silver sheet

silver sheet (plural silver sheets)

1. A thin sheet of silver, e.g. used in metalworking or jewellery.
2. (colloquial, dated, 1920s-1940s) A cinema screen onto which movies are projected.
   • 1920, Charles Donald Fox, Milton L. Silver, editors, Who's Who on the Screen, page 2:

     Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, producers of Paramount Pictures today, has its product displayed upon the silver sheet in every country where there is a projection machine.

   • 1940 August 28, Variety‎, page 8:

     Ushers rushed up and dragged the belligerent one off before serious damage was done either to himself or the silver sheet.

3. (1920s-1940s, idiomatic, dated) By extension, movies, the film industry, or that which is related to movies or cinema (often preceded with "the")

   After years in local theatre productions, he made his debut on the silver sheet and became known around the world.

   • 1921 June, Frank E. Woods, “Confidentially...”, in The Photodramatist, page 7:

     I began writing for the screen, which hadn't as yet been christened the "silver sheet," while employed on the Dramatic Mirror in New York City

   • 1924 July, Malcolm H. Oettinger, “The Eternal Undergraduate”, in Picture Play Magazine, page 34:

     On the screen Virginia Valli impresses one as mature, womanly, and reserved; off the silver sheet there is an elfin charm about her...

• silver screen
• big screen

• shirt sleeve, shirt-sleeve, shirtsleeve, theirselves