ABSTRACT

Any attempt to analyze the internationalization of the film industry over the last century must inevitably focus on firms based in the United States. This is not because the United States is home to the only important center of film production in the world. Nor is it the only country to have produced film companies with the ambition to become multinational enterprises. However, only the oligopoly of firms that emerged in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s (and which has remained broadly intact since then) has consistently produced feature-length content that was widely distributed and consumed on an international basis (Thompson, 1985; Jarvie, 1992; Vasey, 1997; Segrave, 1997; Trumpbour, 2002; Guback, 1969). These firms were remarkable not for their size, but for their reach and cultural influence. Even in 1946, the peak year for cinema attendance in the United States, the industry accounted for just 0.5 percent of national income and employment (Gomery, 1986). Yet by the mid-1920s American films accounted for around 75 percent of those screened around the world (North, 1926). In seeking to explain the remarkable success of these multinational firms, this chapter will focus not just on their film-making activities, but more specifically on their role as distributors. The creation of durable global distribution networks provided these firms with the vital organizational infrastructure to sustain their global reach and cultural influence.