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their convenience such films as are available to them.
In 1936, foreign films released by the two big circuits of S Y and Toho numbered 343 (American: 270 and European: 73) the former circuit having released 207 and the latter 137. Of all these, the English film “Things to Come” was the only one which was shown simultaneously by both of these organizations.
A matter of interest in regards all these films is that they are original versions on which Japanese titles have been superimposed. Though the method of screening by “dubbing” has been experimented with, the five films so far shown by this method sueceeded only in calling forth adverse comments from the spectators on the ground that the method not only cheapens the original film but detracts from its interest. Con¬ sequently the screening of original films with superimposed Japanese titles has come to be a fixed policy in Japan and by this method those from the United States, France, Germany, England, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, the U. S. S. R., Italy, etc. are now being shown all over the country.
In the days of silent pictures there used to be in Japan people commonly called “narrators” or “interpreters” who made it a profession to stand beside the screen and, for the benefit of the spectators interpret the story as well as speak the lines of the individual actors in each picture, whether it be of foreign or Japanese production. In fact toward the end of those days, the art of these “interpreters” reached a fairly high degree of perfection, but with the introduction of the talkie their services rapidly became superfluous, and were dispensed with for the spectators found that the superimposed lines served satisfactorily enough in enabling them to understand the pictures.
A characteristic of the motion picture business in Japan is that the length of time required for the screening of a program is longer than it is in the United States and European countries. Take the theatres in Tokyo for instance, the period is from 3 to 4 hours, the time in the majority of cases being of from 3A hours to 4 hours’ length. The prevalence of this practice is accounted for by the fact that it has been for long customary with the theatres of the first-run to present a bill consisting of two feature films. It sometimes happens that, in the case of an especially rich program, a European film and an American film, both of exceptionally high quality, are to be found for simultaneous release. To cite an example of a case now several years old, Douglas Fairbanks’ “Black Pirate” and Mary Pickford’s “Sparrows” made up a first-run double bill. The practice is carried further in the theatres in small towns and villages where it is usual to find three features crowded into a single program with one or two being foreign films.
Though the better class patrons in the cities prefer a program containing one feature and a few shorts and requiring about two hours’ time for the entire showing, as yet no such program has been arranged.
As a rule, the theatres in Japan change their programs weekly. Seldom is one program carried for two weeks in succession, seldom still for three or four weeks. “The
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