Although it sounds well nigh incredible to the pleasure loving generation of these enlightened da; there are still a few people in the world today who have yet to see their first motion picture. The number of this small body consists mainly of the old diehards who have refused to be moved by the spirit ai the times, but there are others who have had no opportunity of seeing a film since moving pictures supplanted the old magic lantern as the people's chief form of entertainment, Such a person had his first view of the wonders of the present-day cinematograph at the Cathay Theatre one morning this week, when, through the courtesy of Fox Movietone and the Cathay-Grand Theatre Corporation, en old missionary from the far interior, who had been cutoff from the life of this hectic world since the days of bustles, ostrich feather hats, and the old magic lantern shows, was held spellbound by the latest technicolour talking films.
Seating over a thousand people, the Cathay Theatre showed a programme consisting of the films "In Old Chicago", Fox Movietone News. and a coloured picture of the coronation of King George VI in London. to this old missionary, and although the "audience" did not understand the dialogue, his utterances during the performance. according to his interpreters, were many and varied.
The chief source of worry to this 60 year old priest was how the people on the "lantern slides" could move about and speak. wish I could understand the language," he said to his interpreters, and he questioned them incessantly as to how the "Miracle" was worked "Amazing"
The best explanation that the management could give was to show the privileged audience the projection room. Shown the machines and reels, all that he could utter was the word "Amazing!" According to an terpreter with him, he surpassed lphe Menjou when the latter ed the same expression throughout the film "Goldwyn Follies" just concluded at the Nanking Theatre.
"I saw lantern slides when I w fifteen years old", he told a representative of the "North-China Daily News", "These wereóshown to me by some foreign missionary. It was something of a mjracle—I could not reconcile myself to the idea that persons in-lantern slides could actually move", he added, "although orsons had described a motion picture to me before I came to Shanghai."
The talking of the actors in the films was an even greater miracle to bim. "It is unimaginable that the persons on these lantern slides could even talk", was his comment on the dialogue.
Showing great interest in the prujection room. he asked numerous questions, but many had to be dismissed with a smile, as only his presence in the studies of Hollywood could satisfactorily explain the tricks connected with the screening of such a film as "In Old Chicago".
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.