Hollywood's Family Values

Children weren't always welcome in cinemas. Richard Luck explores the growth of the family movie into Western cinema's biggest cash cow

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Family films are now the cornerstone of Hollywood cinema. But for a long time both the studios and the movie theatres thought that children were better unseen and unheard.

Visit any multiplex and you'll be struck by what a family-friendly place it is. From the no-smoking policy and the extensive range of pick 'n' mix to the wealth of afternoon screenings, the modern multiplex reflects a relatively recent movie trend. Family entertainment is now Hollywood's main order of business. It's a long way from when moving pictures first came into being.

Back at the birth of film, children were not encouraged to see moving pictures such as the Lumière brothers' 1895 Train Pulling Into A Station. Convinced that moving pictures would corrupt kids, puritanical authority figures spoke out against juveniles hanging around the local Roxy, or the Cinématographe, as it was more likely to be called. Father Charles E Coughlin, who became the rightwing voice of religious radio, even went so far as to claim that cinema posed a "special threat to the young and the sensitive".

In the absence of children, the cinema was as much a place for adults as the pub. Indeed, at the first movie houses, patrons were positively encouraged to smoke and, in some licensed venues, drink.

This isn't to say that early movies didn't have child appeal. But while youngsters would have lapped up animated shorts like 1914's 'Gertie The Dinosaur', such pictures were just as likely to be enjoyed by adults, who'd praise them as ingenious experiments. J Stuart Blackton, creator of the world's first cartoon 'Humorous Phases In Funny Faces'(1906), found himself championed as "the father of a new art form" by the 'New York Times'.

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