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January 2002, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
Blaine Allan <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:46:45 -0500
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On 9 January 1926, a fire at the Laurier Palace Theatre in Montreal
resulted in the deaths of 87 children.  The proprietor of the cinema, Ameen
Lawand, and two employees were found guilty of manslaughter.  Subsequently
children under age 16 were prohibited from attending movie theatres in
Quebec until 1961.

Blaine Allan.


>
>--USccMQeRESIWLNEMMSSUWVQMaZYcZM
>Date:    Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:13:36 -0600
>From:    Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Motion picture theater catastrophes
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
>
>Marlyn Robinson wonders:
>
>> The line from the most famous first amendment case in history stated that a
>> man is not protected from "Falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a
>> panic".  However, the reverse seems to have actually occurred and was
>> widely enough known that Justice Holmes' words were inspired by it.  Does
>> anyone know of a source (or an actual event) of fire in a movie theater in
>> which a large number of people were killed pre-1919?
>
>
>I don't know if there's any connection at all, but the Iroquois Theater
>fire of 1903 might be relevant. There's a graphic description of the
>event at:
>
>http://www.inficad.com/~ksup/iroquois.html
>
>A number of commenters (including such legal scholars as Alan
>Dershowitz) have found Holmes' statement to be inappropriate since he
>was comparing the action of a false alarm that creates a threat to life
>and safety to the activities of pacifists who opposed American
>participation in World War I.
>
>Don Larsson
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Donald F. Larsson, English Department, AH 230
>Minnesota State University
>Mankato, MN  56001
>
>--USccMQeRESIWLNEMMSSUWVQMaZYcZM
>Date:    Wed, 16 Jan 2002 08:06:04 -0500
>From:    Dan Streible <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Motion picture theater catastrophes
>MIME-Version: 1.0
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>
>The book you want  is the anthology called
>
>THIS FILM IS DANGEROUS, edited by Roger Smithers, assembled for the 2000
>FIAF symposium on nitrate film.  Here you'll find a number of case
>studies about film fires.  (General conclusion:  most theater fires were
>NOT caused by nitrate film catching fire, but by a variety of other
>factors.)
>
>The most infamous early film-related fire was in Paris in 1897, killing
>over 100 people.  It wasn't in a theater per se, but at a Charity
>Bazaar's cinema pavillion.
>

***********************************
*Blaine Allan                     *
*Film Studies, Queen's University *
*160 Stuart Street                *
*Kingston, Ontario                *
*Canada K7L 3N6                   *
***********************************

----
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