Page 96 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

INSIDE THE FILM FACTORY 77

Soviet films in commercial exhibition. Indeed, in 1928 Sovkino reported that
44
Soviet films had finally surpassed imports as income earners. Clearly, Russian
producers wasted no time in converting their initial revenue source into domestic
activity.
The Russians also used this income to expand their exhibition facilities. The
USSR had inherited only about 1,000 commercial theatres from the pre-
Revolutionary industry, a figure that was significantly reduced by the effects of the
Civil War and the financial problems that culminated in the theatre crisis of 1923.
By 1925, however, intensive investment had raised the number to 2,000 and the
figure would approach 10,000 by the end of the decade. 45
Meanwhile the extension of cinema into the countryside continued apace. The
linking of cinema with the national rail system, which began as a marriage of
necessity during the Civil War, was extended by the mid-1920s into a full-scale
campaign to reach and inform previously isolated segments of the population. The
Russians traded for foreign projectors which were then fitted with portable
generators and transformed into itinerant cinema facilities. By 1925, 1,600 such
units were touring the countryside by train. Within two years the figure had risen to
2,000; film industry officials boasted of approaching their goal of being able to
reach literally every Soviet village with some form of cinema entertainment and
enlightenment. 46
The profitable activity of urban commercial theatres helped subsidise the daily
operation of the itinerant units as well as the discount exhibition facilities in
workers’ clubs. While Sovkino was taking 50 per cent of gross receipts from
commercial theatres, it charged only 5.50 roubles per programme in rentals to
rural cinemas and 16 roubles per programme to the workers’ clubs, figures that
would have barely covered costs. Such generous rates permitted these institutions
to offer their two programmes per week to patrons for nominal ticket prices: 5 to 8
kopeks in the villages and 12 to 15 kopeks in workers’ clubs. 47