Facing the Depression: Movie Exhibition in the Philadelphia Area, 1931

Throughout the 1930s, the Hollywood trade journal Film Daily Yearbook published an annual feature in which movie moguls assessed current conditions and made predictions for the future. In the "Outlook for 1931," industry leaders de-scribed the prospects for the coming year. Adolph Zukor, President of Paramount Pictures, stated, "The American people have plenty of money and will spent [sic] it if they are offered greater value for their dollar" (549). One of his primary rivals, Warner Bros. President Harry M. Warner, echoed these sentiments: "There is no limit to the possibilities of future expansion for motion pictures" (549). Over five and a half pages, executives of the studios and their theater chains predicted great things for 1931. "The motion picture industry is fundamentally sound," declared the Presi-dent of RKO; the Vice-Presi-dent in Charge of Distribution for Fox went so far as to say that "There has been entirely too much talk about de-pression" (551). Only C.B. DeMille, representing the Association of Motion Picture Producers, warned that 1931 would be "a test of courage," and invoked the phrase "survival of the fittest" (551). The others-presidents, general managers, executive vice-presidents-- shared one motto: We will produce good pictures, and the film industry will flourish. In the theaters themselves, however, a different mood prevailed, as is immediately evident from headlines in early 1931 issues of The Exhibitor, a publication which served theater owners and operators in much of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and all of Delaware. "Dark Houses in District Total 91," the January 1 st issue reported. "Weak Business" on February 1 gave way to "Theatre Men Faced With Shortage of Product" on March 15. Issue after issue, this trade magazine traced the struggle to make ends meet in the face of what the Fox executive considered the over-used term "depression." It is easy now for film scholars to determine that The Exhibitor was more prescient-or at least more honest-than the Hollywood "suits." The year 1931 was, in fact, pivotal for the film industry, a disaster at the box office; none of the so-called "Big Five" studios-MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Fox-emerged unscathed. Historian Tino Balio points out that during that year, movie admissions dropped more than 12 percent, while the "price of a ticket also fell-from 30 cents to 20 cents on the average" (13). By the end of the year, Warners had lost nearly $8 million, Fox $4 million, RKO $5.7 million (15). The studios laid off workers and cut wages for those it retained. In Grand Design, Balio describes the film industry in the grip of what we now know enough to call the Great Depression: studios in receivership, cost-cutting measures ranging from budget caps on "A" pictures to re-releases of previous successes. But it was not in the studios themselves that the pain was most keenly felt. In fact, as Balio points out, "bankruptcies and receiverships occurred in the exhibition subsidiaries of the majors and not in ... production and distribution" (16). Furthermore, the "affiliated" houses-those owned by the Big Five-accounted for only 20% of the theaters in the U.S.; the rest were independents, and their owners, with their livelihoods at stake, were often forced to book films they believed to be of inferior quality and to concoct promotions to attract moviegoers. Balio makes clear how economic conditions affected theaters: In 1930, more than twenty thousand theaters were operating in the United States. Two years later, an estimated four thousand had gone dark. The vast majority of these theaters ... were owned by independents. (15) The battle to survive the Depression was fought at every single box office. While historians can generalize about the most common problems faced by theater owners and operators, we gain insight into the complexity of movie exhibition by examining specific cases. Urban houses faced stiff competition due to the sheer number of theaters; studios reneged on deals and cut back production; state censorship and local legislation affected how theaters operated and what they could show; weather conditions often played havoc with box office receipts. …