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| Nov 2005 - The Road to Multiplex |
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Most of us didn't realize it, but we Rogers class of 1960 students attended high school at a time of a decline in the film industry. This was stimulated by three forces.
After World War II the US Supreme Court ruled that the major studios could no longer control the complete life cycle of films that consisted of production, distribution, and exhibition. It ordered that the studios give up ownership of theaters, citing that this had been a monopoly in violation of antitrust laws. This upset the film industry's business model.
The second change originated from committees in the US Congress investigating alleged infiltration of the movie industry by Communists. We called this hysteria McCarthyism after US Senator Joseph R. McCarthy who denounced numerous political figures as taking part in Communist activity. The hysteria spilled into the entertainment industry. Movie studios fired, or didn't hire many actors, writers, and directors who were accused of being or associating with Communists. This was the era of the blacklist. It harmed the film industry.
The third, and greatest disruption, was caused by the emergence of television. The number of sets in US homes grew rapidly in the 1950s, eating into movie attendance. The zenith of movie attendance was in 1946. By the 1960s, movie attendance was one forth the 1946 levels. Recall that Spokane's first TV station was KHQ channel 6. It signed on as a dual NBC-ABC affiliate late in 1952. KREM channel 2 took the ABC affiliation when it signed on in 1954. Television stations were similarly emerging in other US cities. This was a threat to the movie business model that depended on families going the movies on weekends. The film industry began to respond.
Although color film technology existed as early as 1908, the majority of films had been black-and-white. More color films appeared because the studios had to fight television's appeal by trying to differentiate themselves from the monochrome television of the 50's and early 60's. It is interesting that many of the better films of the 60's and 70's were filmed in monochrome at the time when the use of Technicolor was exploding. Recall Psycho, To Kill a Mockingbird, On the Beach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?