At the Cinema

Grace Golden's woodcut portrays an imaginary cinema audience watching a film. On screen, Rudolph Valentino appears in a scene from either the 1921 silent movie 'The Sheik' or its 1926 sequel 'The Son of the Sheik'.

The artist wrote a poem entitled 'The Cheap Cinema' to accompany this print:

The sixpenny queue stretches along the High Street. They wait.
Lurid posters kindle emotions dulled to the drama among themselves enacted.
Familiar humanity dwindles before the glamour of 'Desert Temptation'.
Inside, the thick darkness, cut by the glare of funnel shaped light.
How alluringly loud the call of the 'talkies'.
His hand in hers, how hotly tight.
A furtive side glance at his features she gives. (They're not in the classic strain.)
She thought of the Sheik of the pictures.
Was it she or Cupid to blame?

In the early 1900s the majority of films were silent but by the date of this print, 'talkies' were being introduced. By the end of the 1920s, cinemas were successfully competing with other forms of public entertainment, such as music halls and the theatre.