What Happened in the Beginning

The archaeology of cinema architecture: The origins of the movie theater

“…It therefore occurred to me to start out with a device by which the motion pictures could be made use of in the many hundreds of slot parlors which were then doing a flourishing business in the United States. 71 When any arcade or museum offered peepshow entertainment of the Kinetoscope variety exclusively, the establishment became a Kinetoscope and/or Mutoscope parlor. The success of the motion picture projector, like its peep-show predecessors, depended on its exploitation in locales with other similar amusements and appeal.…”