Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States

Crucial to this section is Gomery's detailed analysis of the Balaban and Katz operation and how it came to dominate exhibition in Chicago through its emphasis on the theater's location, the building design, the quality of services offered, the use of stage shows, and the installation of air conditioning. In this closing section, Gomery argues that new technologies have been adopted for economic rather than aesthetic reasons. [...]Warner Bros, introduced the Vitaphone sound system not to provide dialogue for silent films but to give small independent theaters a means of competing against first-run houses by having recorded musical accompaniments and filmed stage shows. Gomery believes that the videocassette recorder is the most important movie-watching innovation since the nickelodeon and concludes that it represents an effective solution to the problems encountered with the television presentation of films by combining the direct sales methods of the theatrical box office with the convenience of home viewing. [...]Shared Pleasures is a good example of what film scholarship can be.