All that aside, we are going with this source because it has the original film embedded for comparison.
From The Vintage News, February 21:
It was one of the baby steps of early cinema and many consider it the first actual movie ever made (although there were very short “motion pictures” produced before). Now a silent classic, it has received the mother of all digital restorations. Lumiere Brothers short ‘Arrivée d’un train à la Ciota’ (‘Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat’) has been rendered in stunning 4K, and it’s all thanks to an AI developer.
Denis Shiryaev took the 1895 steam train sequence and gave it the neural network treatment, running it at 60 FPS (Frames Per Second). Put simply, neural networks are computer systems that work like a brain. In another 21st century twist, Shiryaev uploaded the upscaling onto YouTube. His posting has gone viral, with millions of views....MUCH MORE
If interested see also Wednesday's "Video: A Trip Through New York City, 1911—Restored, 4K, Stunning"
As far as money goes, although movies were popular during the Great Depression, between tight budgets for moviegoers and some serious price-cutting on tickets, the stocks were not.
Like publicly-traded investment banks when there are profits they go to the insiders/principals as salary and bonus while losses go to the public shareholders.
We went over the numbers in 2009:
A quick look at the Cowles Theaters and Motion Pictures sub-index* (price series P-55, page 152) shows the index bottoming at 46.0 in October of the 1921 bear market, a Roaring 20's high of 150.6 in January 1929 and a depression low of 5.1 in March, 1933.
Although the business held up fairly well in the first year of the depression, they ended up a bit worse than the general market. Between the '29 high and the '33 low they lost 96% vs. the DJIA's 89% fall.
The stocks declined despite the common (and erroneous) perception that motion pictures were a resilient business. From Film Encyclopedia:
...The industry had enjoyed a period of prosperity in the 1920s, building luxurious movie palaces and, from 1927 on, cashing in on the novelty of the newly developed technology of talking films. Between 1930 and 1933, however, movie attendance dropped from around ninety million admissions per week to sixty million admissions, and average ticket prices dropped from 30 cents to around 20 cents over the same span. Industry revenues dropped from $720 million in 1929 to $480 million in 1933, while total company profits of $54.5 million in 1929 gave way to total company losses of $55.7 million in 1932....There are two problems with the business as an investment.
First, similar to the investment banks, when times are good the profits belong to the employees. When times are bad the losses belong to the shareholders.
Second, there are no pure plays among the six majors:
Columbia/Tristar and MGM/UA are owned by Sony.
Disney is a conglomerate.
Paramount is owned by Viacom
Warner Brothers is owned by Time-Warner
Universal is owned by General Electric
20th Century Fox is owned by News Corp
*Sub-index components are listed on page 474:
Paramount Publix
Loew's
RKO
Fox Film
Fox Theatres
Shubert
Stanley Co.
Warner Brothers
Columbia
Twentieth Century Fox
