Cinema Houston celebrates a vibrant century of movie theatres and moviegoing in Texas's largest city. Illustrated with more than two hundred historical photographs, newspaper clippings, and advertisements, it traces the history of Houston movie theatres from their early twentieth-century beginnings in vaudeville and nickelodeon houses to the opulent downtown theatres built in the 1920s (the Majestic, Metropolitan, Kirby, and Loew's State). It also captures the excitement of the neighborhood theatres of the 1930s and 1940s, including the Alabama, Tower, and River Oaks; the theatres of the 1950s and early 1960s, including the Windsor and its Cinerama roadshows; and the multicinemas and megaplexes that have come to dominate the movie scene since the late 1960s.
While preserving the glories of Houston's lost movie palaces—only a few of these historic theatres still survive—Cinema Houston also vividly re-creates the moviegoing experience, chronicling midnight movie madness, summer nights at the drive-in, and, of course, all those tasty snacks at the concession stand. Sure to appeal to a wide audience, from movie fans to devotees of Houston's architectural history, Cinema Houston captures the bygone era of the city's movie houses, from the lowbrow to the sublime, the hi-tech sound of 70mm Dolby and THX to the crackle of a drive-in speaker on a cool spring evening.
Reel Pleasures brings the world of African moviehouses and the publics they engendered to life, revealing how local fans creatively reworked global media—from Indian melodrama to Italian westerns, kung fu, and blaxploitation films—to speak to local dreams and desires. In it, Laura Fair zeroes in on Tanzanians’ extraordinarily dynamic media cultures to demonstrate how the public and private worlds of film reception brought communities together and contributed to the construction of genders, generations, and urban citizenship over time.
Radically reframing the literatures on media exhibition, distribution, and reception, Reel Pleasures demonstrates how local entrepreneurs and fans worked together to forge the most successful cinema industry in colonial sub-Saharan Africa. The result is a major contribution to the literature on transnational commodity cultures.
Silver Screens traces the rich history of Milwaukee's movie theaters, from 1890s nickelodeons to the grand palaces of the Roaring Twenties to the shopping mall outlets of today. And the story doesn't end there: in the past two decades, the revival of interest in preservation and restoration of theaters has confirmed that there's still life in these beloved old structures. With the publication of Silver Screens, authors Larry Widen and Judi Anderson help ensure that our old theaters, those being restored and those long since vanished, will remain forever embedded in our collective memory.
In this revised edition of their book Milwaukee Movie Palaces, the authors present new findings on film innovations, drive-in theaters, projection booths, movie promotions, noted theater personalities, recent restoration efforts, and much more. Illuminated with more than a hundred photographs, including many never before published, Silver Screens is a stunning tribute to the legacy of the movie theater.
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