In Theda Bara's Tent (as Reviewed by Publisher's Weekly)

CHAPTER THREE

I discovered the Bijou Theater. A hand-painted sign over the entrance read, High Class Motion Pictures. New Ideas. New Novelties. The coming attraction was advertised by a sign propped on an easel on the sidewalk: “Coming Next. Charlies Ma-in-Law. Youll laugh for half an hour!        

Lady Mother believed that motion-picture halls were not good for children. She described them as “apothecary shops of the devil” and showed me newspaper stories to prove her point. California passed a law prohibiting moving pictures from showing girls with skirts flying in the wind. Ohio prohibited films that showed anyone pulling off a girls skirt. The mayor of Boston was making war on the advertising banners outside city picture houses that showed scenes of robbery, safe-cracking, murder or suicide. Lady Mother read with contempt the names of some of the films shown in Boston: Gaieties of Divorce; Old Mans Darling; Beware, My Husband Comes. She had no understanding of the importance of relief for beleaguered people. She seemed to have no compassion for the hundreds of people, thousands of people, who needed to escape from their troubles for at least an hour or two. She didn’t see me as one of those people though I was sitting right in front of her.

Her mandate included lifting us up from the lower class, away from the mostly immigrant audience that attended motion pictures. She had never been to a picture hall, and when I suggested it was not as bad as she thought, she said, There is worthy entertainment, Harry. Haverhill is known as a show city but not because of the Bijou. Our Academy of Music is the greatest legitimate theater north of Boston. All the best people go there, Harry, and I want you to be one of the best people.

In my opinion, all the best people were the ones I used to know, the pals next to me watching the movies upstairs in Mr. Goldfarb’s store, mothers haggling at the pushcarts, small older sisters carrying big babies on their hips, the organ grinder combing his mustache, the back-flipping acrobats pulling their tights out of their cracks, opera singers whose high notes startled horses. I was not sure I wanted to be one of Lady Mothers best people. I marked this conversation because I caught a glimpse of how small her world was.

When Lady Mother handed out our allowance, a nickel every week, she warned us of the dangers of the Bijou. Not only would we see things inappropriate for children, but we would ruin our health sitting indoors during daylight hours. I had never been given a nickel for doing nothing and found it confusing. She marched us to the bank on Merrimack Street where we deposited the nickel into our savings account. When the bankers from the frugality committee showed up at the home, they examined our savings book. We didn’t dare spend any of those nickels. I misunderstood a savings account and thought we were giving our nickels back to Mr. Cogswell and his friends at the bank. 

So it was necessary to earn free admission to the Bijou. I went to visit the manager in his office to ask for work. Mr. Owen looked up over half-glasses and stopped whittling a piece of wood. Wood shavings were puddled on the floor around his chair. The bookcase behind him held carved birds, all shapes, beautifully painted with real-looking glass eyes, some perched on twigs, some balancing on one foot, some with wings extended. They were arranged with care, big with big, small with small, the tidiness of the display a contrast with the disorder in the rest of the room. Did you make those? I asked standing at his door.

What you might call a hobby, he said. He had a New England complexion, ripe apples in autumn.

You made those, Mr. Owen? All by yourself?

All by myself.

Can I see them close up?

He gestured for me to enter. Right now Im working on a swan. Ill get the general outlines from this book here, then Ill have to find a real one so I can stare at it for a while.