Conflicts among Hollywood studios and exhibitors have been going on for years. At their heart are questions about how films should be released—where, when and at what speed. Both sides of this disagreement are losers, with exhibitors using the law via various Consent Decrees and studios retaliating by tightly controlling output.
In the Silent Era, movies were not released nearly as widely as they are now. This book tells the story of how the few became the many. It explores the contraction of the release cycle, the maximization of the marketing dollar, and the democratization of consumer access. It also offers a comprehensive list of wide releases and rebuts much of what previous scholars have found.

Brian Hannan writes a regular column for Cinema Retro magazine and gives lectures on Hitchcock at Strathclyde University. He lives in Scotland.

Brian Hannan
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 319
Bibliographic Info: 100 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7414-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3391-6
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Introduction 2
One: The Jazz Singer Revolutionizes Wide Release, 1913–1936 11
Two: World Premieres at a City Near You, 1937–1943 31
Three: Quick Money, 1944–1950 52
Four: Taking Stock, 1951–1955 72
Five: Slowing Down, Speeding Up, 1956–1959 93
Six: The Exhibitor Fights Back, 1960–1962 117
Seven: Downtown Anchors Aweigh, 1963–1965 135
Eight: Saturation ­Re-Think, 1966–1970 156
Nine: The Road to Jaws, 1971–1975 173
Ten: The Defining Period for Wide Release, 1976–1979 196
Eleven: We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat, 1980–2017 217
Conclusion 229
Postscript 231
Chapter Notes 233
Bibliography 289
Index 293