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The Motion Picture Theatres in Japan
By Kisao Uchida
Nearly all the motion picture theatres in Japan today have requisite equipment for screening ol sound pictures. Theatres not so equipped may be said to be limited to those which are situated away from the centres of population. According to figures compiled in 1935, there were, out of a total of 1568 motion picture theatres in the country, as many as 1207 using sound picture apparatuses.
As to these apparatuses, those in the most important theatres are of such foreign make as the Western Electric, RCA, Tobis, while those in the others, that is, in the great majority of the theatres, are of the various Japanese make.
Though steady and certain has been the progress of motion picture production in Japan, not yet do the pictures produced, when taken as a whole, come up to the high artistic standard attained by those in the United States and Europe. It may be safely in¬ ferred from this fact that the minority of the public who prefer foreign pictures to Japa¬ nese ones are of a higher intellectual level than the majority who are satisfied with pic¬ tures made in Japan. Indeed some critics have gone so far as to state that the former form a class almost by themselves. Such being the case, one may well understand why it is that there are to be found in every important city in Japan theatres which make it a business of screening only imported films. This, of course, is not to say that foreign films are never shown in the other theatres; for in the centres of population other than these cities, both kinds of films are to be found on the same program, though theatres which list Japanese films exclusively are numerous indeed.
Now as to distribution of films. Among theatres handling imported films, there are, besides the independent houses, the two big circuits: the S Y (The Shochiku Yoga Bu) and the Toho (The Toho Eiga Haikyu). There are, on the other hand, the firms of Shochiku, Nikkatsu and Shinko which not only produce most of the Japanese films but screen them in the theatres belonging to their respective circuits. Toho also produces pictures and these are distributed through the firm’s own distributing organization. There are, furthermore, a large number of other theatres, including members of certain circuits, which present a series of films either on a contractual basis or by selecting them from time to time from the distributors’ lists. In short, distribution of motion picture films in Japan may be said to be made in the following three ways: to theatres under direct management of companies producing the films, to those under contractual agreement with the distributors, and to those that are independent of the circuits and that select at
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