Abel, Richard - The Red Rooster Scare : Making Cinema American, 1900-1910

Berkeley [CA], Univ. of California Press, (1999). orig.boards. 24x15cm, xix,301 pp.. Textual photo illustrations.. Minor rubbing. VG. ¶ Only once in cinema history have imported films dominated the American market: during the nickelodeon era in the early years of the 20th century, when the Pathe company's "Red Rooster" films could be found "everywhere". Through extensive research, this text demonstrates how French films were in making "going to the movies" popular in the United States, first in vaudeville houses and then in nickelodeons. The book shows how, in the midst of fears about mass immigrations and concern that women and children (many of them immigrants) were the principal audience for moving pictures, the nickleodeon became a contested site of Americanization. Pathe's Red Rooster films came to be defined as dangerously "foreign" and "alien" and even "feminine" (especially in relation to "American subjects" like westerns). Their impact was thwarted, and they were nearly excluded from the market, all in order to ensure that the American cinema would be truly American" - Publisher's description.