The Kinora was an early motion picture device developed by the French inventors Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895, while simultaneously working on the Cinematograph . It was patented in February 1896.
20-514: Basically a miniature version of the mutoscope for home use, the Kinora worked very much like a flip book in the shape of a Rolodex . It used conventional monochrome photographic prints fixed to strong, flexible cards attached to a circular core. A reel was revolved handle by turning a handle, making the pictures flip over against a static peg one by one. The moving pictures could be viewed through an eyepiece. The Cinematograph proved very successful so
40-450: A hood, similar to the viewing hood of a stereoscope . The cards are generally lit electrically, but the reel is driven by means of a geared-down hand crank. Each machine holds only a single reel and is dedicated to the presentation of a single short subject, described by a poster affixed to the machine. The patron can control the presentation speed only to a limited degree. The crank can be turned in both directions, but this does not reverse
60-421: A huge Rolodex . A reel typically holds about 850 cards, giving a viewing time of about one minute. The reel with cards attached has a total diameter of about 10 inches (25 cm); the individual cards have dimensions of about 2 + 3 ⁄ 4 in × 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 in (7.0 cm × 4.8 cm). Mutoscopes are coin-operated. The patron views the cards through a single lens enclosed by
80-539: A mixture of fare. Both in the early days and during the revival, that mixture usually included "girlie" reels which ran the gamut from risqué to outright soft-core pornography. It was common for these reels to have suggestive titles that implied more than the reel actually delivered. The title of one such reel, What the Butler Saw , became a by-word, and Mutoscopes are commonly known in the UK as "What-the-Butler-Saw machines." (What
100-782: A shutter which blocks the picture. Mutoscopes were originally manufactured from 1895 to 1909 for the American Mutoscope Company, later American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (1899) by the Marvin & Casler Co., Canastota, New York formed by two of the founding Managers of American Mutoscope Company. In the 1920s the Mutoscope was licensed to William Rabkin who started his own company, the International Mutoscope Reel Company , which manufactured new reels and also machines from 1926 until 1949. The term "Mutoscope"
120-516: A studio in London in 1900 to film moving portraits of families and individuals. Flip books of 60 pictures in standard Mutoscope size were produced there as Bio-Gems , before a Kinora reel portrait service became available in 1903. In May 1907 Biograph chairman W.T. Smedley set up Kinora Limited in London. The company introduced the first amateur Kinora camera in 1908, using rolls of photographic paper or celluloid one inch (2.5cm) wide that could be sent to
140-573: Is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted U.S. patent 549309A to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison 's Kinetoscope , it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only one person at a time . Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system, marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company ), quickly dominated
160-496: Is no longer a registered trademark in the United States. Mutoscopes were a popular feature of amusement arcades and pleasure piers in the UK until the introduction of decimal coinage in 1971. The coin mechanisms were difficult to convert, and many machines were subsequently destroyed. Some were exported to Denmark where pornography had recently been legalised. The typical arcade installation included multiple machines offering
180-415: Is notable for being one of the first means by which motion pictures were exhibited. The company gradually changed its focus to motion picture production and projection, and by the early 1920s, had stopped production of both mutoscopes and the movie reels that were played by the machines. Rather than allowing the format, still popular in arcades and amusement areas, to disappear, entrepreneur William Rabkin
200-481: The Lumières did not bother with the Kinora but passed the idea on to Gaumont,who marketed the device and about a hundred different reels around 1900. The British rights to the Kinora were bought by The British Mutoscope & Biograph Co. in 1898, but the machine was not marketed in the UK until 1902. It became popular in the UK and over 12 different viewer models and over 600 reels were produced. Biograph had constructed
220-478: The Mutoscope and similar machines: "...a new instrument has been placed in the hands of the vicious for the corruption of youth...These vicious exhibitions are displayed in San Francisco with an effrontery that is as audacious as it is shameless." In 1899, The Times also printed a letter inveighing against "vicious demoralising picture shows in the penny-in-the-slot machines. It is hardly possible to exaggerate
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#1732877172231240-399: The butler saw, presumably through a keyhole, was a woman partially disrobing.) The San Francisco Call printed a short piece about the Mutoscope in 1898, which claimed that the device was extremely popular: "Twenty machines, all different and amusing views...are crowded day and night with sightseers." However, just a few months later, the same newspaper published an editorial railing against
260-421: The coin-in-the-slot peep-show business. The Mutoscope works on the same principle as the flip book . The individual image frames are conventional black-and-white, silver-based photographic prints on tough, flexible opaque cards. The image on each card is made by contact printing each frame of the original 70 mm film. Rather than being bound into a booklet, the cards are attached to a circular core, similar to
280-451: The company for processing. A Kinora Grand for reels of 1,000 pictures of 2 1/2" by 3" also featured in their advertising booklet. By 1914, when the company's London factory burned down, public interest in the Kinora had declined, as the cinema screen now held greater attractions. The company did not rebuild the factory. This film technology article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mutoscope The Mutoscope
300-405: The corruption of the young that comes from exhibiting under a strong light, nude female figures represented as living and moving, going into and out of baths, sitting as artists' models etc. Similar exhibitions took place at Rhyl in the men's lavatory, but, owing to public denunciation, they have been stopped." International Mutoscope Reel Company The International Mutoscope Reel Company
320-502: The driving game Drive Mobile , which had an upright arcade cabinet similar to what arcade video games would later use. It was derived from older British driving arcade games from the 1930s. In Drive Mobile , a steering wheel was used to control a model car over a road painted on a metal drum , with the goal being to keep the car centered as the road shifts left and right. Kasco introduced this type of electro-mechanical driving game to Japan in 1958 with Mini Drive , which followed
340-469: The first to market the claw machine. The company also produced arcade photo booths under the name of "Photomatic". These produced a souvenir 2-5/8" x 3-1/16" metal-framed photo with the credit on the back, "Taken by the Photomatic." International Mutoscope Reel Company released various electro-mechanical games (EM games) for arcades in the 1940s. In 1941, International Mutoscope Reel Company they released
360-418: The playing of the reel. The patron cannot extend viewing time by stopping the crank, because the flexible images are bent into the proper viewing position by tension applied from forward cranking. Stopping the crank reduces the forward tension on the reels causing the reel to go backward and the picture to move away from the viewing position. A spring in the mechanism turns off the light, and in some models closes
380-432: Was an American amusement arcade company. They were formed in the early 1920s, to produce Mutoscope machines and the motion picture reels that the machines played. They continued to manufacture arcade machines, including the claw machine as well as electro-mechanical games , until 1949. The mutoscope is a peep show -style movie viewer that was first manufactured by the American Mutoscope and Biograph company, and
400-544: Was given permission to continue producing mutoscope reels and machines using the trademarked name. By 1925, he had formed the International Mutoscope Reel Company for the purpose of manufacturing new movie reels to play on both the old mutoscope machines and the new ones that the company started selling. During the golden age of the penny arcade, the company produced a number of amusement machines, including fortune tellers and skill games, and may have been
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