Movie Night In Whiting A Century Ago

Jerry Banik, March 2025

In 1889, when Standard Oil came to northern Indiana, were no movie theaters in Whiting, there being no such things as commercial motion pictures back then.  Nor was there a town of Whiting, for that matter.

By the early 1920s, however, the town of Whiting had been settled and had grown, and so had the new motion picture industry.  And, as the movie industry grew, the number of movie houses in America grew along with it.

Many theaters built for showing movies, like Whiting’s Hoosier Theatre, also had stages for live acts and musical performances, as this image shows.  Vaudeville acts often shared the bill with movies in “combination shows.” They served as warmup acts of sorts for the feature films. And as today, the movies that were offered changed from week to week, as did the live acts.

Built in 1924, our renowned Hoosier is the last remaining of six movie theaters that graced 119th Street over the years, but it had to survive a fire in its first year. Much of the southwestern portion of the Hoosier Building on 119th Street contained apartments and commercial space.  The theater itself occupied only a portion of the building.  It was less than eleven months old on January 10, 1925 when one of its apartment tenants noticed a stream of fire running up an electric wire on the west side of the building.  A blaze ensued that required three fire departments to extinguish.  Fifteen families in the apartments were turned out into the streets, and several ground floor businesses were badly damaged.

Thankfully the damage done to the theater itself was not severe.

Although the fire was nothing to chuckle about, a front page story about the blaze in The Times the next day made it a point to report, jestingly, that the movie playing at the Hoosier on that January 10th was, “Hot Water.”

Hot Water, like all the others of its day, was a silent flick. “Talkies” were not commercially available until 1927, with the release of “The Jazz Singer”, starring Al Jolson.  The Hoosier is said to have installed its first motion picture sound system in 1929.

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So, what were some of the movies that played in downtown Whiting, and in theaters all across the country, back then?  With the help of newspaper ads and information gleaned from the Internet Movie Database, what follows is a sampling of some intriguing offerings available at the Hoosier and the Capitol theaters when the Whiting and Robertsdale movie night crowds headed out for the evening in 1925.  Do you like slapstick comedies?  Horror?  Romantic dramas?  The supernatural?  Westerns?  We had them all back then.  Just for fun, set your time capsule for 1925, head down to 119th Street, and use this handy guide to pick out a movie or two you’d like to see tonight.

Let’s start with the one that was on the bill the night of the fire.

Hot Water

Released in 1924, Hot Water is described as a comedic look at married life and in-law problems.  It included a ride on a crowded trolley with a live turkey, a wild spin in a new car with the in-laws in tow, and a sequence in which the husband accidentally chloroforms his mother-in-law and is convinced that he has killed her.  When she begins sleep-walking, he thinks that she has returned to haunt him.

Sounds like fun.

The Price Of Pleasure

Linnie and Garry realize they love each other, and are immediately married.  Garry’s disapproving family makes Linnie miserable.  Linnie runs away.  Garry pursues her in his car and accidentally runs her over.  Believing that Linnie is dead, Garry becomes mentally ill. Yikes!

Two taglines from ads for this flick: “Their only sin was that they loved too much,” and, “They played with love for one week -- and then love played with them for two years.”

Wife Of The Centaur

After a short, passionate love affair, Inez dumps Jeffrey.  Jeffrey turns to drink and debauchery. He marries Joan.  Inez wants to resume her relationship with Jeffrey.  Jeffrey tells Joan in a letter that he’s leaving her. He goes back to Inez.  Soon Jeffrey realizes that his infatuation with Inez is over. He returns to Joan. Joan forgives him and gladly welcomes him home again. Phew!

It’s believed no centaurs were harmed in the filming of this movie.

The Lady

Middle-aged barmaid Polly longs to be “a lady,” and so marries Leonard, the good-for-nothing son-of-a-B (British) aristocrat.  Leonard gets disinherited by his father, then gambles away what little money he has left.  Leonard dies, leaving Polly, who now has an infant son, penniless and selling flowers on the street.  Polly leaves the child to be raised by a couple she trusts.  Later, she desperately tries to find him, but never sees him again.

Rated “D”, for depressing.

Flattery

Competing with The Lady, Flattery was playing at the Capitol Theatre, across the street from the Hoosier.

Pampered all his life, Reginald Mallory has grown to manhood easily swayed by flattery.

On the verge of an outstanding career in civil engineering, he is appointed city engineer by a corrupt cartel of politicians and contractors, who use his vanity to further their crooked ends.  Everyone loses faith in Reginald except Betty Biddle, his sweetheart.

And you thought some of today’s movie plots were thin.

At the Capitol, on the same bill with Flattery, was:

The Twin 

Well, here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley!

Ten-to-twenty minute films like this one, known as shorts, often ran before the feature films.

Stan Laurel plays a hen-pecked husband who is leaving town on business.  At the train station, his twin shows up. Stan tells the twin to go to his house, where he can stay while in town. Of course, everyone assumes the twin is Stan.  The result is madcap merriment and hilarious hijinks for the rest of this twenty minute gem.

Janice Meredith

It’s 1774, the eve of the American Revolutionary War.  Janice, who comes from a Tory household, cavorts with Americans and British alike.  She is pursued by Charles, a comic, drunken, patriotic British sergeant, and friend of George Washington.

Two taglines:

“You’ll laugh, you’ll weep, you’ll shout, you’ll cheer! It sends a continuous tingle through your veins!” and,

“SHE HAD TO CHOOSE! Every American girl would choose as she did, but would every American girl dare take the desperate chances Janice took?”

Good question.  And, hopefully, moviegoers only laughed, wept, shouted and cheered, as instructed, when it was appropriate, if at all.

The Dixie Handicap

The fortunes of Virginia’s father, Judge Roberts, hit rock bottom.  The Judge loses his home, is defeated for re-election, sells his race horse named Dixie, and becomes a drunken derelict.  Bashful Johnny buys Dixie back.  Dixie wins the Kentucky Derby and a $50,000 prize. The judge’s old estate is restored to him, and Virginia asks Bashful Johnny to marry her.

Giddy up!

The Great Divide

Alone and unprotected in an isolated wilderness cabin, Ruth is discovered by three drunken brutes who begin to barter for her.  In desperation, she appeals to Stephen, the least degenerate of the three degenerates, promising herself to him if he saves her from the others.  The idealistic Ruth soon learns Stephen is a man of rough passions.

Tagline:  “They played at cards for her soul.” Rejected tagline:  “I’ll see her soul and raise you her body.”

He Who Gets Slapped

Note to The Times editor:  It’s Slapped, not Stopped!

Horror icon Lon Chaney plays a bitter clown who endeavors to rescue the young woman he loves from the lecherous count who once betrayed him.

A bit of trivia: 

Although a silent movie, this was the first film to feature the roaring lion in the logo of the new MGM studio.

The Lighthouse By The Sea

Rin-Tin-Tin! Yay! In February of 1925 he went head-to-head with Lon Chaney the clown.

“The old man was blind.  He seemed their easy prey.  But they had forgotten to count on Rin-Tin-Tin with his iron heart, his unfailing loyalty, and the fighting strength he had inherited from his forest-ranging forbears.”

The Monster

Lon Chaney is back, and this time he’s a mad scientist, conducting bizarre experiments in a sanitarium.  William Shakespeare’s half-man, half-monster from “The Tempest” even makes an appearance.  It’s been suggested this movie could have helped inspire 1975’s Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Tagline:  “You'll Guess! You'll Gasp! You'll love it!  A film you'll want to see all over again.”  Maybe because it didn’t seem to make sense the first time?

So This Is Marriage

This drama portrayed the marital struggles of an extravagant, troubled couple, Beth and Peter.  Daniel, who lives in the same apartment building, becomes attracted to Beth, and…well, you can guess the rest.

Trivia:  “So This Is Marriage” was lost in a 1965 MGM vault fire that destroyed countless movies from the silent era. And, in this movie there were short sequences from a movie that depicted the bible story of David and Bathsheba, some of which contained scenes with brief, partial nudity.  Whoa!  In 1925?!?

And finally, lest you think movie night in Whiting in 1925 was all entertainment, this palate cleanser from December of that year:

Preventing Diphtheria

An educational film titled “Preventing Diphtheria” was scheduled by the health department on a Saturday evening at the Hoosier, and also at the auditorium in the Community House, aka Community Center, the same afternoon.

The Times reported, “Three homes are quarantined in Whiting with diphtheria at present.”  Dr. E.L. Dewey advised every parent and child to see the movie.

One can only hope no diphtheria was spread by anyone attending the movie.

You can find more stories about movie theaters that have come and gone on 119th Street, and nearby, by searching the collection of articles on our Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society web site.