Cinema Theatre Association

In its impact on millions of people all over the globe the cinema was the leading art form, entertainment medium and educative influence of the first half of the twentieth century. The first primitive motion pictures, desperately whirring and flickering through a few minutes of a wrestling match or a trapeze act, astonished American and European audiences in the 1890s. In 1900 there was still not a purpose-built cinema anywhere in the world. By 1940, however, Britain had more than 5,000 cinemas with admissions running at 20 million a week, at a time when the total population of the country was about 50 million.