In fact, the years of the 1930s are considered the golden era of Hollywood cinema. Eighty-five million people a week crowded movie theaters across America to escape their sometimes desperate financial situations.
How many Americans went to the movies in the 1930s?
Even at the Depression's depths 60 to 80 million Americans attended the movies each week, and, in the face of doubt and despair, films helped sustain national morale.
Millions of people went to the movies then. The high point was between 1929 and 1932. In '33 and '34 it declined a lot, then it picked up a little again. In the peak years about 88 million people would go to the movies every week.
In 1930 (the earliest year from which accurate and credible data exists), weekly cinema attendance was 80 million people, approximately 65% of the resident U.S. population (Koszarski 25, Finler 288, U.S. Statistical Abstract).
How many Americans went to the movies in the 1920s?
During the 1920s, movie attendance soared. By the middle of the decade, 50 million people a week went to the movies - the equivalent of half the nation's population.
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Why did so many Americans go to the movies in the 1930s?
In fact, the years of the 1930s are considered the golden era of Hollywood cinema. Eighty-five million people a week crowded movie theaters across America to escape their sometimes desperate financial situations.
How many Americans went to the movies in the 1940s?
At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week.
The American people in the 1930s and 1940s were no exception. They enjoyed many forms of entertainment, particularly if they could do so inexpensively. With the addition of sound, movies became increasingly popular. Comedies, gangster movies, and musicals helped people forget their troubles.
Cinema became the main form of popular entertainment. Ticket sales went from 40 million per week in 1920 to 100 million in 1930. People went several times a week, and long queues outside were normal.
At an average price of $. 27 a ticket, movies offered a relatively inexpensive way to vacation from reality. Always popular, this sort of diversion was especially sought-after during the Great Depression. Audiences gloried in spectacular fantasies of high society and easy living that they would never know.
How many people went to the movies during the Depression?
60-90 million people went to the movies every week during the Depression, making in one of America's greatest past times. The average movie ticket price during this period was 25 cents, but Americans were willing to spend the money.
How many people did go to the movies a week in 1940?
The association made sure the good guys always won, sexuality was suggested rather than mentioned openly, and social issues were not debated. The strict censorship in Hollywood was meant to protect the nearly eighty million Americans who went to the movies each week.
Why did many people go to the movies in the late 1920s and into the 1930s?
Movies were fun. They provided a change from the day-to-day troubles of life. They also were an important social force. Young Americans tried to copy what they saw in the movies.
Why did so many Americans go to the movies during the Great Depression?
The Great Depression was a largely successful decade for Hollywood. Tickets on average cost under a quarter for the whole of the 1930s, down from 35 cents in 1929, so spending time in the cinema was an affordable form of escapism for many.
As stocks continued to fall during the early 1930s, businesses failed, and unemployment rose dramatically. By 1932, one of every four workers was unemployed. Banks failed and life savings were lost, leaving many Americans destitute. With no job and no savings, thousands of Americans lost their homes.
Sound films – the so-called "talkies" – were a global phenomenon by the early 1930s. Advances in color film included Technicolor and Kodachrome. 1930 marks the start of what is considered to be the 'golden age' of Hollywood, a period which lasted through at least the 1940s.
What percent of Americans visited a movie theater every week by the end of the 1920s?
By the end of the 1920s, there were radios in more than 12 million households. People also went to the movies. Historians estimate that, by the end of the decade, three-quarters of the American population visited a movie theater every week.
How many people attended the movies per week in the 1920s?
Cinema was a very popular form of entertainment during this period and audiences continued to grow through the 1920s. In 1927 60 million people a week went to the cinema, but by 1929 it was 110 million people a week.
However, it wasn't until the Lumière brothers released the cinématographe in 1895 that motion pictures were projected for audience viewing. In the United States, film established itself as a popular form of entertainment with the nickelodeon theater in the 1910s.
During the 1930s, the entire film industry transformed and “Hollywood” became synonymous with big studio pictures and became the standard for movies around the world. Films became cheaper to produce as studios vertically integrated the production process, which allowed the price of film attendance to go down.
From swashbuckling adventures and epic romances like The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939) to classic comedies from Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers; and from feelgood musicals like Top Hat (1935), Shall We Dance (1937) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) to ...
Was entertainment available to everyone in the 1930s?
The most accessible form of entertainment in the 1930s were radio programs and radio broadcasts. Listening to the radio could be a social experience within families or even across small groups of people in community and the broadcasts were free.
Within U.S. film history, 1946 holds the distinction of being the peak year of movie attendance, impressively claiming more than 90 million weekly admissions (or 60 percent of the population).
How many films on average were released each year during the 1920s and 1930s?
With over 20 studios by the end of the 1920s, the movie making industry released an average of 800 films a year during this decade, compared to today's average of 500.
