Exhibition

SPECIALIZED PROGRAMMING

While the exhibition business has always depended on attracting a core of regular or habitual moviegoers, exhibitors have also been quick to exploit specialized screening and programming occasions, often directed toward a more niche audience. For example, Saturday matinee screenings specifically designed to attract children were initially promoted by progressive civic organizations in the 1910s, but soon evolved into a profitable staple for many film exhibitors. The 1930s saw an increased interest in the Saturday matinee, which favored cartoons, comic shorts, and serial episodes, sometimes coupled with live performances, giveaway contests, and talent shows.

Independent exhibitors in the pre-television era also took advantage of other specialized programming possibilities by scheduling commercially sponsored shows designed to display new appliances and other consumer goods to female audiences. Especially in areas where there were no theaters catering specifically to an African American clientele, exhibitors might also offer special "colored" screenings, usually late in the evening. Sometimes called "midnight rambles," these shows reinforced prevailing

codes of racial segregation, while also suggesting that even a small-town theater owner could profit by attracting a number of different audiences.

As early as the 1920s but especially in the 1950s and 1960s, art house cinemas in major urban areas and college towns offered a self-consciously high cultural alternative to mainstream moviegoing. Specializing principally in non-American films and independent productions, these venues promised a more intimate, adult, and "refined" experience both in terms of their programming and also their ambience and décor, which often included an art gallery and low-key concession area. In many cases, the art house eventually was transformed into the repertory theater, which thrived until the late 1980s, offering an array of feature films (sometimes programmed into mini-festivals centering on a particular director or genre): foreign art cinema, revivals of Hollywood classics, cult movies, rockumentaries, and new independent films.

Among the most notable features of the repertory theater was the midnight movie. Midnight screenings, which were once principally "colored" shows or special premiere screenings, took on a much different flavor from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. The midnight movie in these years was likely to be The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) or some other cult film, screened to a highly participatory audience of teenagers and college students. From its origins in New York City, the midnight movie spread nationwide, becoming a lucrative programming option, even for multiplexes housed in shopping malls.