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Who Watched that Masked Man? Hollywood's Serial Audiences in the 1930S

2011; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2011.572604

1465-3451

Guy Barefoot,

Art History and Market Analysis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements My thanks to the British Film Institute Library, the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, the Cinema–Television Library at the University of Southern California, the Margaret Herrick Library, and the Autry Library at the Museum of the American West for providing me with access to their collections. My research in US archives was financed by a British Academy Small Research Grant in 2006. Notes 1. See Ben Singer, Melodrama and Modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts (New York, Columbia UP, 2001) and Shelley Stamp, Ready-Made customers: female movie fans and the serial craze, in: Movie-Struck Girls: women and motion picture culture after the nickelodeon (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2000), 102–153. 2. Ben Singer, Serials, in: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (ed.), The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996), 110 and 111. 3. Alan Barbour, Saturday Afternoon at the Movies, 3 volumes (New York, Bonanza Books, 1986). 4. Roy Kinnard, The Flash Gordon serials, Films in Review, 39(4) (April 1988), 198. 5. Yannis Tzioumakis, American Independent Cinema: an introduction (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 76. 6. W. K. Everson, Serials with sound have steadily declined in quality and quantity, Films in Review, 4(6) (June–July 1953), 276. 7. Dedicated serial fan, collector and writer, Jack Mathis calculated that the total running time of Republic serials was 210 hours, 10 minutes and 50 seconds: Valley of the Cliffhangers (Northbrook, IL, Jack Mathis Advertising, 1975), vii. 8. See, for instance, the forums available through the ‘Serial Squadron’ web site: http://www.serialsquadron.com/ (accessed 4 January 2011). 9. See, for instance, William C. Cline, In the Nick of Time: motion picture sound serials (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 1984), vii–x. 10. The Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain Archive is held at Lancaster University, UK. See Annette Kuhn, Jam jars and cliffhangers, in: An Everyday Magic: cinema and cultural memory (London, I.B. Tauris, 2002), 38–65, and Sarah J. Smith, Children, Cinema & Censorship: from Dracula to the Dead End Kids (London, I.B. Tauris, 2005). 11. See Jeffrey Klenotic, “Four hours of hootin’ and hollerin’”: moviegoing and everyday life outside the movie palace, in: Richard Maltby, Melvyn Stokes and Robert C. Allen (eds), Going to the Movies: Hollywood and the social experience of cinema (Exeter, Exeter University Press, 2007), 130–154. 12. J. P. Mayer, British Cinemas and Their Audiences: sociological studies (London, Dennis Dobson, 1948); J.P. Mayer, Sociology of Film: studies and documents (London, Faber, 1946); Herbert Blumer, Movies and Conduct (New York, Arno Press, 1970) [first published 1933]. 13. Margaret Thorp, America at the Movies (London, Faber, 1946), 20. 14. Ibid., 78. 15. Ibid., 22. 16. Mary Field, Good Company: the story of the children's entertainment film movement in Great Britain 1943–1950 (London, Longman Green & Co., 1952), 173. 17. Roger Hagerdorn, Doubtless to be continued: a new history of serial narrative, in: Robert C. Allen (ed.), To Be Continued: soap operas around the world (London, Routledge, 1995), 34. 18. How to Make Money with Serials (New York, Universal Pictures Corporation, n.d.), 12. 19. Ibid., 59 and 31. 20. 24 Million Eager Kids, Universal Weekly, 30 June 1934. 21. Gordon of Ghost City advertisement, Universal Weekly, 3 June 1933. 22. Starts Them Going to the Movies, Universal Weekly, 12 January 1935. 23. AP, Films Lose Noted Maker of Serials, Hartford Courant, 4 October 1944. 24. Bring the Kids Back, Danger Island press book, British Film Institute Library (hereafter BFI). All the press books cited in this article were designed for exhibitors in the United States. 25. Clubwomen Commend “Clancy”, Universal Weekly, 25 February 1933. 26. Ibid. 27. Four Talking Serials, Universal Weekly, 21 June 1930. 28. To Every Man who was once a Boy! Universal Weekly, 30 November 1935. 29. For the Program, Perils of Pauline press book (BFI). 30. 4 Smashing Serials from Universal, Universal Weekly, 20 July 1935. 31. Balaban & Katz Book Serials, Universal Weekly, 25 April 1936. 32. Special Preview Questionnaire: Jungle Queen, Universal Collection, Box 238/7070, Folder 6, USC Cinema-Television Library (hereafter USC). 33. Serial Preview Questionnaire: Secret Agent X9, Universal Collection, Box 238, 7042, Folder 3 (USC). 34. Go After the Kids, And the Adults, Galloping Ghost press book (BFI); Go After the Men, The Lost Jungle press book (BFI). 35. Use the Kids to Help Sell This Serial Made Principally for Their Amazement, Undersea Kingdom press book (BFI). 36. Serial Fan Contest, Perils of Nyoka press book (BFI). 37. Taboos for Serial Writer, and Specialize on Serial Production, Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. press book, Jack Mathis Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University (hereafter BYU). 38. Lobby, Fronts, Tie-Ups, Desert Hawk press book (BFI). 39. Kids at Heart, Overland with Kit Carson press book (BFI). 40. Contact Adults, Shirley Paterson, Batman press book (BFI). 41. Serials in Marked Comeback: 50 N.Y. Loew Theatres Book Em Sat. Mats, Variety, 6 March 1940. See also Cliffhangers Would Woo Adult Film Fans with Maturer Plots, Variety, 9 September 1942. 42. Variety, 14 February 1940. 43. Hollywood Reporter, 8 November 1943; Motion Picture Daily, 17 November 1943. 44. Daily Variety, 1 May 1940; Motion Picture Herald, 4 May 1940. 45. Motion Picture Herald, 4 May 1940. 46. Film Daily, 9 November 1938. 47. Serials are Still Popular Fare, Motion Picture Herald, 2 September 1944. 48. Exhibitor, 1 April 1935. This periodical went under different names up to when it was absorbed into Showmen's Trade Review in 1957. It was published in four localised editions and one national edition; I have used the copy held at the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles. 49. Exhibitor, 1 June 1936, 15 November 1937, 15 November 1938. 50. Exhibitor, 1 February 1936. 51. Exhibitor, 1 August 1938, 30 October 1936, 14 May 1941, 25 March 1942, 10 January 1940, 25 March 1942, 15 May 1937. 52. Exhibitor, 1 September 1937. 53. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, “What the picture did for me”: small town exhibitors' strategies for surviving the Great Depression, in: Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley (ed.), Hollywood in the Neighborhood: historical case studies of local moviegoing (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 2008), 186; J. W. Crabtree, Clarendon, AR, in: Exhibitors Forum, 7 April 1931. 54. Motion Picture Herald, 15 June 1935 (Globe Theatre, Holyoke, Mass., middle class downtown patronage), 23 April 1938 (Princess Theatre, Lincoln, Kansas, small town patronage). 55. Motion Picture Herald, 19 May 1934 (Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, NC). 56. Motion Picture Herald, 14 May 1938 (Cedar Theatre, Cedartown, GA, small town patronage), 4 December 1943 (Park Theatre, South Berwick, ME), 2 March 1935 (Mission Theatre, Clayton, NM, small town patronage), 27 April 1935 (Dirigo Theatre, Ellsworth, ME, small town patronage). 57. Motion Picture Herald, 29 January 1938 (Mason Theatre, Mason, MI, small town patronage), 11 June 1938 (Palace Theatre, Torrington, CT, general patronage). 58. Motion Picture Herald, 3 June 1939 (Plaza Theatre, Tilbury, Ontario, Canada, general patronage). 59. Motion Picture Herald, 30 March 1935 (Owl Theatre, Lebanon, KS, small town patronage), 4 May 1935 (Liberty Theatre, Quinton, OK, small town patronage), 21 August 1936 (Orpheum Theatre, Tremonton, UT, general patronage), 11 June 1938 (Fox Theatre, Fertile, MN, rural and small town patronage). 60. Motion Picture Herald, 18 February 1939 (Lyric Theatre, Hamilton, OH, family patronage). 61. Mildred Barsh, Cheer, Stamp—Stamp—Hiss! Los Angeles Times, 3 September 1939. 62. Bosley Crowther, Numbered in Serials, New York Times, 12 November 1939. 63. Thomas Wood, The Sad State of the Serial, New York Times, 22 December 1946. 64. Hubbard Keavey, Serials Still Pack Thrills, Hartford Courant, 17 August 1941. 65. 1947 Film Daily Yearbook of Motion Pictures (New York, Wid's Film and Film Folk, 1947), 55. 66. Mollie Merrick, Serial Queens Come Into Own, Los Angeles Times, 27 March 1932. 67. Mildred Barsh, Cheer, Stamp—Stamp—Hiss! 68. Cliff-Hanger Heroines, Los Angeles Times, 8 September 1940. 69. Cliff-Hangers, Los Angeles Times, 20 October 1946. 70. John Scott, Old-Time Serial Thrillers Returning to Popularity, Washington Post, 6 March 1938. 71. Buck Jones Scrapbook, Autry Library, Museum of the American West (hereafter MAW), Los Angeles. 72. Frederick C. Othman, Man on the Half Shell (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1947), 90. 73. Oelwein Daily Register, 1 February 1936. 74. At the Ritz Theatre, ibid. 75. Peter Stanfield, Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: the lost trail (Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 2001), 82–87. 76. Robert Allen, Manhattan myopia: or, Oh! Iowa, Cinema Journal, No. 35 (1996), 96. 77. Lima News, 11 October 1935. Terrytoons was an animation studio whose films featured characters such as Mighty Mouse and Gandy Goose. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was a cartoon character created by Walt Disney in 1927 and featured in films made by Walter Lanz for Universal in the 1930s. The Lima News advertisement doesn’t give details of the particular cartoons, Three Stooges short, or Tarzan film screened. 78. Dunkirk Evening Observer, 14 January. 79. Afro-American, 13 May 1939. 80. See David Rothel, Who Was That Masked Man? The Story of the Lone Ranger (South Brunswick & New York, A.S. Barnes, 1976). 81. See Exclusive: Gore Verbinski Talks The Lone Ranger and More, http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=74095, 12 February 2011 (accessed 12 February 2011). 82. Rothel, 141 and 160. 83. See Striker's writer's guide to the radio series, reprinted in Rothel, 86–89. However Mathis, who describes the first Republic serial as ‘relatively faithful to the radio rendition’, notes that any objections that Trendle had to Republic's treatment did not prevent him from entering an agreement for a second serial, and subsequently entering into (ultimately aborted) negotiations for a third: Valley of the Cliffhangers, 70, 103, 106. 84. Alan Barbour, The Thrill of It All (New York, Collier, 1981), 81. 85. John Sheldon Lawrence, The Lone Ranger: adult legacies of a juvenile western, in: Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Conner (eds), Hollywood's West: the American frontier in film, television and history (Lexington, KY, University of Kentucky Press, 2005), 82–83. 86. Avi Santo, Transmedia brand licensing prior to conglomeration: George Trendle and the Lone Ranger and Green Hornet brands, 1933–1966. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2006), 147. 87. Serial Production Calls For Real Expert Writers, Lone Ranger press book, MAW. 88. Avi Santo, email to the author, 13 April 2010. 89. Rothel, 214. He does not name the source of those surveys. 90. Lone Ranger Screening Report, Jack Mathis Papers, JMS 2389, Box 53 Folder 1 (BYU). 91. Motion Picture Herald, 2 October 1937. Italics in the original. 92. Variety, 2 February 1938. 93. Exhibitor, 1 February 1938. 94. Republic Pictures Corporation Lone Ranger Films Exchange Details, Jack Mathis Papers, MSS 2389, Box 53, Folder 1 (BYU). 95. Santo, Transmedia brand licensing prior to conglomeration, 44. 96. Motion Picture Herald, 2 April 1938. 97. Continued Next Week, New York Times, 5 June 1938. 98. Included in the anonymous unpublished manuscript, The Saga of Bringing the Lone Ranger to the Screen. Contracts, Production and the Aftermath Lawsuits, Jack Mathis Papers, Box 53, Folder 1 (BYU). 99. Thrill of Serial Fare Knows No Age, The Perils of Nyoka press book (BFI). 100. See for instance Washington Post, 9 April 1938 and 19 July 1938. 101. Berkeley Daily Gazette, 11 March 1939. 102. Niles Theatre, Anamosa, Iowa. General patronage, Motion Picture Herald, 12 August 1938. 103. Motion Picture Herald, 26 April 1941. 104. Motion Picture Herald, Strand Theatre, Suffern, NY, general patronage, 23 April 1938; Strand Theatre, Schroon Lake, NY, small town patronage, 24 December 1938. 105. Cliffers Bring Biggest Profit, Variety, 6 November 1940; Cinema: Cliffhangers, Time, 12 May 1941; Thomas Wood, The Sad State of the Serial, New York Times, 22 December 1946. Time claims a gross of over $1,250,000, the New York Times has $1,500,000. 106. Quoted in Richard Maurice Hurst, Republic Studios: between poverty row and the majors, updated edition (Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, 2007), 84. 107. Jack Mathis, Republic Confidential: the studio (Barrington, IL, Jack Mathis Publishing, 1992), 368; Gross Collections on The Lone Ranger—1938 And 1939, Jack Mathis Papers, Box 53, Folder 1 (BYU). 108. Santo, Transmedia brand licensing prior to conglomeration, 123. The source he gives is Synopsis Lone Ranger Contract with Republic Productions, June 1937. 109. A “Western” Film in Serial Form, Times, 9 May 1939; C.A. Lejeune, An Experiment in the Cinema, Observer, 7 May 1939. 110. William Brass, Sixth Annual Report (London, British Film Institute, 1939), 18–19. 111. The Saga of Bringing the Lone Ranger to the Screen. Contracts, Production and the Aftermath Lawsuits. 112. Museum of Modern Art to Conclude its Cycle of 500 Films with Old and New Serial Thrillers, Films for Latin America, and American Defence Films, 20 January 1942, available at http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/765/releases/MOMA_1942_0008_1942-01-20_42120-6.pdf?2010 (accessed 16 July 2010). 113. Ibid. 114. See note 74 above. 115. R. G. Yates, Memo to All Branches, 8 December 1950, Jack Mathis Papers, MS2389—Cabinet #1, Drawer 24A (BYU). 116. Leo Handel, Hollywood Looks at its Audience: a report of film audience research (Urbana, IL, Arno Press, 1976 [1st published 1950]), 108–110. 117. Richard Koszarski, An Evening's Entertainment: the age of the silent feature picture, 1915–1928 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, University of California Press, 1990). 118. Mark Glancy and John Sedgwick, Cinemagoing in the United States in the mid-1930s: a study based on the Variety dataset, in: Richard Maltby et al. (eds), Going to the Movies, 155–195, and Klenotic in the same anthology, 130–154. 119. Jon Tuska suggests that The Miracle Rider, which had a negative cost of $80,000, half of which went to its star, Tom Mix, had gross receipts equal to the million dollars plus taken by The Indians are Coming. See The Vanishing Legion: a history of Mascot Pictures 1927–1935 (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 1982), 169–170.