When the crash hit, it was left cold-cocked by what industry veterans called “its first real churning in the economic maelstrom.”įrom a jazz age high of more than 100 million loyal moviegoers a week in a population of roughly 120 million, Variety estimated in 1931 that average theater attendance had plunged to 65 million by 1931, a drop of 40 percent.
Since the days of the nickelodeon, the motion picture industry had considered itself immune from the normal cycles of boom and bust. (“The Great Depression ruled our home,” a fellow baby boomer once remarked to me.)įor Hollywood, the swiftness of the descent into hard times proved especially wrenching. Twenty-five percent unemployment, no safety net, widespread hunger and hopelessness - a soul-crushing trauma that scarred the psyche of the greatest generation more than World War II.
Of course, the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression was the main cause of the rush to the exists, a prolonged convalescence for which not even FDR could fast-track a vaccine.
#MARQUEE VINTAGE SCENE MOVIE#
What Studio Franchises Can Learn From the Rise, Fall and Rise of the Westernīy way of perspective and maybe solace, it is worth remembering that the present emergency is not the first time that exhibitors have been beset by a sickening plague and a hot new media rival. In the nadir of the Great Depression, a flatlined economy and the siren call of radio had audiences deserting theaters in droves. It was the movie house version of a bank run, only the customers were running away from the venues.
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