Film Exhibition in Vaudeville: What We Learn from Keith-Albee Managers' Reports

Abstract

This article focuses on the role played by vaudeville houses in early film exhibition by examining a neglected resource: Keith-Albee managers' reports. Countering the notion that vaudeville merely served as a neutral holding area for early films, the article argues instead that vaudeville's treatment of film as a Vaudeville actrsquo; granted it an early opportunity to function as a mass entertainment form via the presence of a balanced program of films. Moreover, specific exhibition strategies in vaudeville - most centrally the exhibition of particular film genres - prefigured the mass culture aims of the 1920s full program in the movie house.