Ina Rae Hark is Professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. She is co-editor with Steven Cohan of The Road Movie Book (Routledge 1997) and Screening the Male (Routldge 1993).

• Acknowledgments. Introduction. Part I: Where the Movies Were - 1. Russell Merritt The Nickelodeon Theater 1905-1914: Building an Audience for the Movies 2. Gregory Waller Another Audience: Black Moviegoing from 1907-1916 3. Kathryn Helgesen Fuller Nickelodeon Nomenclature: The Urban Picture Palace's 4. Charlotte Herzog The Movie Palace and the Theatrical Sources of Its Architectural Style 5. Barbara Wilinsky Discourses on Art House in the 1950s 6. William Paul The K-Mart Audience at the Mall Movies Part II: The Business of Exhibition 7. Douglas Gregory The Rise of National Theatre Chains - Balaban & Katz Postscript 8. Suzanne I. Schiller The Relationship Between Motion Picture Distribution and Exhibition: an Analysis of the Effects of Anti-Blind Bidding Legislation 9. Anthony Downs Where the Drive-In Fits into the Movie Industry 10. Thomas Guback The Evolution of the Motion Picture Theater Business in the 1980s Part III: The Meanings of the Exhibition Site - 11. Ben M. Hall An Acre of Seats in a Garden of Dreams: The Stage Moves to the Screen 12. Ina Rae Hark The 'Theater Man' and 'The Girl in the Box Office' 13. Gary Edgerton The Multiplex: the Modern American Motion Picture Theater as Message 14. Dudley Andrew Film and Society: Public Rituals and Private Space 15. Anne Friedberg Spectatorial Bibliography.