Campbeltown Speaks: Small-Town Cinema and the Coming of Sound

Abstract

The popularity of cinema from its earliest days in small-town settings emphasises the importance of local circumstances in explaining the medium’s success. This article employs surviving business records relating to the Picture House in the Scottish burgh of Campbeltown to explore aspects of cinema-going peculiar to that corner of rural Argyllshire, including a propensity, hitherto unidentified among Scottish audiences, to support the productions of the British film industry. Beyond this, the Picture House has a broader significance. As a monopoly provider of commercial entertainment to an enclosed market, it offers telling insights into a key point of transition for cinema, that from silent to sound film. Placed in the context of national trends, documented by data relating to the taxation of entertainments, Campbeltown provides compelling evidence that the advent of the talkies marked a fundamental discontinuity in the history of the medium at all levels, from the local to the national.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Professor John Caughie, Professor Judith Thissen, Dr Sarah Neely, and Laraine Porter for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. If I have been unable to respond fully to their observations, I remain grateful for the care and time taken to read this material. As a result, the author remains fully responsible for all errors of fact and interpretation herein.

Notes

1 Kathryn H. Fuller, At the Picture Show: Small-Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996); Calvin Pryluck, ‘The Itinerant Movie Show and the Development of the Film Industry’, and Anne Morey, ‘Early Film Exhibition in Wilmington, North Carolina’, in Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, ed., Hollywood in the Neighbourhood: Historical Case Studies of Local Moviegoing (Berkley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2008), 37-52, 53-74.

2 Robert J. Morris, ‘Urbanisation and Scotland’, in W. Hamish Fraser and Robert J. Morris, eds., People and Society in Scotland. Volume II: 1830-1914 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1990), 74; John Caughie, ‘Cinema and Cinema-going in Small Towns’, in John Caughie, Trevor Griffiths and Maria Velez-Serna, eds., Early Cinema in Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 52-67; John Caughie, ‘Small-Town Cinema in Scotland: The Particularity of Place’, in Judith Thissen and Clemens Zimmermann, eds., Cinema Beyond the City: Small-Town and Rural Film Culture in Europe (London: Palgrave/ British Film Institute, 2016), 23-37.

3 Kinematograph Year Book 1921 (Eighth Year), (London, Manchester, Glasgow: KInematograph Publications Ltd., 1921), 502-22; 1929 (Sixteenth Year) (London: Kinematograph Publications, 1930), 524-43.

4 Campbeltown Courier (hereafter CC), 18 July 1931, 1; 1 Oct. 1932, 4, for an occupational breakdown of the county of Argyll according to the 1931 census.

5 Norman S. Newton, The Wee Pictures: A History of The Picture House (Campbeltown) Ltd., 1913-89 (Campbeltown: Campbeltown Community Business, Ltd., 1989); Campbeltown Community Business Ltd., Campbeltown Picture House: A Century of Cinema (Campbeltown: Stenlake Publishing Ltd., 2018).

6 Caughie, ‘Cinema and Cinema-going in Small Towns’.

7 Richard Maltby, ‘New Cinema Histories’, in Richard Maltby, Daniel Biltereyst, and Philippe Meers, eds., Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies (Malden, MA, Oxford, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 3-40; Robert James, Popular Culture and Working-class Taste in Britain, 1930-39: A Round of Cheap Diversions? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 203-8.

8 Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, How to Run a Picture Theatre: A Handbook for Proprietors, Managers and Exhibitors (London: E.T. Heron & Co., 1910), 61; John F. Barry and Epes W. Sargent, Building Theatre Patronage: Management and Merchandising (New York: Chalmers Publishing, 1927), 94.

9 Trevor Griffiths, ‘Making a Living at the Cinema: Scottish Cinema Staff in the Silent Era’, in Caughie, Griffiths and Velez-Serna, eds., Early Cinema in Scotland, 72-77.

10 Judith Thissen, ‘Introduction: A New Approach to European Cinema History’, in Thissen and Zimmermann, Cinema Beyond the City, 4-6.

11 Nyasha Sibanda, ‘The Silent Film Shortage’, Music, Sound and the Moving Image, 12 (2018): 197-216; Bioscope, 2 Oct. 1929, 40; 17 Sept. 1930, 14; the period encompassing the transition to sound has recently been the subject of an AHRC-funded project based at De Montfort and Stirling Universities and works by Laraine Porter and Sarah Neely cited below are products of that project.

12 Laraine Porter, ‘The Talkies Come to Britain: British Silent Cinema and the Transition to Sound, 1928-30’ in Ian Q. Hunter, Laraine Porter, and Justin Smith (eds.), The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 89-91; ‘Golden Silence’, Bioscope, 6 June 1928, 32; 17 Oct. 1928, i. In reality, of course, cinemas were never wholly silent, with presentations underscored by music and punctuated by sound effects, Julie Brown and Annette Davison (eds), The Sound of the Silents in Britain (Oxford, 2012).

13 Nicholas Hiley, ‘”Let’s Go to the Pictures”: The British Cinema Audience in the 1920s and 1930s’, Journal of Popular British Cinema, 2 (1999): 42-3; the argument is echoed in Stuart Hanson, From Silent Screen to Multi-screen: A History of Cinema Exhibition in Britain since 1896 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 44.

14 See, for example, Sue Arthur, ‘Blackpool Goes All-Talkie: Cinema and Society at the Seaside in Thirties Britain’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29 (2009): 27-39; Sarah Neely, ‘”The Skailing of the Picters”: The Coming of the Talkies in Small Rural Townships in Northern Scotland’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 17 (2020): 254-72, noting the problem posed by ‘talkie queues’ in Kirkwall.

15 National Records of Scotland [hereafter NRS], GD289/1/3, Palace Cinema, Profit and Loss Ledger, 1925-55.

16 Kinematograph Year Book 1921, the others being at Dunoon and Oban.

17 CC, 9 Feb. 1929, 1, for details of steamer services.

18 Moving Image Archive, Glasgow [MIA], CAPHA 1/2/3/1, Film Screenings and Takings Book, 1929-33; the ledger records daily takings and the titles of films shown. With the coming of sound, numbers of tickets sold at each price are also recorded for each show.

19 CC, 6 Nov. 1897, 2; on Lizars, see Trevor Griffiths, The Cinema and Cinema-going in Scotland, 1896-1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 18-19; Maria A. Velez-Serna, ‘Travelling Bioscopes and Borrowed Spaces’, in Caughie, Griffiths, and Velez-Serna (eds.), Early Cinema in Scotland, 21.

20 CC, 27 Nov. 1897, 2.

21 CC, 12 March 1898, 2 (Hubner’s Cinematograph and Operaphone); 28 Jan. 1899, 2; 4 March 1899, 2 (Calder); 19 Sept. 1908, 2; 18 Sept. 1909, 2 (Bendon); 11 Sept. 1909, 2 (BB Pictures).

22 CC, 1 Sept. 1900, 2 (Calder); 20 Oct. 1900, 2 (Empire Kinematograph); the importance of the local topical for early cinema programmes is set out in Janet McBain and John Caughie, ‘Local Films for Local People: “Have You Been Cinematographed Yet?”’, in Caughie, Griffiths, and Velez-Serna, Early Cinema, 130-46.

23 CC, 5 Sept. 1903, 2.

24 MIA, CAPHA 1/1/1/1, Campbeltown Picture House, Memorandum and Articles of Association of The Picture House, Campbeltown, Ltd.; CAPHA 1/1/3/1, Shares and Dividends, Applications and Allotments, Register of Members; CAPHA 1/1/3/2, Shares Certificate Book, 1912-33; on Oban,see John Caughie, ‘Cinema and Cinema-going in Small Towns’, in Caughie, Griffiths, and Velez-Serna, Early Cinema, 61, 63-4.

25 CC, 24 May 1913, 2; 31 May 1913, 3.

26 Caughie, ‘Small-Town Cinema’, contrasting Bo’ness and Lerwick; CC, 20 Jan. 1917, 2.

27 CC, 16 March 1917, 2; 30 June 1917, 2; 6 April 1918, 2; 29 June 1918, 2.

28 CC, 18 Jan. 1930, 2; MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, Film Screenings and Takings Book, 1929-33, week commencing 27 Jan. 1930.

29 CC, 5 Jan. 1929, 2 (Lochend UF Church Choir Concert); 19 Jan. 1929, 2 (SWRI, Burns’ Supper); 26 Jan. 1929, 2 (Castlehill Parish Church, Whist Drive); 23 March 1929, 2 (SWRI, Country Dancing); 30 March 1929, 2 (Campbeltown ILP Grand Concert).

30 Jenny Hammerton, For Ladies Only?: Eve’s Film Review: Pathe Cinemagazine, 1921-33 (Hastings: Projection Box, 2001), 5-6, 56.

31 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, week commencing 7 April 1930.

32 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, week commencing 28 April 1930; 5 May 1930.

33 CC, 1 Jan. 1921, 1, announcing continuous shows from 2 pm over three days; MIA, CAPHA 1/2/2/1, Accounts Ledger, General Operations, 1912-32, Drawings Account.

34 Examples of such practice can be seen in NRS, GD 289/1/1,Playhouse Cinema [Edinburgh], Profit and Loss ledger, 1929-68.

35 In addition to annual opera performances, often supported by professional orchestras, the Society also ran Choral and Orchestral sections, CC, 23 March 1929, 2; 15 Feb. 1930, 2.

36 Kinematograph Year Book, 1928 ed.

37 NRS, GD 289/1/3, Palace Cinema, Profit and Loss Ledger, 1925-55 (until 1928, the ledger records profit figures only).

38 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, June 1929–Dec. 1930 (Monday to Wednesday programmes).

39 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, June 1929–Dec. 1930 (Thursday to Saturday programmes).

40 This usually involved closing on Mondays and Thursdays from early June, CC, 30 May 1925, 1; 29 May 1926, 1; 28 May 1927, 1; 2 June 1928, 1.

41 Numbers of visitors were recorded each year, with the peak on the first Monday of the holiday, CC, 20 July 1929, 1.

42 In 1929, the week of Glasgow Fair generated the fifth highest return across the final seven months of the year, a jump of over 60 per cent on the previous week’s take, MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, June–Dec 1929.

43 As early as 1916, the centrally located Cinema House in Glasgow was publicising itself as ‘The Scottish House of Fox Films’, booking that studio’s output for six months ahead, Entertainer, 16 Sept. 1916, 9.

44 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, July–Dec 1930.

45 Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street, Cinema and State: The Film Industry and the British Government, 1927-84 (London: BFI, 1985), 30-33; the full text of the Act was reprinted in Motion Picture News, no.1, Dec. 1927, 23-6; see also Kinematograph Year Book, 1930, Seventeenth Year (London: Kinematograph Publications, nd.), 197-204.

46 NRS, GD289/1/3, Palace Cinema, Profit and Loss Ledger, 1925-55, 1927-8

47 The issue occasioned debate in the pages of the Evening Times [Glasgow] in the early sound era, 27 Oct. 1932, 3; 3 Nov. 1932, 3; and in Parliament on debates over moves to increase quota obligations for exhibitors in the late 1940s, Scotsman, 22 Jan. 1948, 4; 5 Feb. 1948, 5.

48 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, week beginning 30 Sept. 1929 (The Ring); week beginning 17 March 1930 (Piccadilly); week beginning 23 Feb. 1931 (The Last Post); on the latter, see https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b737a6daf (last accessed 16 July 2021); https://womenandsilentbritishcinema.wordpress.com/the-women/dinah-shurey/ (last accessed 16 July 2021).

49 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, week beginning 16 March 1931 (The Barnes Murder Case, reissue of 1924 release); week beginning 23 March 1931 (A Romance of Riches, reissue of 1925 release); week beginning 30 March 1931 (Island of Despair, reissue of 1926 release and Children of Courage reissue of 1921 release); week beginning 6 April 1931 (The Qualified Adventurer, reissue of 1925 release); week beginning 13 April, 1931 (The Way of a Woman, reissue of 1925 release); Denis Gifford, The British Film Catalogue, 1895-1970 (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1973).

50 For representations of Scottishness in films of this period, see John Ritchie, ‘How UK and USA Films Represented and Performed Scottishness from 1895 to 1935: With Particular Attention to the Transition to Sound (1927–1933)’ (unpublished Univ. of Stirling PhD. thesis, 2018).

51 CC, 18 July 1931, 4.

52 See above, notes 13 and 14.

53 Bioscope, 3 April 1929, 21; 6 Nov. 1929, xii; the diary of 21 year old Glasgow cinema-goer, Kitty McGinniss, indicated a slow acceptance of sound, Diary for 1929 (in the possession of Ms McGinniss’ daughter, Mrs Rita Connelly).

54 Scotsman, 8 June 1929, 1; 22 July 1929, 1; 30 July 1929, 11; 10 Aug. 1929, 9; Bioscope, 21 Aug. 1929, 44.

55 NRS, GD 289/1/3, week ending 18 Aug. 1928 to week ending 29 Dec. 1928, week ending 17 Aug. 1929 to week ending 28 Dec. 1929.

56 NRS, GD 289/1/3, week ending 7 July 1928 to week ending 6 Oct. 1928, week ending 5 July 1930 to week ending 4 Oct. 1930

57 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, week beginning 27 May 1929 to week beginning 29 June 1931.

58 Sarah Neely detects some turn away from the cinema in the last days of silence in Wick and on Orkney, but this seems to have no equivalent further south and west, Neely, ‘”The Skailing of the Picters”’: 257, 262.

59 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/2/1, Accounts Ledger, General Operations, takings in 1925-6 of £3,121 0s 7d, fell to £2,858 18s 9d by 1930-1 (years ending 31 May).

60 CC, 20 June 1931, 3, ‘Campbeltown would appear to have definitely passed out of the consideration of the distilling interest’; 8 March 1930, 3, where the report of the Fishery Board for Scotland noted the problems of herring supply in the Firth of Clyde; 1 Nov. 1930, 3; 20 Feb. 1932, 3, the herring fishery was also hit by declining exports and a perceived shift in domestic demand in favour of white fish.

61 Bioscope, 27 Nov. 1929, 21.

62 CC, 11 July 1931, 3.

63 CC, 14 Nov. 1931, 3.

64 NRS, GD 289/1/3, week ending 17 Nov. 1928 to week ending 18 May 1929; week ending 5 April 1930 to week ending 4 Oct. 1930; week ending 15 Nov. 1930 to week ending 16 May 1931.

65 NRS, GD 289/1/3, week ending 14 March 1931, the Palace showed All Quiet on the Western Front some seven weeks after its first run at the Playhouse.

66 CC, 24 May 1913, 2; 1 Nov. 1913, 2,

67 CC, 11 July 1931, 1, in 1917, the price of balcony seats had been raised to 1s 3d, 29 Sept. 1917, 2.

68 An increase in the tax on seats in November 1931 raised inclusive prices to 7d to 1s 4d, CC, 7 Nov. 1931, 1.

69 CC, 24 May 1913, 2; 31 May 1913, 2.

70 CC, 11 July 1931, 1.

71 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/2/1, Accounts Ledger, 1912-32, Film Hire Account, amounts expended, £1,007 8s 3d in 1929-30; £874 11s 9d in 1930-1; £2,114 1s 4d in 1931-2; £2,110 13s in 1932-3.

72 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, Jan. 1930 to June 1931.

73 Neely, ‘”The Skailing of the Picters”’: 262.

74 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, June 1929 to May 1933.

75 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, Eve made her final bow in the week commencing 27 July 1931. After a trial run in August, Universal Talkie News debuted in the week commencing 7 Sept. 1931.

76 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, weeks commencing 13 July 1931 to 26 Dec. 1932. Laurel and Hardy subjects played thirteen times at the Picture House across 1932, while Lotinga appeared six times in the later months of 1931.

77 CC, 1 April 1933, 1.

78 CC, 11 July 1931, 3. Accompanying publicity suggested that all tastes were catered for: ‘It is a story of romance, adventure, hot tropic nights, danger, comedy, love’.

79 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, 13-15 July 1931 (The Desert Song); 10-12 Sept. 1931 (Gold Diggers). Takings were, respectively £107 18s 10d and £109 14s, £58 and £40 above the relevant means.

80 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, 10-12 Aug. 1931 (Martinelli); 13-15 Aug. 1931 and 17-19 Aug. 1931 (Velie); 12-14 Nov. 1931 (Song-copation); 23-25 Nov. 1931 (Pot-Pourri).

81 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, 1-3 Oct. 1931, the musical review Black and White supported E.A. Dupont’s maritime epic, Atlantic; 11-13 Feb. 1932, Ena Reiss, supporting the Marie Dressler/ Wallace Beery vehicle, Min and Bill; 29 Feb.–2 March 1932, Elsie Percival and Ray Raymond, support for the MGM drama, The Easiest Way.

82 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, 13 July 1931 to 13 July 1932.

83 CC, 11 July 1931, 2 (Desert Song); 18 July 1931, 2 (Sally); 22 Aug. 1931, 2 (On With the Show); through the autumn of 1931, A.P. MacGrory’s on Main Street regularly advertised the availability of ‘Talkie Records’, 10 Oct. 1931, 2.

84 Based on a comparison of advertisements in the CC, 1929 and 1933.

85 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, 2 Jan.–27 May 1933; one of the few case studies covering this period suggests a shift in favour of British films from late ‘silence’ to early sound, but in this case the figure reached was only 23.9% by 1932, Guy Barefoot, ‘The Tudor Cinema, Leicester: A Local case Study’, in Hunter, Porter and Smith, Routledge Companion, p.106.

86 MIA, CAPHA 1/2/3/1, this calculation excludes the first week in the year when extra shows generated unusually high returns.

87 CC, 25 Feb. 1933, 3.

88 See above, note 47.

89 Kinematograph Weekly [KW], 11 Dec. 1930, 38.

90 KW, 10 March 1932, 33; 24 March 1932, 35.

91 Trevor Griffiths, ‘Quantifying an “Essential Social Habit”: The Entertainments Tax and Cinema-going in Britain, 1916-34’, Film History, 31 (2019): 1-26.

92 Between the tax years 1925-6 and 1928-9, the annual amounts raised by the tax varied between £5,714,476 and £6,119,978, Parl. Papers 1932-33: X (4455), Twenty-Fourth Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise for the year ended March 31^st 1933, Table 77, Net Receipts, Entertainments Duty.

93 1928-9: £6,003,587; 1929-30: £6,695,847; 1930-1: £6,952,088; 1931-2: £7,868,908, Parl. Papers 1932-33: X (4455), Table 77.

94 HC Debates, 5^th ser., vol.237, 14 April 1930, col.2669.

95 Parl. Papers 1929-30: IX (3651), Twenty-First Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise for the year ended 31^st March 1930, 115.

96 HC Debates, 5^th ser.,, vol.237, 14 April 1930, col.2669.

97 Griffiths, ‘Quantifying’: 14.

98 The argument was advanced in the pages of The Stage by theatre and cinema owner, Sir Oswald Stoll and was posed in terms of a growing contest between the human theatre and the machine, The Stage, 17 Sept. 1930, 6; 25 Sept. 1930, 14, 15.

99 See the debates on the Finance Bills of 1933 and 1934, HC Debates, 5^th ser., vol.278, 1 June, 1933, cols.2176-7; Scotsman, 8 June 1934, 9, where the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Hore-Belisha, argued that the theatre’s difficulties owed more to changes in public taste and behaviour than it did to the tax.

100 The smaller share is indicated by figures collected in 1920-1, The National Archive, CUST 14365, Amounts Paid on the Basis of Certified Returns; Parl. Papers 1936-7: IX (5573), Twenty-Eighth Report of the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise for the year ended 31^st March, 1937, 107, which provides one of the first official estimates of the contribution of different entertainments to the total tax receipts.

101 The phrase is that of Alan John Percivale Taylor, English History, 1914-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 313.