Is the two-dollar-a-seat picture theater in sight?

One might believe from the trade periodicals serving the motion-picture industry that nickelodeons began to disappear about 1909-1910 in favor of movie palaces and that blue-collar crowds were being replaced by refined upper-class bejeweled audiences arriving at the theater in automobiles, while the films to be seen were all educational, high-class, and respectable. It was the task of the trade periodicals to promote this concept of improvement. But if one reads the small type and between the lines, it appears that changes were not achieved as easily as the industry hoped. In defending the industry against attack, the trade periodicals revealed the continued opposition in the press and in politics to the conditions of the nickelodeons, making it clear that not all theaters had become safe and clean, much less respectable. Nickelodeons were no longer such great producers of...