Hollywood's Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the Globe by Ross Melnick (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the Globe by Ross Melnick
• Giles Scott-Smith (bio)

Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the Globe
By Ross Melnick. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Pp. 503.

This is a bold work of substantial proportions, setting out as it does to reframe our understanding of Hollywood as an overseas actor and purveyor of U.S. soft power. It does so by focusing like never before on the global network of cinemas owned and run by the major U.S. studios, instead of on the films themselves. In doing so, Melnick brings to light the all-encompassing, full-spectrum package that Hollywood delivered for nine decades to audiences around the world. The author refers early on to his work as “the first political, cultural, and industrial history of Hollywood’s foreign ownership and operation of hundreds of cinemas” (p. 2). The cinemas, with their architectural and ornamental splendor and their cornucopial abundance of consumable goods for the viewing publics, were definitely the embassies of soft power the book makes them out to be. While previous work has often focused on film production (for instance: Acland, Screen Traffic, 2003; Trumbour, Selling Hollywood to the World, 2002; Segrave, American Films Abroad, 1997), this title brings an empirical analysis of the structural power of film exhibition networks and the many commercial and cultural struggles that this involved.

Twentieth Century Fox owned hundreds of cinemas across Africa and Australasia. MGM, in partnership with Loew, owned prime urban sites across Latin America. Paramount presented the heights of luxury at film palaces in [End Page 1013] Brazil and France. Warner Bros. ran an international network that spanned Eurasia. RKO, Universal, and United Artists were also involved, but to a lesser extent. The book, separated into twenty chapters spread across six continentally focused sections, aims unequivocally for full global coverage: Europe, Australasia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia. As the ideal outlets for presenting the appealing and seemingly unlimited facets of Americana to susceptible foreign publics, the physical presence of these cinemas also elicited widespread indignation and resistance from those who objected to the overpowering omnipotence of Americanization. Hollywood—with its unmatchable stars and glamour and relentless advertising campaigns—went a long way to ensure that film was marketed and experienced in the ways that Hollywood thought it should be. Maximum experience and maximum profit were the twin goals. Not surprisingly, rival local cinema chains could not abide their obvious second-class status in their own backyards. On the other hand, armed with all the gusto and glamour Hollywood could muster, studio executives in countries such as Egypt would reach levels of influence beyond what their State Department diplomatic counterparts could achieve. However, this prevented popular mobilization against the detrimental effects of the lure of Hollywood from those who wanted to ensure a future free of all forms of imperial power.

Technological sophistication was an essential aspect of this American dominance. Air-conditioning was a revelation for many unaccustomed to such comfort in tropical conditions, as a result extending the profitable months during which the cinemas could operate. Sound systems were consistently upgraded to improve the all-around experience, and widescreen techniques enveloped audiences even more in a total viewing experience. Drive-ins, combining Hollywood appeal with the typical American approach to the private car, were especially popular in Africa. Cinemascope, a technique used in the United States to attract home audiences away from the growing threat of television, was rolled out abroad in the early 1950s, several years before television had reached any kind of saturation in these markets. In these processes, the U.S. studios were as much competing among themselves as they were with any rival forms of entertainment.

However, technology has only a walk-on part in this epic history of global Hollywood. The topics mentioned above are nearly all only introduced in passing, with few if any details on the linkages between infrastructure, film projecting, cinema management, and audience response. Technology is simply presented as another facet of U.S. cultural superiority. In contrast, the wealth of coverage on all aspects of the cultural-social...