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over other forms of consumption’. 51 It is here, however, that the similarities between these two cinema-going nations end, since the reaction of exhibitors to these demographic and social changes in the USA was more pro-active than their counterparts in Britain. In the USA the decline in the post-war cinema audience was arrested to an extent by the development of new kinds of cinemas in the early 1950s. The most significant
everywhere the newer post-war cinemas offered comparative or indeed greater luxury than the best live theatres. Increasingly, middle-class patrons were to be found going to the newer cinemas; the existence of a clientele of similar social standing was important in fostering the cinema-going habit. There was not universal approval for this new cultural trend. In 1919 the Editor of The Play Pictorial visited several cinemas and