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THE CINEMA AND SOCIETY
to see the films that are on. In other words younger people tend to make sure of getting some entertainment regularly, exercising choice within a limited field, and older people tend to forgo entertainment unless it is of the type they require. There is however also a substantial proportion in all groups, ranging , from 19% of frequent cinema-goers in the youngest group up to 3 1 % in the oldest, that go to the same cinema regularly, exercising no choice whatsoever.'
What the Audience Wants
From all these facts and figures it is obvious that, though the younger people in the audience still predominate, the average age of audiences is tending to rise. This encourages the more responsible film-makers to take some risks in the choice of unusual subjects. Among the more successful films from British studios in the past few years have been The Overlanders, Great Expectations, Odd Man Out, Oliver Twist, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, The Blue Lamp, Mandy, Genevieve, and Doctor in the House, as well as the more conventional 'boxoffice' type of film. The fact, too, that an increasing number of the younger people appear to be selecting their films, rather than taking whatever the local cinema has to offer them, is encouraging, even though the selection is usually based on the choice between stars and not between subjects. It has always been important for the cinema to take the measure of its public, and estimate whether the general standard of films which are made and shown is likely to attract the maximum number of people to the box-office. This has only been done to a very limited extent in the past. Films are tested at 'sneak' previews, like those for The Red Badge of Courage which are described by Lillian Ross in Picture; at these screenings audiences are sometimes asked to give their opinion about the film on cards posing simple questions about it. More rarely audiences have been asked to give their opinions on programme policy in Britain the best known of these tests were those made for the Granada circuit by Sidney Bernstein. Writing before the war in Footnotes to the Film, he makes a distinction in his audiences
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