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Marquette, Michigan, circa 1913. "Washington Street, showing opera house." Now playing at the picture show: "Message From Mars" and "Flaming Arrrow." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
The Flaming Arrow film mentioned previously was released in 1911. A film with the same title was made and released in 1913 by the Bison Picture Company. The latter film is most likely the one we see the advertisement for.
I think this is a Salvation Army band marching; I found a couple of pictures with a similar cap.
Like seemingly many old theaters, it's fate was to burn down. But, this being the UP of Michigan, naturally it happened during a blizzard.
Like any good opera story, there may have been some skullduggery going on behind the scenes!
Read more about it here: http://bit.ly/V00a52
There is a sign for The Mining Journal newspaper in the background, which is today still publishing.
With a plot similar to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Richard Ganthoney's A Message from Mars was a hugely successful satirical play. It was made into a four-reel picture in 1913 in the U.K.
A Martian is sentenced to visit earth to cure a selfish man.
Horace Parker, "the most selfish man on earth" is such a snob that even his fiancee turns her back on him. But on Christmas Eve, a messenger from Mars (in a bizarre, scaly costume) comes to Earth to show Parker the error of his ways. The two of them become invisible and eavesdrop on all the terrible -and true -- things Parker's friends and family are saying about him. etc.
From: http://mubi.com/films/the-flaming-arrow
"At the age of 13 Joris Ivens was fond of cowboy and Indian stories, so he decided to invent one himself. He wrote a script and used a camera from his father’s shop. This became his first film Wigwam, with his own family as the cast. Black Eagle, a bad Indian, kidnaps the daughter of a farmer’s family. Flaming Arrow, played by the young Joris Ivens, saves the child from the kidnapper and brings her back to her family."
Joris Ivens (18 November 1898, Nijmegen – 28 June 1989, Paris) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker.
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