Note on Major Changes to 1920

Note on Major Changes to 1920

When films first started being shown to the public in the early 20th century, the way people thought about the movies was very different from today. At first, the newspapers seemed to regard them as barely noteworthy, relegating news about them to small one or two paragraph articles (“At the Grand”). Theaters where actual plays were performed were spoken of very highly by the press, while movies were often coupled together with vaudeville shows and were barely mentioned (“At the Theater”). People behaved very differently while viewing films, often talking over the music, eating loudly and leaving food all over the floors, and kicking the seats of people around them (“Silence and Fun”). One note specifies the growing division in audiences between those rowdy viewers described above and those who were more interested in the film’s story, like viewers today (“Note on Moviegoing Etiquette”). However, as time went on and movies became more commonplace and popular, the culture changed into more like that of the cinema today. Newspapers began devoting more space to reporting on films, having whole pages list the showings instead of a tiny article in a corner of one page (“Note on Advertisements”). They also stopped reporting entire plots of movies, allowing the excited moviegoers to be surprised at twists instead of telling them exactly what to expect to happen. More theaters were built around the city, including two for African Americans, as is evidenced by a small letter “c” or an asterisk next to the theater name that remained until they were eventually integrated ("Note on Black Theaters"). Actors from the films would occasionally do commentary about the movies as the audience watched. Moviegoing in Columbia in 1920 remained different from moviegoing today in that the exhibitor continued to be responsible for the soundtrack; “talkies” would not arrive until the end of the decade. Nonetheless, on the whole movie culture changed from being something of an afterthought in 1904 to being a prominent source of entertainment, much like it is today, by 1920.

Hannah Goeldi

University of South Carolina

2016-03-30