‘Christ is Coming to the Elite Cinema'

During the 1920 spring fair in the Dutch town of Venlo, in the province of Limburg, the film Christ was screened at the Elite Bioscoop (or Elite Cinema). ¹ Lambert Caubo, the son and designated successor of the cinema owner Jos Caubo, had arranged a spectacular publicity stunt for the show. He had hired a small airplane to disseminate pamphlets over the busy fair grounds, announcing in large letters: ‘Christ is coming’, followed in tiny print by ‘to the Elite Cinema’. Providence must have punished the hubris of the young Caubo, distributing flyers like manna from heaven, because the plane crashed into the backyard of a butcher, killing him and two others. ²