Early Movie Theaters Were Steeped in Controversy

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“As soon as the policemen leave, boys and girls congregate in the glaring doorways. The boys smoke cigarettes and make objectionable remarks to each passer-by. The 5-cent theaters are schools of vice”.—The Milwaukee Journal, 1907

The first five-cent theater opened in Milwaukee in 1903 at the corner of Second and Wisconsin, and the opportunity to get into the business was available to anyone with $1,000. Sometimes called nickel theaters, or even nickelodeons, these crude storefront operations showed motion pictures on a piece of muslin, or a bare wall painted white. The cost of admission was five cents, hence the establishment’s nickname. There were no fire exits or ventilation, and if the foul air became overpowering, an employee sprayed perfume near the audience. Patrons sat on wooden benches or camp chairs for 20 minutes of silent car chases, comedic baseball games or overweight cops chasing a burglar. Most of the theaters had a pianist to provide the appropriate music for each scene. To say these theaters carried an element of danger was an understatement.

By 1907, more than 20 of these theaters operated on Wisconsin Avenue, Mitchell Street and Kinnickinnic Avenue, all commercial intersections where streetcar lines crossed. None of the theaters were licensed or regulated for violations. But arrests at these establishments jammed court dockets with allegations of various criminal behaviors. Aaron Trinz, operator of the Electric Theater at 14th and Fond du Lac Avenue, was fined at least five times in 1907 alone. He was accused of paying a 13-year-old boy to sing before the projectionist prepared the next film. Trinz claimed the boy sang for free to no avail. Judge Harvey Neelen fined him $25. On another evening, four men were arrested in front of his theater for “mashing,” which meant insulting women with crude remarks. The men were fined $10 each, and Trinz paid another $25, this time for not requiring the men to leave. 

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There was a fire at Theater Delight on Wisconsin Avenue when an employee’s cigarette fell into a heap of highly flammable nitrate film. The fire could have been avoided because the films were collected in a small basket after being expelled from the Kinetoscope projector. Panic ensued as more than one hundred patrons were trapped inside until firemen were able to break into the theater from Second Street. 

Egging the Box Office

In another incident, three Bay View teenagers pawed at young women passing the Empire Theater on Mitchell Street. Across from the theater entrance youths threw eggs at the box office, trying to get them through the hole in the glass. Other offenses included the discovery of minors engaged in homosexual acts or intercourse within a pitch-black auditorium. 

Clergymen and spirited citizens demanded the nickel theaters be shut down. Letter to newspaper editors complained that children were exposed to motion pictures that depicted drunkenness, marital infidelity and murder. The proprietors fought back, saying there were days when 1,000 people attended one of the 15 showings. They couldn’t be expected to watch everyone. “If you don’t like what your kids see, keep ‘em home,” one owner growled. More than one municipal judge wholeheartedly endorsed the statement. “I don’t want to see your police record begin in my courtroom,” Judge Neelen said before suspending the sentences of the South Side egg throwers. 

A decade earlier, penny arcade operators felt the fury of reformers who denounced the amusement parlors as filthy, smutty places that corrupted children. Again, the do-gooders couldn’t see the wisdom of parents doing a better job of keeping their kids out of the arcades. 

Sordid South Side

A 16-year-old usher in a South Side theater was charged with providing liquor to a 14-year-old girl prior to molesting her. “That place is a cesspool,” said Judge Gustave G. Gherz. “There are many more over there contributing to the delinquency of minors”. He may have been referring to a case involving a girl, 13, and a man, 62, behaving inappropriately in a dark corner.

What the religious and moral crusaders couldn’t know was that the days of nickel theaters were numbered. Thomas Saxe, owner of six theaters, was weary of the assaults, intoxication, and damage to the buildings laid on his doorstep. In 1909, he leased the vacant Grand theater at 738 N. Third Street and spent $50,000 to install an electric ventilation system, a pipe organ, cushioned seats, a mosaic tile floor and four private boxes. The exterior featured an ornamental terra cotta arch over the entrance and 1,500 incandescent light bulbs that illuminated Third Street at night. He called his theater the Princess. 

On Dec. 16, 1909, the deluxe cinema opened to an audience of city officials, ministers, politicians and influential businessmen. Mayor David S. Rose delivered the dedicatory address after which Thomas Saxe drove a stake through the nickel theaters’ heart. “If a girl is insulted, the police are called, and it hurts every picture showhouse in the city. There is not a motion picture man here who can afford to allow such a thing to happen.” Saxe predicted the motion picture industry was already a snowball rolling downhill, and nothing in the years ahead would slow the momentum. If his message about the demise of the nickel theaters wasn’t clear, Saxe frequently advertised that the price of admission to the Princess was 10-cents.