Hollywood's Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World

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Ross Melnick (Professor, Emory University)

Hollywood's Embassies

How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World

Ross Melnick (Professor, Emory University)

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English

Columbia University Press
26 April 2022

Film theory & criticism; General & world history; History of the Americas; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000

Series: Film and Culture Series

"Beginning in the 1920s, audiences around the globe were seduced not only by Hollywood films but also by lavish movie theaters that were owned and operated by the major American film companies. These theaters aimed to provide a quintessentially ""American"" experience. Outfitted with American technology and accoutrements, they allowed local audiences to watch American films in an American-owned cinema in a distinctly American way.

In a history that stretches from Buenos Aires and Tokyo to Johannesburg and Cairo, Ross Melnick considers these movie houses as cultural embassies. He examines how the exhibition of Hollywood films became a constant flow of political and consumerist messaging, selling American ideas, products, and power, especially during fractious eras. Melnick demonstrates that while Hollywood's marketing of luxury and consumption often struck a chord with local audiences, it was also frequently tone-deaf to new social, cultural, racial, and political movements. He argues that the story of Hollywood's global cinemas is not a simple narrative of cultural and industrial indoctrination and colonization. Instead, it is one of negotiation, booms and busts, successes and failures, adoptions and rejections, and a precursor to later conflicts over the spread of American consumer culture. A truly global account, Hollywood's Embassies shows how the entanglement of worldwide movie theaters with American empire offers a new way of understanding film history and the history of U.S. soft power."

By: Ross Melnick (Professor Emory University)
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780231201513
ISBN 10: 0231201516
Series: Film and Culture Series
Pages: 528
Publication Date: 26 April 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Introduction: “Shop Windows,” “Cultural Embassies,” and Hollywood’s Global Exhibition Part I. Europe. When Expansion Was Paramount (1923–1993): “Shop Window” Cinemas and the European Expansion of U.S. Film Exhibitors 1. Hollywood’s British Invasion and the Battle of Birmingham, 1919–1929 2. Hollywood’s European Adventure, 1925–1941 3. A New Battleground: U.S. Exhibitors Under Nazi Occupation, 1941–1945 4. Postwar Europe and the Legacy of Hollywood Cinemas, 1945–1993 Part II. Australasia. Banking on Australasia (1930–1982): Global Banks and U.S. Cinema Ownership in Australia and New Zealand 5. Fox Chases Hoyts: U.S. Cinema Ownership in Australia, 1930–1936 6. The Fox Chase in New Zealand and Australia, 1936–1946 7. Hollywood and Australasian Cinemas, 1946–1982 Part III: Latin America and the Caribbean. Hollywood in Cinelandia (1927–1973): U.S. Cinemas and Local Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean 8. Cine Metros y Cine Paramounts, 1926–1941: MGM and Paramount’s Latin American Shop Window Cinemas 9. Prop(aganda) Window Cinemas, 1933–1945: Ufa, Hollywood, and the Battle for Hearts and Minds Through South American Cinemas During World War II 10. Hollywood Cinema Expansion in Postwar South America, 1945–1973 11. Caribbean Dreams, 1929–1973: Hollywood Cinemas in Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad Part IV. Middle East. Hollywood’s Muddle East (1925–1982): Political Change in Egypt and Israel and the Consequences for Hollywood’s Middle Eastern Cinemas 12. Buildings, Ballyhoo, and Boycotts in Egypt, 1925–1947: Alternating Realities at Hollywood’s Egyptian Cinemas 13. No Meeting in the Middle, 1947–1956: Hollywood Cinemas, Egyptian Revolution, and Israeli Independence 14. After the Revolution, 1957–1982: Twentieth Century-Fox, Egypt, and Israel Part V. Africa. An “Unhappy Image of the United States Before an African Population” (1932–1975): Race, Industry, and Rebellion at Hollywood’s African Cinemas 15. MGM and the “Uncrowned King of South Africa,” 1932–1937: Hollywood Shop Window Cinemas in a Bitterly Protected Market 16. Fox Hunting on the African Continent, 1937–1956: Twentieth Century-Fox and the Struggle for Control of African Cinemas 17. A “Royal” Mess: Racial Strife in Colonial Zimbabwe, the Struggle for Independence in Postcolonial Kenya, and the End of Hollywood’s Control of South African Cinemas, 1959–1975 Part VI. Asia. Eastern Promises (1927–2013): Hollywood’s Cinemas in China, India, Japan, and the Philippines 18. Benshi and Ballyhoo, 1927–1973: Hollywood’s Shop Window Cinemas in Japan and the Philippines 19. Joining the Global Metro Cub Club, 1936–1973: MGM and Fox’s Shop Window Cinemas in India 20. China as Hollywood’s Final Frontier, 1946–2013: Hollywood’s Chinese Cinemas and the End of Hollywood’s Exhibition Empires Epilogue: Global Exhibition Flows in Reverse Before the Pandemic, 2013–2019 Notes Index

Ross Melnick is professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of American Showman: Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry, 1908–1935 (Columbia, 2012) and coeditor of Rediscovering U.S. Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (2018).

Reviews for Hollywood's Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World

This is nothing short of a sterling book, an assiduously researched compendium of notable facts and compelling anecdotes culled from public archives, personal memorabilia collections, and old-time newspaper morgues all over the map. -- Kevin Canfield * Cineaste * The political and cultural repercussions of this exhibition strategy for both Hollywood and the national film industries “invaded” by these foreign-owned movie theaters are explored in great detail by Ross Melnick in his new book, Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power around the World. -- Bruno Guaraná * Film Quarterly * If there’s anyone who still holds the view that entertainment, art and politics are separate realms, Ross Melnick’s exhaustively researched book should set them straight. -- Tom Ryan * The Sydney Morning Herald * This volume is highly recommended for those interested in film studies, theater architecture, global affairs and American Studies and it may easily become a standard title on the reception of American films abroad. -- Dr. A. Ebert * Popcultureshelf.com * Hollywood's Embassies offers a unique history of movie theaters “as cultural embassies.” The scale of research and insight here is staggering. * The Film Stage * Melnick's book is a masterful achievement. -- Klaus Dodds * Business History Review * A work of vast scope and synoptic power, Ross Melnick’s Hollywood’s Embassies is required reading for anyone seeking to understand how American cinema came to dominate most of the planet’s screen space. With pinpoint global positioning, Melnick tracks how Hollywood planted its flag from Cairo to Rio and beyond, transmitting American values, colonizing consciousnesses, and raking in cash. It is a fascinating story, splendidly told. -- Thomas Doherty, author of Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century A brilliantly conceived and trailblazing work, this is a must-read history of Hollywood studios’ perennial and always complicated efforts to create a globalized presence via theaters that promoted American values around the world. Melnick’s impeccable research and lively writing style raises the curtain on this largely neglected aspect of theater history, providing vivid, fascinating accounts of specific endeavors as well as an incisive framework for understanding them. Hollywood’s Embassies confirms Melnick’s stature as the leading historian of American film exhibition of his generation. -- Matthew H. Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent Captivating and ambitious, Hollywood’s Embassies covers a fascinating breadth of global territory as it explores the way Hollywood displayed America to the world. -- Kathy Fuller-Seeley, author of Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy Melnick reveals a world-spanning exhibition strategy that major U.S. film companies continuously updated and coherently pursued for most of the twentieth century. All scholars of Hollywood will have perceived some aspect of this strategy, but none of us can possibly have appreciated its scope before now. A tour de force. -- Mark Garrett Cooper, author of Universal Women: Filmmaking and Institutional Change in Early Hollywood A fascinating book. * The Spectator * An essential volume that provides significant access for readers to the histories that lurk behind the marquees and that uncovers the critical challenges that lie ahead as both empires navigate the waters of pandemics and trade wars. * New Review of Film and Television Studies * A valuable entry in media studies as much as a thoughtful historization of business practices with a determined commitment to exploring multilingual archives, extracting and deciphering them for both experts and Hollywood enthusiasts alike. * International Journal of Communication * The book is easily adaptable for teaching in a variety of classes both due to its geographically determined chapter structure and elegant and accessible prose. Hollywood’s Embassies is full of treasures and is a monumental addition to the field. * Journal of Cinema and Media Studies * [An] absolute must-read. -- Peter Labuza * The Strategist * Skillfully woven together to offer a foundational industrial history of Hollywood’s majors and the many locales in which they operated shop window cinemas and nationwide or regional circuits. * Media Industries *