Pongrácz Erzsébet: The Cinemas of Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)
as a side-show feature had, almost unnoticeably but nevertheless permanently, entered another sphere of visual entertainment, emerging as the new art of cinematography and, with it, the curious world of cinema architecture also came into being. All this marked the beginning of the Budapest cinema. The movies In addition to the café-cinemas and mobile cinemas, and regardless of the failure of the Ikonográf, a whole series of permanent movie houses of varying capacities opened in Budapest at the turn of the century. At the millenary exhibition, Edison’s cinematograph was introduced and the Ősbudavára would be, as early as 1898, the venue of projection shows laid on by Gyula Décsi, who was later to earn a considerable reputation in the industry. Cinematographic entertainers permits were issued in the same year to Samu Herbst and Zsigmond Horváth, while 1902 saw the opening of the dowager Mrs Márton Fényes’ Fortuna Cinema, which was followed in 1903 by the inauguration of the Városliget Picture House. It was also in the Liget that the Fisches, a family that was to gain considerable renown, began their cinematographic career with the opening of the Royal Vio. In 1905, Erzsébet Fisch opened her own picture house in Népliget (People’s Park). A peculiar feature of the Liget was the crier whose job was to stand outside his cinema and proclaim, at the top of his voice, the short pictures showing inside his establishment (films were but a few hundred metres in length at the time). Revenue depended, to a large extent, on his skills. This “walking billboard” had a sonorous voice and a keen sense of empathy with which to capture the attention of passers-by to whom he would give a foretaste of the thrills and beauties awaiting them inside by virtually enacting the highlights of the films on show. The function of these inimitable performances was later taken over by more modern, more efficient means of advertisement reaching much larger audiences - huge posters, programme leaflets and, with the advent of the talking film, commercials using theme songs and sound-bites from the films advertised. Between 1906 and 1914, independent cinema buildings designed for the sole purpose of film projection would 10
