is not the British Government that is meant. […] Should a German army land in Ireland to-morrow we should be perfectly justified in joining it if by so doing we could rid this country once and for all from its connection with the Brigand Empire that drags us unwillingly into this war. (“Our Duty in this Crisis.”)

At the start of the war, a banner proclaiming “We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser, But Ireland” was erected on the facade of Liberty Hall, headquarters of the labour movement, and it was only removed by soldiers and police in December 1914 (“‘Liberty’ Hall”). Earlier that month, such radical papers as the Irish Worker, Sinn Fein, Irish Freedom and Eire/Ireland were suppessed (“Irish Papers,” “Another Dublin Paper”).

By contrast, the British trade press continued to urge the wider use of cinema in support of the war effort. In the face of opposition by reformers unsympathetic to popular culture and by the churches to Sunday opening, the industry aimed to win wider social acceptability by aligning itself with state policy. For the Bioscope, cinema certainly played a crucial role as rational recreation at a time of great collective stress. An editorial in March 1915 rejected the snobbish “reproach on those who seek relaxation in theatres and music halls” and argued that “the cinemas are playing no mean part in providing the great mass of people with innocent and healthful entertainment” (“Amusements in War Time”). However, it could also play a much more active role in shaping public opinion in support of the war, a point that the trade papers had argued from an early point in the war. In September 1914, for example, the Bioscope had praised the views of Liberal politician Sir Henry Norman, who in a letter to the London Times had emphasized the role that battlefield reporting could play in support of recruiting and arousing enthusiasm for the war at home. Norman proposed sending to the front with the correspondents “at least one official cinematographer, whose films of the glories of war – we shall have plenty of other means of learning of its sorrows – should be shown in every town and village in the land” (“The Cinematograph at the Front”).

“Atrocities on the Cinema.” Dublin Evening Mail 27 Mar. 1915: 5.

Dublin Evening Mail 27 Mar. 1915: 5.

With little indication that the British government was exploring the propaganda possibilities of the cinema, the press continued to offer stories showing that Germany was winning the propaganda war among the German population, as well as exploiting such advanced technological application as the use of the cinematograph in reconnaissance. The Dublin Evening Mail, the Dublin evening paper with a distinctly unionist editorial line, was particularly fond of these stories, but it also showed that the cinema had the potential to reveal uncomfortable truths about the war. An article in late March, for example, reported that

a cinema theatre in Trieste has been showing pictures of the campaign in Serbia which are intended to be patriotic, but which unconsciously reveal revolting atrocities committed by Austrian soldiers.

After scenes of an Archduchess visiting the wounded, of camp life and other ordinary incidents of the war, some films were projected showing the martyrdom of a Serbian suspected of espionage, the burning alive of a Serbian family in their home by Imperial troops because they were reported to have fired on soldiers from their house, also Austrian soldiers killing off wounded on the battlefield. (“Atrocities on the Cinema.”)

Once the authorities realized what the films depicted, they destroyed them.

Cartoon showing the shooting and exhibition of a German propaganda film; Dublin Evening Mail, 19 Jan. 1915: 3.

Cartoon showing the shooting and exhibition of a German propaganda film; Dublin Evening Mail, 19 Jan. 1915: 3.

The dominant story that the mainstream and cinema trade press in Ireland and Britain told about enemy propaganda concerned its untruthfulness. This was well illustrated in mid-January 1915 when the Dublin Evening Mail published a cartoon depicting how adept the German film industry was in keeping from the German public the realities of their army’s depredations in Belgium. Its two panels showed how a German filmmaker conspired with the German army to produce a faked film of soldiers helping vulnerable Belgian citizens, and how this film influenced public opinion in support of the war when exhibited in cinemas. The title of the cartoon – “German ‘Kultur’ Illustrated” – seemed to carry a criticism of cinema in general in suggesting that German culture should be associated with such a low form as cinema.

Alleged eyewitness accounts of the efficacy of German film propaganda were a part of this discourse, and in March an Irishwoman offered the Bioscope a particularly lengthy personal account. If she is anything more than an invention of propaganda, Norah Mahone seems to have been a remarkable woman. She was described as

a young Irish lady and a member of the theatrical profession, who, after being held a prisoner for several months, has recently succeeded in escaping from the enemy’s land, where she was staying at the outbreak of war.

A talented woman in more ways than one, Miss Mahone visited Dresden last July with the object of completing some business in connection with certain inventions she had patented, and also, incidentally, to take a “cure” in that city. (“German Allegorical Film Play.”)

Following descriptions of her mistreatment by the German authorities and a deluded public, Mahone offered details of such films as the departure of the Saxon army, “an almost barbaric scene in its uncontrolled emotionalism and riotous display.” Because films were so popular in Germany,

the Government are using the cinematograph shows and cafés for propaganda work. Practically all the films shown deal directly with the war, and nearly all of them are of a most filthy and scurrilous nature calculated to arouse in spectators, the worst emotions and most biased hatred against the Allies, and especially against England. These films are all manufactured, I believe, under the indirect supervision of the Government, many of them being allegorical plays, and the rest more or less faked “topical” pictures. (Ibid.)

The efforts of the industry and its supporters would soon convince the British government about the power of the cinema propaganda. Despite the prominence of such Irish people as Norah Mahone, however, these kind of films would always prove to be controversial in Ireland.

References

“Amusements in War Time.” Bioscope 11 Mar. 1915: 875.

“Another Dublin Paper: Suppressed this Morning.” Evening Telegraph 5 Dec. 1914: 3.

“Atrocities on the Cinema: Austrian Films that Told Too Much: Destroyed by Authorities.” Dublin Evening Mail 27 Mar. 1915: 5.

“The Cinematograph at the Front.” Bioscope 3 Sep. 1914: 859.

“City Sensation: Arrest by Military: Man Pursued: By Motor and Cycle.” Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1915: 3.

“Danger of Spies: Stringent Regulation: Of Traffic with Holland.” Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1915: 4.

“Film of a Warship: Drastic Action by the Authorities.” Evening Telegraph 4 Mar. 1915: 1.

“A German Allegorical Film Play: An Irish Actress’s Remarkable Experience in Germany.” Bioscope 18 Mar. 1915: 1021, 23.

“Imaginary Spy: Exciting Chase in London: Dublin Fusilier Sent to Jail.” Evening Telegraph 16 Mar. 1915: 3.

“Irish Papers Suppressed by the Government: Defence of Realm Act: Instruction by Military: Copies Seized and Printers Warned.” Evening Telegraph 3 Dec. 1914: 3.

“‘Liberty’ Hall: Troops and Police Remove a Motto.” Evening Herald 21 Dec. 1914: 1.

“Our Duty in this Crisis.” Irish Worker 8 Aug. 1914: 2.

“‘Stop Spy’ in Dublin Streets.” Irish Independent 17 Mar. 1915: 5.