‘Make your public curious’: Cinema management, film advertising and audience taste in England, c. 1920-c. 1960

Going to the cinema is the result of a series of choices. A number of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors operate in those decisions. In the first half of the twentieth century cinema-goers were faced with a variety of films to watch and a large number of cinemas in which to watch them. On top of this, consumers had a host of leisure activities competing for their free time, so going to the cinema was a conscious decision made after taking a series of choices. Cinema managers knew that if they were to run a successful business, they had to respond to the needs of the public. As a result, they paid close attention to their patrons’ film preferences, and many ran extravagant campaigns in order to attract them into their cinema halls.
This chapter will analyse the activities of cinema managers across Britain in order to evaluate what practices they undertook to ensure that the businesses they ran were successful. In order to do this, it will, firstly, look at the ways in which managers attempted to defend their trade against outside criticism, and secondly, provide an overview of the promotional activities they undertook across the country to draw a picture of the range of ways in which they touted for business. It will be argued that cinema managers were active agents in the film business, repeatedly responded to their patrons’ demands, appreciated their film tastes – but also helped to shape them – and expended considerable energy ensuring that their businesses were a success. In doing so, this chapter will illustrate how popular leisure activities such as cinema-going are a result of a series of negotiations taking place, and that they are moulded and shaped by a range of practitioners and participants.