Ladies kindly remove your hats
March 13, 2015 10:59 AM   Subscribe

 
These are gorgeous.

I don't understand the illustration choices that go with "Advertise your business on this screen and get results. See the manager" though.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:03 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I like to know that people used to whistle in the theater. It looks like some sort of celebratory or disapproving whistle, which you still hear in sports.

I'd much rather have someone whistle angrily at the screen than check their cell phone for messages every 30 seconds.
posted by maxsparber at 11:04 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


NO OFFENSIVE PICTURES ARE EVER SHOWN HERE. YOUR HUMBLE PICTURE-HOUSE IS AS CHARMING & INNOCENT AS THESE FIVE DEAD BIRDS
posted by theodolite at 11:05 AM on March 13, 2015 [17 favorites]




I don't understand the illustration choices that go with "Advertise your business on this screen and get results. See the manager" though.

I thought it implied "as the blooms draw the cow to the field peas, so shall our illuminated advertisements draw customers to your fine wares."

Or something.
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 11:17 AM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Our cow slide brings the boys to the store.
And they're like, it's better with cows.
Damn right, it's better with cows.
You can use ours,
but we'll have to charge.
posted by Naberius at 11:20 AM on March 13, 2015 [20 favorites]


These appear to be slides projected on the screen, not posters.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:23 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just to be "that guy"...These aren't posters. They are slides that were projected onto the screen before the show, during intermission, and after the show. They are the silent-era equivalent of all the ads you sit through today.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:24 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


This are neat, thanks.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 11:24 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


So where can I buy prints of these?

HOPE ME INTERNETS!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:26 AM on March 13, 2015


Just to be "that guy"

Just to be "George_Spiggott".
posted by maxsparber at 11:27 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


The Library of Congress has them in tiff files so you can get them printed wherever you want.
posted by interplanetjanet at 11:28 AM on March 13, 2015 [10 favorites]


Clap with your hands only??

Did they have a plethora of clapping appendages in the olden days?
posted by dr_dank at 11:31 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I prefer to clap with my buttocks WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:33 AM on March 13, 2015 [12 favorites]


I don't understand the illustration choices that go with "Advertise your business on this screen and get results. See the manager" though.

The manager would hawk your wares himself, but he's a little horse.

Did they have a plethora of clapping appendages in the olden days?

Maybe that's what the onions on their belts were for.
posted by Gelatin at 11:35 AM on March 13, 2015


Maybe back in the day it was the custom to clap with someone else's hands instead
posted by surazal at 11:36 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Clap with your hands only??

Based on the next slide plus one, perhaps this is an attempt to preclude other uses of hands, like uninvited chin tickling.
posted by TreeRooster at 11:45 AM on March 13, 2015


Someone please do the Lolcat version of this one.

Did they have a plethora of clapping appendages in the olden days?

I'm also baffled by that one - maybe people were pounding on seats?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:47 AM on March 13, 2015


I assumed they were stomping their feet?
posted by mmmbacon at 11:50 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


I don't understand the illustration choices that go with "Advertise your business on this screen and get results. See the manager" though.

It's a cow. Dairying was a common business everywhere because almost all milk was locally produced until the 1940s. It was also a way for a family to make a side income - having a cow, selling extra milk and butter to local merchants - to make your butter and egg money. So, a cow implies a small family-owned business. I think it's a reference to that and would have been readily understood.
posted by Miko at 11:51 AM on March 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


These are not posters - they are magic lantern slides (or at least prints from such slides). And they were posted on the SF Silent Film Festival blog back in January, while the blog from the FPP posted them in March.

the SFSFF notes "When the time comes for us to create the next batch of SFSFF interstitial slides, let us be inspired by the sophisticated visual play of our forebears who had not the magical tools of Adobe Creative Suite."
posted by larrybob at 11:52 AM on March 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


I assumed they were stomping their feet?

Yep, stomping, whistling, and beating the arms of the seat.
posted by Miko at 11:52 AM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Did they have a plethora of clapping appendages in the olden days?

I'd also expect people to be doing things like slapping their thighs.
posted by sciatrix at 11:54 AM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


These appear to be slides projected on the screen, not posters.

As well, only about three or four of them are concerned with etiquette (removing hats, remaining seated, etc.) -- the rest are promotional (advertise here) or merely informational (intermission) or the occasional friendly reminder (don't forget your umbrella).

However, there are definitely fourteen. Good effort there on the counting.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:02 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah, you wouldn't want to miss a word of that silent movie dialog with all that NON HAND CLAPPING.
posted by dr_dank at 12:02 PM on March 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


"Dear Ask MetaFilter, I went to the moving pictures today and was shocked to see a sign asking ladies to remove their hats! It's the 20th century! Are people really still expected to remove their hats indoors?"
posted by usonian at 12:15 PM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Any patron espied penning missives by candlelight during the cineplay will be bodily removed from the nickelodeon.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:30 PM on March 13, 2015 [11 favorites]


Yes this is the universal symbol for "If you attempt to hit on me I will reject you with such pristine ecstasy."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:42 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


tchemgrrl: "I prefer to clap with my buttocks WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE"

I guess I might not be the only person who saw that and thought of Juicy J: "These chicks clappin' and they ain't using hands".
posted by mhum at 12:45 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


. . .but what if I WANT to see offensive pictures? Where's that place?

And thank-you, I will remove my very large hat, because I'm here with my new beau, the farrier's son. There's a lot of handsy hanky panky that could go on with a hat that size sitting on our laps.
posted by barchan at 12:58 PM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


If wish that sort of amusement, there are plenty of Tijuana bible zoetropes that will appeal to your purient interests at the penny arcade.
posted by dr_dank at 1:12 PM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Look, I was injured during the war, all right? It's not a big deal, plenty of guys lost arms and legs or worse. I can't bend my index finger. It's nothing. I don't complain. I know I got off lucky.

But she just can't let it go. She follows me everywhere, and she's endlessly sticking something on the end of my goddamn finger and going ooh, look, you've got an apple stuck on your finger! Or ooh, look, your finger's wearing a hat! This time she sticks her damn chin right on my fingertip and starts going on about how I can balance a whole woman on one finger... And then she starts waving her arms around and going whoa! whooaaaa! Careful, I almost fell off that time!

I can't watch the movie like this. You're the manager. Can you please just ask her to leave? I just want a couple hours of peace...
posted by Naberius at 1:20 PM on March 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Did they have a plethora of clapping appendages in the olden days?

Foot-stomping, maybe?

But we could use "Applaud with your hands" nowadays for the WOOOOOOO!!! people. Those people need to shut up.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:47 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Kindly remain seated" = Even back then, people were vaguely aware that the theater seat was a breeding-ground of filth and human disease and you may as well plop yourself down into the muck because you're no better than the rest of us, kid.

Or: babies are cute! Awwww!
posted by psoas at 2:23 PM on March 13, 2015


I went to see pink flamingos recently and during the whole thing some asshole near us clapped 4 times, slowly, every time something happened. Clapping is not permitted you shitbird!
posted by Ferreous at 2:46 PM on March 13, 2015


. . .but what if I WANT to see offensive pictures? Where's that place?

You may go to the one of this city's disreputable gentleman's-clubs where the ladies wantonly dance about poles, displaying their ankles to all and sundry.
posted by PlusDistance at 3:05 PM on March 13, 2015


That "If Annoyed When Here Please Tell The Management" slide was nice to see. We could still use those today (not just in theaters, of course)...although today I'd like to see them end with "And We Will FUCK SOME SHIT UP."
posted by uosuaq at 4:32 PM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


The Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo displays some of these before the screenings.
posted by brujita at 5:35 PM on March 13, 2015


I hope there is room in our future for menacing ladies' hats to make a comeback.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:32 PM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


They used a cat picture for one of the "Intermission" ones.

Some things never change?
posted by seyirci at 5:05 AM on March 14, 2015


I remember the "Ladies Kindly Remove Your Hats" appearing in a Dudley Do-Right cartoon as a humorous interstitial.

I think there's also a cartoon with a "Somebody's Baby Is Crying, IS IT YOURS?"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:16 AM on March 14, 2015


MADAM HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SIT BEHIND THE HAT YOU ARE WEARING

(This reads unsettlingly.... Ortberg? Like possible evidence of future time travel level unsettling?)
posted by Acheman at 6:29 AM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wish places still had "please don't forget your umbrella" signs. All sorts of places. Movie theaters, restaurants, Target. I would go through a lot fewer umbrellas.
posted by Sequence at 10:38 AM on March 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


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