Margaret Island card club

Status: missing
Premiere: 17 November 1913 (newsreel No. 1.)

Pesti Napló, 15 November 1913

Background to film report:

Date:
October-November 1913 (before 15 November 1913)

Presumed location:
Head office, Szent Margitsziget Spa Bath Company, Margaret Island (the building no longer exists)

Event:
Prime Minister István Tisza thwarted a plan to build a casino and gambling den on Margaret Island. This move came after the General Trading Company had already paid one and a half million crowns into the coffers of the ruling National Party of Work to obtain approval of the statutes. The corruption scandal may have been the subject of the very first Kino-Riport film report.

Background to the event:
The Szent Margitsziget Spa Bath Company established on 1 January 1913 received a 60-year lease on the island with the objective of invigorating spa culture and boosting tourism. The casino plan was part of this overall scheme. The company’s head office was built in the same year, which many likened to the palace of a toy bank. However, even at this time two designers commissioned by the company were working on the plans of a large casino…

Kino-Riport footage:

“The lead article – the first picture – brings the life and death of the Margaret Island card club to the screen in an inventive fashion”

Photographs relevant to the event: 

Friss Ujság, 25 December 1913.


The building in later photographs:

1910s (source: Szabó Ervin Library Budapest Collection)

1920 (source: Fortepan/TEHTUBE)

1927 (source: Fortepan/Pesti Brunó)

1933 (source: Fortepan/Turbéky Eszter)

1945 (source: Fortepan/Kunszt János)

Source:

Pesti Hírlap, 1913. október 12.
Népszava, 1913. október 14.
Mozi-Világ, 1913. november 16.
N. Kósa Judit: Kaszinóbotrány a szigeten – Népszabadság, 2014.11.22.