The Silent Film Quarterly・!8
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Clockwise from top left: The Pilgrim (1923), Smilin’ Through (1922), The Toll Gate (1920), Grumpy (1923), and The Cradle (1922)
theater’s facade, flanked by two smaller Charlies, with several little Charlies peppering the walls around the doors. Some cutouts were supersized, making a smiling Madge Bellamy or Mary Pickford head visible from a couple blocks away.
Ambitious exhibitors with an artistic streak would transform their whole lobbies for some films, temporarily turning them into Arctic tundras for polar exploration dramas or quaint woodlands in the honor of frontier flicks. A feature about the sea was a good excuse to have a real rowboat sitting in the middle of the lobby, and anything that involved trains often resulted in a faux locomotive decorating the entrance. Mechanically-minded exhibitors might rig up a mechanism to make the boat appear to rock, or to make steam come out of the locomotive’s smokestack. For one 1922 revival showing of Cabiria, a Pittsburgh theater owner put model of Moloch in his lobby. The Exhibitor’s Trade