This picture is a screaming farce. It shows a Turkish prince at Riverview Park demonstrating the peculiar power of a certain liquid he has recently discovered.

He has an odd-looking spraying device, in which he puts the liquid. He then sprays it upon the heads and shoulders of his subjects upon the platform and they immediately start to perform the Salome dance.

The fun is at its height when a small boy squeezes through the crowd to see the sight. He decides that he must have the machine and waits around until an opportunity presents itself, then steals it.

The Turk soon discovers his loss and frantically rushes after the boy. who easily eludes his pursuer by dodging through the crowd.

He then sprays the liquid on everyone whom he meets, and it is most laughable to see these people moving along the street "doing" the Salome.

The boy is enjoying himself hugely, when up comes the Turk. As he is about to take the machine from the boy. he turns it upon the surprised Turk, who immediately starts to do the Salome, much to the amusement of the small boy and those looking on.

Source: Moving Picture World

A film short produced by the Phoenix Film Company in 1909 offers a relatively benign example. Like the New York Times quote with which I opened this article, The Salome Craze riffs on the notion of a Salomania "outbreak" among New York women. In this film a Turkish prince displays a magical liquid that, when sprayed upon people, causes them to immediately begin performing the Salome dance. As he demonstrates the power of the liquid in New York's Riverview Park, the prince's machine is stolen by a little boy, who begins spraying the liquid on everyone he sees, creating a "most laughable" climax of hoards of people in the street "'doing' the Salome." (37) Salomania is portrayed in the film as a (foreign) transmittable disease that threatens American "values" and traditions. If not carefully quarantined, this imagery implies, "unruly" female bodies and behaviors will certainly metastasize, upsetting established gender roles and doubling insistent calls not only for shorter skirts and more free-flowing clothes but for suffrage, reproductive rights, and greater opportunities in the public sphere

Source: The Free Library