1930s Movie Theater

Owners of movie theaters thought up a variety of strategies to keep attendance booming throughout this decade of depression. These owners created a hierarchy of theaters, in which the first theater would run the movie first, then the film would be bumped to the second theater, when a newer film was released, and then bounced to the third theater. This strategy left films circulate throughout the theaters for a longer period of time before it was not shown anymore. Another scheme they came up with was to start "Bank Nights," these "'Bank Nights' occurred on those days of the week when attendance was usually low, with tickets becoming part of a lottery for prize money" (“Escapism and Leisure Time 1929-1941”). Other theaters proposed a "Dish night,"
They assisted them in escaping from their troublesome realities, and in modern day, films still do. Although genres to watch to escape reality have changed from romances and witty comedies to epic thrills filled with modern special effects, the movies have the same effect on the modern population then it did back in the 1930s. As long as the population still turns to movies to feel hope and content, the industry will continue to evolve and develop new genres and marketing strategies. Movies still continue to affect society today as it did to society in the past and they continue to reinvent themselves like they did during the 1930s. David Germain, a writer for The Seattle Times, explained that "'in an era that brought harsh reality home with the war on terror and an economy gone bust, Hollywood became more of a dream factory than ever, embracing fantastic escapism at a time when audiences needed it most’” (Kaufman). The yearning for escape also occurs today; even though today’s economic system is much more effective and successful, the population can still, and does, turn to movies to forget about their reality for an hour or two. Along with the escape movies provide, the film industry continues to reinvent itself by creating newfound movie genres, like documentaries, psychodramas, and more and movie theater companies have expremimeted with new techniques to have a substantial
The movie theater industry flourished with the attendance to movie theaters soaring. It was said to be that essentially all the population was attending movie theaters during this decade. The most influential reasoning for this spark of film was the craving for an escape from the people, who needed desperately to get away from their own lives, and experience someone else’s live and feel other emotions besides anguish and sorrow. Although the population’s yearning for an escape pushed the film industry to the top, the government assisted with the Works Progress Administration’s New Deal programs and the film and movie theater companies benefitted the industry by creating unique and intriguing genres and appealing advertisements. Today’s society also reaches to movies to take a break from reality and movie theater companies still continue to advance and innovate advertisements and the theaters themselves to increase the attendance. Even though, the decade of the 1930s was overall filled with misery and discouragement, the film industry was a positive aspect of this time with its new funding by the government it strived with advanced genres and