American Leisure: Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s Essay Example
Declan Carroll
American Leisure: Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s
“Although music, radio, books, magazines, comics, sports, and other forms of mass entertainment were all significant in the thirties, nothing else was a central to American popular culture in that decade as motion pictures,” (McElvaine, 208). Consumer and popular culture is present in the motion picture industry after World War I. A large percentage of Americans went to the movies each week during the 1920s. Surprisingly, that number increased during the Great Depression. This could be due to the new technologies of the film industry. Sound was added to films in the late 1920s. Going to the movies was leisure activity of most Americans and it still is. Upper, middle and working class individuals all went to the movies. Neighborhood theaters allowed all races and ethnicities to go to in familiar company. Movie theaters had an impact on youth culture as well. Some historians believe that American society was reflected in cinema. Films gave Americans a sense of hope.
National prosperity attracted crowds to the movies in August, 1929. There was an addition of sound to the movie experience. Theaters were air-cooled and a nice retreat during the summer. Elaborate motion picture palaces were in cities across the country. There were over “seventeen thousand theaters located in more than nine thousand cities, towns and villages,” (Balio, 2). There was a notion that the good times were here to stay. After the stock market crash, the movie industry suffered fewer losses than other industries such as oil, transportation, steel, and chain stores, (Crafton, 187). From September 1929 to November the stocks of Fox, Warner Brothers, and Paramount fell 40-50 percent, (Crafton, 188). Ticket prices fell from a two dollars to fifty cents, (Crafton, 190). Prices would fall further to thirty-five cents and to ten cents, (Crafton, 268). Luckily sound systems were put into the theaters before the
American Leisure: Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s
“Although music, radio, books, magazines, comics, sports, and other forms of mass entertainment were all significant in the thirties, nothing else was a central to American popular culture in that decade as motion pictures,” (McElvaine, 208). Consumer and popular culture is present in the motion picture industry after World War I. A large percentage of Americans went to the movies each week during the 1920s. Surprisingly, that number increased during the Great Depression. This could be due to the new technologies of the film industry. Sound was added to films in the late 1920s. Going to the movies was leisure activity of most Americans and it still is. Upper, middle and working class individuals all went to the movies. Neighborhood theaters allowed all races and ethnicities to go to in familiar company. Movie theaters had an impact on youth culture as well. Some historians believe that American society was reflected in cinema. Films gave Americans a sense of hope.
National prosperity attracted crowds to the movies in August, 1929. There was an addition of sound to the movie experience. Theaters were air-cooled and a nice retreat during the summer. Elaborate motion picture palaces were in cities across the country. There were over “seventeen thousand theaters located in more than nine thousand cities, towns and villages,” (Balio, 2). There was a notion that the good times were here to stay. After the stock market crash, the movie industry suffered fewer losses than other industries such as oil, transportation, steel, and chain stores, (Crafton, 187). From September 1929 to November the stocks of Fox, Warner Brothers, and Paramount fell 40-50 percent, (Crafton, 188). Ticket prices fell from a two dollars to fifty cents, (Crafton, 190). Prices would fall further to thirty-five cents and to ten cents, (Crafton, 268). Luckily sound systems were put into the theaters before the