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The aforementioned enterprises all had a direct bearing on the future history of the cinema in South Africa but there were also many others which came into being, operated for a short time and then disappeared. The institution of permanent cinemas did not immediately deter itinerant showmen from continuing to tour the large towns. Wolfram himself, even when his own permanent bioscope was operating in Cape Town, toured throughout the country and as late as June 1910, exhibited in Johannesburg when the town already owned fifteen ³picture palaces². Beetar, Thornton, Pascot and one or two others continued touring but sooner or later, all were forced to exclude the large towns where ³stationary bioscopes² suddenly appeared in great numbers.
Like Wolfram, Thornton established his own bioscope---³Thornton¹s Electric Piocture Palace² which began with a twelve months¹ lease of His Majesty¹s Theatre in Durban in August 1910 and ended as one of the best-known names in the South African entertainment world. Beetar too established a bioscope---³The Popular Picture Palace² in West Street, Durban which was opened in November 1910 but had not sustained success. Apart from the innumerable ³picture palaces² which made sudden and often unsuccessful appearances in towns throughout South Africa (Johannesburg excelled all others in ³bioscope fever²), moving pictures continued to be exploited by other amusement enterprises. They were used by hotels and cafes and ³Jollyrinkoscope², ³Urbanorascopes² and other versions of the bioscope appeared in profusion at skating rinks (where the revived craze for roller-skating again showed signs of declining). ³Legitimate² entertainment too showed signs of succumbing before the popular fancy (overseas the music hall had already suffered appreciably) and in Cape Town alone, the Opre House and Tivoli had, though only temporarily, been given over to ³Bioscope Displays². The Tivoli in particular soon made a speciality of moving pictures and for some time dispensed entirely with variety turns. The immediate success of permanent cinemas prompted every type of speculator to open them, frequently without capital. These ³picture palaces² were of the shoddiest nature and showed films which were at best second-hand. Their income (from shillings and sixpences) was very small and though perhaps initially successful, competition from better-organised shows caused their patronage to decline. During 1910 an incalculable number of ³picture palaces² were opened throughout South Africa but few survived six months.
Some, like the Coliseum in Johannesburg, survived two or three years; but for the most part, the first bioscopes, riding the crest of the wave for a few weeks at best, soon disappeared. Their failure was due to the unsound basis of the early industry and unbusinesslike methods; but ³bioscope fever² remained and indeed intensified. As fast as the first ³picture palaces² closed, they were re-opened by more optimistic speculators or others appeared elsewhere; but in the end, only those operated by showmen such as Wolfram, Thornton and Fisher and the few solidly-founded companies with ³circuits² survived.
--Thelma Gutsche, The History and Social Significance of Motion Pictures in South Africa 1895-1940 (1972).
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