The Campus Theatre During World War II Main Menu Introduction Methodology The Campus Theatre A brief history of the heart of this community Block Booking A closer look at the economic system that changed film production, distribution and exhibition during the first half of the 20th century Conclusion Bibliography Nicholas Nam

Screening Data

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Preliminary Notes

In order to learn more about the exhibition history of the Campus Theatre, the primary method that was used was the cataloging of the programming schedule of the first five years of the art deco theater history. This process involved scanning through every digitized version of “The Bucknellian,” Bucknell University’s Campus newspaper and recording the advertisements promoting weekly screenings and events being held at the Campus Theatre from 1941 to 1946. The data is very telling of the direction that the theater went as influenced by both the studio system and by the path that the country took during the height of World War II. Though 402 films fill the data set, it cannot be called entirely comprehensive as some issues of the Bucknellian were either not digitized or had no pertinent information surrounding the Campus Theatre for the dates which were viewed. With that in mind, this catalog is a large, but partially incomplete sample of the films shown over the course of these five years. It is also important to note that the ‘genre’ category is a largely arbitrary way to categorize these films. For example, a film would be considered a “war” film if it portrayed U.S. troops during this period whether they be in America, or in active duty. Films were also categorized as war films if they featured some sort of story about the effort on the homefront during wartime. The data is telling nonetheless and few things one might notice when looking at these visualizations are:
  1. The number of films in which World War II can be considered to play a large role in the unfolding of the plot went up exponentially after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
  2. While there is noticeable diversity in the film production companies who were producing motion pictures during this time period, there are only two distribution companies outside of the eight major studios (one being Walt Disney Pictures) who sent films to the Campus Theatre.
  3. Some films took significantly longer than others to arrive at the Campus Theatre than others after their premiere.

These are just a few things to note and each visualization will be accompanied by relevant text trying to decipher the data being shown. Each rendering is open to individual interpretation, however.

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  1. The Campus Theatre Nicholas Nam