As readers of this blog likely know, I am working on a book titled
The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond. It is coming along well. I have some 60,000 words completed scattered across some 270 pages - the book will be heavily illustrated. I also have a draft cover, which is shown below.
In the course of my research I have come across something of a mystery, that is, religious interest in The Street of Forgotten Men. I suppose it makes sense in a way, as the Herbert Brenon film has as themes the notions of self-sacrifice and redemption. But I wonder, were other films, besides Cecil B. de Mille's The Ten Commandments, subject to similar interest?
In the course of my research I have found that the Herbert Brenon film was shown in churches on a few occasions; it was also the inspiration for sermons, and most perplexing of all, there were stereopticon slides reportedly illustrating scenes from the film which churches could get a hold of and show as a visual aid while a pastor delivered a related lecture. Who made these slides? Where did they come from? And what's more, a few weeks before the film's debut at the Rivoli theater in Nedw York City, director Herbert Brenon gave something of a sneak peak look at the film inside a church!
Might anyone know anything more about this sort of thing - churches showing films? And might anyone know anything more about the source and nature of the illustrated slides shown in churches, which turn out to be mostly Congregational. (I had an email exchange with an historian of the Congregational church. But he too was stumped.)
What follows is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, which may provide some additional context with which to some this minor mystery. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. My email address is LouiseBrooksSociety {at} gmailDOTcom
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Though The Street of Forgotten Men debuted at the Rivoli theater on July 19, 1925 that may not have been the first time the public got a look at the film, or parts of it. A few weeks prior to its debut, the film was the focus of an event at the Chelsea Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. Newspaper descriptions of this June 28 event vary. According to a piece published in the New York Herald Tribune, “Scenes from the new picture, The Street of Forgotten Men, will be shown at the night service to-morrow.” The next day, the New York Times ran a somewhat different bit which stated, “Herbert Brenon, a director of motion pictures with the Paramount Picture Corporation, will describe a new picture, The Street of Forgotten Men, this evening at the ‘Happy Sunday Evening’ service.”
The Church that hosted the event was headed by the Reverend Dr. Christian F. Reisner, a well-known preacher sometimes described as “colorful.” Reisner was an exponent of so-called new methods, and believed in showmanship when it came to preaching. After the first World War, he penned a syndicated article which stated religion should take pointers from the theater, suggesting the ablest sermons may be staged behind the footlights. He also authored books with titles like The Church as a Social Center and Church Publicity: the modern way to compel them to come in. A few weeks prior to the June 28 event, Reisner was the subject of some press attention when he proposed building a skyscraper dedicated to Christianity which was to be known as the Broadway temple.
Given the subject of The Street of Forgotten Men, the June 28 event may have served as a lure to bring in donations toward Reisner’s ambitious building plans – which included housing and services for the poor. Whatever its intention, there is little known about the event itself. Either Brenon gave a short talk in which he described his “new picture,” or the director spoke and an unknown number of scenes from the film were shown. In either case, Brenon was on hand to introduce the film in what might amount to a kind of “sneak-peak.” Curiously, at the same event, Reisner also gave a short talk titled “Motion Picture Dangers.”
A few months later, the film was the focus of another event which occurred at the Lewis Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn. On October 18, the Rev. Allison Ray Heaps gave a “sermon lecture on The Street of Forgotten Men.” (Brenon was not known to have attended this event.) A brief article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle stated, “Lantern slides from the motion picture will be used to illustrate this story of the old Bowery life.” The Chat, another Brooklyn paper, also carried a piece on the Lewis Avenue sermon. In it, the local paper gave a description of the film which suggests what the various churches which put on similar events may have seen in Brenon’s production. “Sunday, evening 8 p.m., The Street of Forgotten Men. This is the story of a man living in the old Bowery of New York City who by a combination of the virtue of self-sacrifice and the spirit of unselfishness was able to rise into newness of life, realize an ideal, and render a service to his fellowmen. Percy Marmont impersonates the ‘forgotten man.’ The slides are from the motion picture production.” Notably, this event, which incorporated a slide show of unknown origin, took place during a week in which the film was showing in Brooklyn at four second run theaters, the Peerless, Ablemarie, Farragut, and Eden Movies.
The event at the Lewis Avenue Congregational Church was in all likelihood repeated a few weeks later, though at a different venue. On November 7, Universalist pastor Thomas Edward Potterton, D.D. gave an illustrated lecture on
The Street of Forgotten Men at the Church of Our Father. (The following week, the two churches once more shared sermons and slide shows. On November 14, each presented a “colored lantern slide” retelling of Channing Pollock’s play,
The Enemy.)
Church interest in The Street of Forgotten Men wasn’t limited to New York City or Brooklyn. Nor was it restricted to a lantern slide-sermon format. In fact, interest extended to the West Coast, and sometimes included either a straight-forward sermon or a screening of the actual film.
According to a short write-up in the Los Angeles Times, a well-known local pastor, Dr. G. A. Briegleb, was scheduled to deliver an evening sermon on “The Gold Rush and the Street of Forgotten Men” at the Westlake Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. Like Reverend Reisner of New York, Briegleb seemed to be a proponent of employing new methods in spreading the word. He also spoke on off-beat topics which hinged on the premise "what would Jesus do," as in what would Jesus do if he was on the city council, or owned a newspaper. The prelude sermon set to take place ahead of his October 10, 1925 sermon tied to “The Gold Rush and the Street of Forgotten Men” was "What Would Jesus Do if After Marriage He Discovered That He Was Wedded to the Wrong Woman?"
A year later, another preacher and another church made use of the film. The Los Angeles Times reported “The motion picture The Street of Forgotten Men, and an address by Dr. James Lash will feature [at] the services tomorrow evening at the Hollywood Congregational Church. Salvador Baguez will be the soloist.” [Might Baguez also have accompanied the film? It is not known if these and other church screenings were silent, or featured musical accompaniment.]
An earlier screening of
The Street of Forgotten Men inside a church took place in New Britain, Connecticut. The film itself had shown in New Britain in October, 1925 at the local Palace theater. Some six months later, it returned to town, where it was shown on a Sunday evening at the city’s historic South Church, then a Congregational denomination. A newspaper advertisement for the April 25, 1926 event billed the film as “A Picture of Unusual Human Interest.”
One of the last documented screenings of The Street of Forgotten Men in the United States also took place in a church. The Central Congregational Church in Atlanta, Georgia, whose services were headed by Witherspoon Dodge and described as “cheerful and refreshing,” occasionally showed films on Sunday evenings under the banner of “Religious Movies” or “Free Motion Pictures.” In 1928, the year the Atlanta church screened The Street of Forgotten Men, it also screened other popular pictures such as the Milton Stills, Doris Kenyon feature Men of Steel (1926), Reginald Deny’s Fast and Furious (1927), Raoul Walsh’s The Wanderer (1925), and the Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack adventure film Chang (1927). On April 29, the church screened The Street of Forgotten Men, believing, perhaps, its theme of self-sacrifice an uplifting one – or perhaps, the church simply hoped to draw new congregants by providing what it thought was wholesome entertainment.
Generally speaking, most churches didn’t advertise their Sunday services in their local newspaper, so it is difficult to know just how many other churches either screened The Street of Forgotten Men, or made use of some form of the related, illustrated sermon / lecture.
However, a few did advertise their church services, and in doing so, created a paper trail of sorts. The Street of Forgotten Men was the subject of Dr. J.R. Macartney’s Sunday morning sermon at the First Presbyterian church in Waterloo, Iowa on May 15, 1927. The North Congregational Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire presented the film story, “illustrated by stereopticon,” on April 22, 1928, with this presentation being preceded by an organ recital. The Street of Forgotten Men was also the subject of an evening sermon at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Camden, New Jersey on September 16, 1928. And on April 28, 1929, a stereopticon lecture of The Street of Forgotten Men was given at the Congregational Church in Burlington, Vermont.
In some communities, local newspapers published the text of sermons given at local churches. On October 28, 1929 the Rev. Walter Krumwiede gave a sermon at the Grace Lutheran Church in Rochester, New York which referenced the film, stating “Yet we know that there stretches through life a terrible highway called The Street of Forgotten Men, where countless numbers of defeated and enslaved men and women go, with weakness in their bodies, darkness in their mind, and terror in their soul.” This reference to the film within a sermon is among the early usages of the film's title as a colloquialism.
One last documented reference to the film occurred on January 24, 1934, when the Rev. C. H. Bloom, an evangelical, spoke on the subject of The Street of Forgotten Men at the Church of Christ in Sayre, Pennsylvania. As with these few others, his sermon received a short write-up in the local paper. Remarkably, this sermon took place nine years after the film was released, and some six years after its last documented screening in the United States.
This blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2022. Further use prohibited, especially by aggregators.
