In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

MOVIE PALACES
In downtown Buenos Aires, right across the street from the bookstore
where Silvio Astier, the hero of Roberto Arlt's novel El juguete rabioso
(The Furious Toy), works as a clerk, people are flocking to a movie
theater: "As if in a beehive, people were moving through the courtyard
of a cinema, whose little bell was pealing incessantly" (Arlt, 131). The
word cinemat6grafo (which Arlt uses for "cinema" and which emphasizes
the act of film projection), as well as the "incessantly pealing" bell
that summons people to the show, indicates the sharp contrast between
this cinema in Argentina's capital and the movie houses on Berlin's
fashionable Kurfiirstendamm. The Gloria-Filmpalast is inaugurated on
Monday, January 25, with a film version of Moliere's Tartuffe starring
Emil Jannings. Both the Gloria-Filmpalast and the Capitol-Filmpalast,
which opens on Nollendorfplatz on January 6, can accommodate more
than fifteen hundred moviegoers for each of their two or three daily
shows, in a sumptuously decorated space (Chronik, 24). This space
constitutes a world of its own [see Elevators]-a world that exists under
artificial light and that comes alive solely to nourish the daydreams of
moviegoing crowds. The doors to the projection hall are hung with
velvet curtains. The graceful curve of its huge balcony and the rich
fixtures make the spectators feel that they are entering a-modem-baroque
palace. An orchestra pit and a broad stage separate the screen from
the seating area. Many movie palaces have elegant boxes along the side
walls, high vaulted ceilings, and sophisticated controlled lighting. As the
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