The Rise and Fall of the News Theatres

Abstract

On 5 March 1930 a columnist in The Bioscope, reflecting on the impact of talking pictures, expressed the opinion that 90 minutes of solid, uninterrupted dialogue was too much for most people. The writer argued for variety in programmes, since audiences became restless with long features, and suggested this was the right moment to open a specialised cinema in London catering for those who shared his opinion. A programme made up entirely of short two-reel comedies would be just the ticket, and even more successful would be a News Reel Theatre: this would make someone a small fortune, the correspondent suggested (The Bioscope 1930; 21). No doubt the Bioscope man had read of innovations in the United States where, from the beginning of sound on film, William Randolph Hearst’s Metrotone newsreel and the rival Fox Movietone News played at customised theatres. Neon signs on marquees, advertising ‘news and shorts’ at 25 cents admission, competed with news flashes on electric billboards to define the urban landscape. It was not only trade journals that were monitoring the situation. Ordinary people in Britain would have seen occasional newspaper and magazine articles on this new kind of entertainment, like the one from The Spectator of 22 February 1930 about the Embassy in New York, which described how ‘the theatre is crowded from early morning until midnight’ and expressed no surprise at this phenomenon, since ‘many of us prefer to see “actualite ” films rather than films of escape’ (Simpson 1930: 268, 269). Such was the public demand for topicality, important events were often filmed in the morning, processed and edited around lunchtime, and screened that evening. The arrival of the ‘news and interest’ or ‘specialised’ cinema theatre from the USA was inevitable, and the Bioscope columnist had not long to wait.1 On Monday 18 August 1930, British Movietone screened London’s