Rethinking distribution: developing the parameters for a micro-analysis of the movement of motion pictures

Abstract

Although there is a plethora of popular and academic literature on ‘cinema’ little, if any, explains the day-to-day management of getting films from the distributor to the cinema, from cinema to cinema, and from cinema back to the distributor. The author's discovery of a cache of historic film-hire documents, normally discarded after a couple of years, has thrown light on this aspect of micromanagement of film distribution. From some 3,500 documents for the 1950s decade Ross Thorne has produced a database covering about 80 per cent of the films shown at one small-town cinema in New South Wales. Analysis of the database shows how complex cinema management was and how, up until the coming of television, the railways played a crucial role in the organization of the regional entertainment business.

Keywords:

• film distribution
• motion picture exhibition
• managing film distribution
• transporting films
• cinema history