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Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973 Kim R. Holston. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Publishers, 2013. $65.00. viii, 374 pp.
According to Kim Holston, a roadshow was "a film in any genre exhibited as a reserved-seat, or hard ticket attraction playing twice a day in one theater during its initial run in selected markets, i.e., the larger cities" (3). That anyone should venture to write a history of this phenomenon indicates just how much a thing of the past it has become. And that surely is to be regretted, as the roadshow was, above all, an exercise and an experience in showmanship. It made going to the movies a special event, a prestige occasion akin to the legitimate theatre, from which the term roadshow actually comes. As movie roadshows hit their stride in the decades after the Second World War, they became what the author calls a "type" of film, often characterized by epic storytelling, widescreen presentation, a running time that justified an intermission, the sale of souvenir programs, and symphonic musical scores in surround stereo.
Ask anyone old enough to recall a "reserved-seat" movie from direct experience, and that person is likely to name a film such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or The Sound of Music ( 1965)-in other words, an example drawn from the heyday of roadshows. One of the merits of Holston's book is...