disruptive geezer theatre doors / wartime propaganda

Above This photograph was published in an American theatre magazine during World War I. It shows the decorated entrance of a Broadway theatre in which disruptive abstract patterns (not unlike the confusing dazzle camouflage being applied at the time to merchant ships) have been used to contradict the building's physical form. 

It was common at the time for "scenic artists" (theatre and film set designers) to be assigned to wartime camouflage. 

The treatment of this entrance was a way of promoting the screening of a 1918 short propaganda film titled The Geezer of Berlin, which was of course in reference to the German Kaiser, aka the Beast of Berlin, and the Clown Prince (in reference to his son). Disruptive patterns such as these not only cause visual confusion; they can also disturb the emotions, and, to some extent, designs like this anticipate the use of skewed perspective and shape deformation in avant-garde "expressionist" films, such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In a recent video, titled Ames and Anamorphosis, I have talked about the use of distorted perspective in that and other early films.