Towards a Comparative Economic History of Cinema, 1930–1970

365 Pages·2022·9.224 MB·English

by  John Sedgwick

Frontiers in Economic History
John Sedgwick Editor
Towards a
Comparative
Economic History
of Cinema,
1930–1970
Frontiers in Economic History
Series Editors
Claude Diebolt, Faculty of Economics, BETA, CNRS, University of Strasbourg,
Strasbourg, France
Michael Haupert, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, USA
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a unified approach in the social sciences.
John Sedgwick
Editor
Towards a Comparative
Economic History
of Cinema, 1930–1970
Editor
John Sedgwick
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
ISSN 2662-9771 ISSN 2662-978X (electronic)
Frontiers in Economic History
ISBN 978-3-031-05769-4 ISBN 978-3-031-05770-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05770-0
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Preface
Over many years I have associated with film historians worldwide who have been
involved in collecting and analysing source materials that reflect the experience of
going to the cinema, the choices that audiences made and the cinemas in which they
sat. From this base, other questions emerge connected to how a stock of films flows
to a set of cinemas in a timely fashion: a process of diffusion that is deliberate and
framed by the circumstances of time and place.
The scholars featured in this book have made significant contributions to devel-
oping this discourse. I am grateful for their patience, especially when, in a few cases,
we started far apart. With their students in mind, I conceived the idea for the book;
something that gained impetus after COVID-19 prevented me from taking up an invi-
tation from Konrad Klejsa to teach and research Polish film history at the University
of Lodz. I had intended to develop a methodological approach to the film industry
in Poland during the 1930s based upon what would have been, for me, unknown
source materials. Primarily, I wanted to show that the Polish film industry could be
examined by following films on their non-random journey from their initial release.
This is my starting point for film industries everywhere.
My academic background is in economic history. I was fortunate to study for a
master’s degree at Birkbeck College, London University, in the early 1980s, taking
courses with Eric Hobsbawm, Roderick Floud, Pat Thane and Ben Fine. The mate-
rial nature of what economic historians investigate and how it shapes landscapes,
environments, lives and consciousness struck a chord. In searching for a disserta-
tion topic, my friend Bernard Hrusa Marlow suggested looking at the early British
film industry, which I did periodising the study from 1896 to 1908. From the trade
journal The Kinematograph and Lantern Monthly, I learned that films were sold by
their length, at first 6d per foot, reducing to 4d per foot in 1906. For an economic
historian, this is essential information, suggesting producers and consumers consid-
ered films a homogeneous commodity. This state didn’t last. It became clear that
entrepreneurs were dynamically changing the business environment during these
embryonic years, searching for innovations that earned them money. At the tail end
v
vi Preface
of my study, film studios began to consciously differentiate their film products by
extending their length and announcing acting inputs. They were also looking for ways
to restrict supply, given the burgeoning second-hand market that was developing.
The motives of film business executives and owners are not very complicated. The
quest for business advantage is measured ultimately in terms of profitability, and in
this pursuit, owners’ behaviour is not always transparent or truthful. In a newly
emerging market, the danger of opportunism is mistrust, leading to markets that do
not function very well. Accordingly, trade associations were formed, supply chain
procedures codified, and miscreant behaviour punished. As films became longer and
differentiated, audiences became more selective, developing preferences. Ultimately,
consumers sanction those products put on the market. They do not pay if the enter-
tainment is not good. Thus, equilibrium is formed, integrating the numerous acts of
coordination entailed in film production with the judgements formed by substantial
but unknown and fleeting audiences.
In this light, it is possible to understand the processes and procedures of the ten
national markets investigated in the book. Two chapters are dedicated to the film
business behind the Iron Curtain around the time of the death of Joseph Stalin, in
which the behaviour of industry executives is politically constrained by ideological
imperatives of a type not experienced by their Western counterparts. Nevertheless,
while it is necessary to be more guarded about our findings in these two contexts,
diffusion patterns emerge like those found in the capitalist world.
The analytical framework proposed in these national studies provides a base for
investigating popular taste and the aesthetics evident in the films seen by many in
each population. The contributors take various approaches—ranging from the close
reading of the popular movies of the day and their mise-en-scene to archival investi-
gations concerning government policy connected to the business of film production,
distribution and exhibition. The purpose is to stimulate scholars starting a research
career in cinema to broaden their investigations to include the materiality of cinema.
A second objective is to demonstrate to economic history researchers that the subject
is not confined to determinants of economic growth and development but also mani-
festations of human activity connected to prosaic and day-to-day that have cultural
undertones.
As well as the contributors, I would like to say something about colleagues I
worked with at an institution variously called the Polytechnic of North London,
University of North London, and London Metropolitan University. Over many years
they provided unwavering support for the Norman Stang research seminar I led and,
through many conversations, candid criticism of the framework I was developing.
Mike Pokorny brought an acute statistical eye to many investigations. I shared a
room with Photis Lysandrou for 20 years, from whom I learned about the DNA of
commodity production. Also, to Stuart Archbold, John Curran and Bob Morgan, I
would like to express my thanks. I also should express my gratitude to Rob Rawlinson,
who read and commented on the chapter on methods.
Preface vii
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the late Karel Dibbets. At the University
of Amsterdam, he developed an extraordinary database of everyday cinema in the
Netherlands during the twentieth century before the German invasion in 1940. Karel
was a pioneer scholar and a lovely man. It is in his memory that I should like to
dedicate the book.
Derbyshire, UK John Sedgwick
Contents
Introduction: ‘Millions of People Every Day’—Cinema as Part
of the Quotidian of Life ............................................ 1
John Sedgwick
Managing Risk in the Film Business—Key Concepts and Methods ..... 19
John Sedgwick
How Did the Department of Justice Get It so Wrong? Philadelphia
1935–1936: The Stanley Warner Chain, Competitive Practices
and Consumer Welfare ............................................. 45
F. Andrew Hanssen and John Sedgwick
Comparative Film Popularity in Three English Cities—Bolton,
Brighton, and Portsmouth: An Exercise in POPSTAT Methodology .... 65
John Sedgwick
Popular Films in Stockholm During the 1930s: A Presentation
and Discussion of the Pioneering Work of Leif Furhammar ............ 87
Åsa Jernudd and John Sedgwick
Dutch Films in the Mid-1930s Dutch Market: A Characteristics
Approach to Film Popularity ....................................... 143
Clara Pafort Overduin
Unravelling Australia’s ‘Infamous “Contract” System’: Evidence
from Adelaide, 1942–1943 .......................................... 185
Dylan Walker and Mike Walsh
Film Exhibition, Distribution and Popularity in German-Occupied
Belgium (1940–1944): Brussels, Antwerp and Liege ................... 217
Roel Vande Winkel and John Sedgwick
Five Italian Cities: Comparative Analysis of Cinema Types, Film
Circulation and Relative Popularity in the Mid-1950s ................. 249
Daniela Treveri Gennari and John Sedgwick
ix
x Contents
Cinemagoers Should ‘…learn from progressive movies, again
and again’. Cinemagoing in Czechoslovakia, 1949–1952 ............... 281
Pavel Skopal, Terézia Porubcˇanská, and John Sedgwick
‘It Seems to Me that the Most Popular Films in the West Are
Very Harmful to Us’: Film Popularity in Poland During the years
of ‘High Stalinisation’ .............................................. 307
Konrad Klejsa and John Sedgwick
Americanisation in Reverse? Hollywood Films, International
Influences, and US Audiences, 1946–1965 ............................ 339
Peter Miskell