@inbook{89f318e7b9eb45e89c77e3d91038dc69,
title = "{\textquoteleft}“When in doubt, Showcase”: the rise and fall of United Artists{\textquoteright} revolutionary New York distribution pattern",
abstract = "Writing in Variety in March 1960, Vincent Canby (1960a) drew attention to the major problem that Hollywood{\textquoteright}s distributors had faced since the late 1950s, arguing that “the standard pattern” for film circulation in New York, “with the Broadway opening followed by a Brooklyn first run and then dates in the circuits … is no longer realistic in terms of today{\textquoteright}s market.” Growing suburbanization had drained customers from the primary sites of their business in the large metropolitan centers. The traditional system of circulating films, based around profitable first-run venues in the central business districts of the major cities, was geographically ill-equipped to service this newly dispersed audience. The fact that this was a transitional period for the Hollywood industry has been well documented, but scholarship has largely focused on production and, to a lesser extent, exhibition. The distribution sector was also being recalibrated. The former run-zone-clearance circulation of the vertically integrated studio system had been upset by the US Supreme Court{\textquoteright}s 1948 ruling requiring theater divestiture and outlawing of several profitable distribution practices now deemed “unfair.” In light of this attempt to loosen the studios{\textquoteright} stranglehold on exhibition, the majors{\textquoteright} retention of market control through distribution needed to be further secured.",
keywords = "Cinema, Movie distribution, New York, United Artists",
author = "Zoe Wallin",
year = "2019",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781138955844",
series = "Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions",
publisher = "Routledge",
pages = "173--186",
editor = "Daniel Biltereyst and Maltby, {Richard } and Philippe Meers",
booktitle = "The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History",
}