‘They’ll be dancing in the aisles!’: Youth audiences, cinema exhibition and the mid-1930s swing boom

Snelson, Tim ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8282-2432 (2017) ‘They’ll be dancing in the aisles!’: Youth audiences, cinema exhibition and the mid-1930s swing boom. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 37 (3). pp. 455-474. ISSN 0143-9685

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Abstract

In switching the analytic focus from the sites and strategies of production to those of exhibition and consumption, this article challenges dominant understandings of American cinema culture in the second half of the 1930s. Adopting historical reception studies and programming research approaches, it challenges the idea of the dedifferentiated family audience by demonstrating how a number of metropolitan first-run cinemas and, resultantly, major regional and national exhibition circuits, changed their programming strategies to incorporate the demands and rituals of a committed market of young swing fans. With live music declared ‘the most sought after theatre attractions’ by 1938, the elevation of ‘name’ swing bands and bandleaders to cinema programmes’ ‘A’ attractions undermined Hollywood’s ‘one programme for one audience’ policy and challenged the studios’ hegemony in controlling top product.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	classical hollywood,exhibition,audiences,youth market,swing,jitterbug
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > East Anglian Film Archive
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Mar 2016 09:10
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2024 00:40
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57650
DOI:	10.1080/01439685.2016.1187850

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