The Opening of the Music Hall

This item, which appeared at the end of April 1913, reports on the first couple of weeks of operation at the Music Hall in Cincinnati. An earlier notice on the Music Hall is available here.

The Music Hall, Cincinnati, seating 3,600 people, was opened with exclusive picture programs, March 29, by the Empire Exhibition Co., of New York. Licensed feature films are chiefly used. The house was opened with the "Prisoner of Zenda." A fourteen-piece, selected orchestra is used to accompany the pictures, and high class vocal and instrumental numbers are introduced during the intervals. John Bunny, the well known Vitagraph comedian delivered his special monologue during the first week, and Francis X. Bushman gave lectures the second week. Both these gentlemen scored big hits. Miss Florence Turner, another big Vitagraph favorite, has been booked for the week of Monday, April 14, to appear in a comedy skit, of her own composing. The admission to the Music Hall is 25 cents for evenings and Sunday matinees. For other matinees the charge is 10 cents. A. N. Smallwood and J. T. Hennegan are the managers.

Source: James McQuade, “Chicago Letter,” Moving Picture World 26 April 1913, 366.

Another short notice appeared the next week, this one covering Florence Turner's visit.

Miss Turner Entertained At Cincinnati
On the occasion of Miss Florence Turner's recent visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she went to appear at the Music Hall picture show, the Exhibitors' League of that city entertained her and Mr. Lawrence Trimble, her manager, at the Sinton Hotel, where an elaborate dinner was served. Miss Turner also received several beautiful floral tributes at the close of her engagement at the Music Hall; one large bouquet of American Beauty roses from the league, and one from A. C. Dingelstedt, president of the local.

Source: “Miss Turner Entertained At Cincinnati,” Moving Picture World 3 May 1913, 471.

Pictures in Cincinnati Music Halls

This account of the opening of a new picture theater in Cincinnati demonstrates that by 1913 the idea of the picture palace was already well on its way to realization.

Pictures in Cincinnati Music Halls

Arthur Smallwood Plans Big Project for the Queen City's
Mammoth Palace of Amusements.

If the plans of Arthur Smallwood are successful, Cincinnati will have a picture show par excellence. This energetic young man, whose home is in Cincinnati, but who has been engaged in the advertising business in New York for the past few years, has secured a lease of the big Music Hall on Elm Street in that city and will put on a strong picture program beginning March 29.

Music Hall is one of the largest auditoriums in the country, seating several thousand people, and is used for grand opera and other big musical entertainments. The picture entertainment will be conducted by the Empire Exhibition Company, which was promoted by Mr. Smallwood and is under his management. Several large Cincinnati capitalists are interested, so there will be no lack of funds to finance the enterprise.

The picture program will consist of eight reels of the best pictures including features and single reels. This will be varied by vocal and instrumental solos by the best of talent, and a fourteen piece orchestra will play the pictures.

A feature of the program will be the frequent appearance of popular photoplayers. For the opening week Mr. Francis X. Bushman, a former Essanay star, has been secured. For the week of April 7 Mr. John Bunny, the popular comedy man of the Vitagraph Company, will be the feature, and during the following week Miss Florence Turner, the first of the motion picture stars and a Vitagraph player, will appear. Others are being negotiated for.

Mr. Smallwood has had some experience as a picture theater manager and is planning many little comforts for his patrons. He will have a chaperone for young children and a playroom with nurses for the babies. There will be lady ushers and a maid in the ladies' retiring room.

The scale of prices for the house will be ten, fifteen and twenty-five cents.

To popularize the venture Mr. Smallwood proposes to bill it like a circus. For the opening nine thousand sheets of paper will be posted on the billboards all over the, city. Elaborate heralds and other forms of advertising, including liberal newspaper space, will be used. Special advertising will be used for the feature pictures and the photoplayers.

Mr. Smallwood has been in New York for the past week getting ideas and features for his show. He announces the "Prisoner of Zenda" for the opening.

Source: “Pictures in Cincinnati Music Halls,” Moving Picture World 5 April 1913, 24.

Rapee's Encyclopedia

Excerpts from Erno Rapee's Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures (1925).

Rapee was one of the most influential music directors in the New York picture palaces in the 1920s. He published two practical books on the subject, one meant for pianists and organists (Motion Picture Moods (1924)) and one for theater music directors (orchestra leaders), the Encyclopedia. I have posted the text of his long introduction to the Encyclopedia, a complete list of the topic categories (types of music, such as "mysterious" or "Oriental"), scanned graphics of pages for the entry "Agitato," and a text file with the works listed under "Love Themes."