Silents in court!

Silent films and the people who made them were forever finding themselves in court. And just before World War I, that was also true of the people who paid to see the films.

Sunday opening was once a real bone of contention. It was cinema proprietors who were had up for that—at least until the Electric Coliseum in Harringay was had up. When that happened, the cinema’s lawyer certainly earned his fee. All that was forbidden on a Sunday was the showing of inflammable films, he argued, and no evidence had been produced that his client’s films were of that kind. The case was dismissed and the lawyer, Archibald Bodkin, went on to become Director of Public Prosecutions (he would also try to ban James Joyce’s Ulysses).

Standing room only

But if the desire for seven-day opening reflected a huge demand for films, nothing reflected