“Movies in the church are a success,” said the Reverend Jewett C. Townsend in a June 12, 1926 article in The Alton Evening Telegraph. Rev. Townsend was pastor of Church of the Redeemer, the Congregational church at the corner of East Sixth Street and Henry Street in Alton. Rev. Townsend had just concluded a twenty-week experiment showing movies at church for the Sunday evening service. His purpose was to make the Sunday evening service more popular, and it worked. Four to five times more people came to the evening services with movie screenings than had come previously, and about three-fourths of those attending were young people. Members of other churches and people who did not belong to a church came too. Average attendance was approximately 200.
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The pastor selected a “clean” (but not religious) feature film to show each week. A musical program took place prior to the film, and between the film reels there was a scripture reading. Rev. Townsend closed the service after the film with a short (twelve to fifteen minute) sermon related to a lesson “suggested by” the film. The first of these movie night church events was held on November 22, 1925. The film was He Who Gets Slapped, and the topic of Townsend’s sermon was “The Under Dog.” Attendees filled the church to capacity for the event. The Man Who Played God was shown on November 29, 1925. Proud Flesh, shown on September 19, 1926, “afford[ed] a fine foundation” for the sermon titled “Picking a Man.”
Rev. Townsend was the first Alton pastor to experiment with showing movies as part of a church service, but he was inspired by the Rev. Carl S. Patton, an influential Congregational minister in Los Angeles. But there was one major difference in their approaches. Patton only showed films that he had acquired from special religious film studios. Rev. Townsend used a religious film only once, and “said that it was the least successful of the lot from the standpoint of attendance,” so he went right back to showing films from “regular movie exchanges.” All of the movies mentioned in articles about Rev. Townsend’s church film series had played at the Grand Theatre in Alton within the previous five years. The Inner Voice was shown there in April 1921, The Man Who Played God in February 1923, Proud Flesh in July 1925, He Who Gets Slapped in August 1925.
A November 30, 1925 article in the Alton Evening Telegraph said, “It is not alone a question of filling the church, but of giving the people something worthwhile to think about, and those who were present could have no doubts on that score.” After the initial twenty-week experiment, Rev. Townsend planned to continue Sunday evening movies.
Sources
“Church Movies Seem Success.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), November 30, 1925.
“Church Movies To Be Resumed Sunday Night.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), September 15, 1926.
“Movies at Church.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), November 23, 1925.
“Movies in Church Success, Says Pastor After 20-Week Experiment Held in Alton.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), June 12, 1926.
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