Long before big-budget trailers — even before those cute dancing popcorn kernels — moviegoers were treated to a pre-feature parade of 3 ¹/₂- by-4-inch pictures.
“When you went to a nickelodeon theater in the early 1900s, you’d be expecting to see a short movie, but you were also going to see a set of illustrated slides,” says Barbara Miller, senior curator at the Museum of the Moving Image, whose new show, “Don’t Forget the Pictures,” presents 110 slides culled from the museum’s 1,500-piece collection.
Called “lantern slides,” they were used to promote businesses or products, like Parke, Davis & Co.’s throat lozenges. Others illustrated a popular song of the day, with a singer and pianist in the theater bringing it to life. Still others promoted films, which for 1914 to 1948 included Lillian Gish in “The Scarlet Letter” and lots of Charlie Chaplin movies.
A few of the slides here are damaged, but Miller insists that’s part of their charm.
“Certain parts of them were scratched off and painted over, so you get to see these layers of history coming through,” she says. “It’s an insight into a time before the multiplex, before everything was standardized.”
One such slide shows Douglas Fairbanks in a movie scene that had been painted over except for his face. Next to it, someone had added a word bubble saying: “Intermission.”
Something that hasn’t changed: scolding. While today’s audiences are asked to turn off their cellphones, theatergoers past had a warning of their own — a slide reading, “Everyone has their hat off, but you.”
$15. Through Oct. 20. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave. (at 37th Street), Astoria; MovingImage.us