Double feature
Encyclopedia
(In a modern context, a double bill refers to an airing of a television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
in which two episodes are shown consecutively.)
Origin and format
Movie theaters, interested in attracting customers during the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, began changing the way they booked movies. In the 1920s, before the Depression and the advent of sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, an evening at the cinema would often consist of the following:
- One or more live acts
- An animated cartoonAnimated cartoonAn animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
short subjectShort subjectA short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all... - One or more live-action comedy shorts (e.g., Our GangOur GangOur Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
, Laurel and HardyLaurel and HardyLaurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
, or The Three Stooges) - One or more novelty shorts: a musicalMusical filmThe musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
, a travelogueTravel literatureTravel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
, etc. - A newsreelNewsreelA newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
- The main feature filmFeature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
Theater owners decided that they could both attract more customers and save on costs if they offered two movies for the price of one. In the typical 1930s double bill, the screening began with a variety program consisting of trailers, a newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
, a cartoon and/or a short film preceding a low-budget second feature (the B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
), followed by a short interlude. Afterward, the high-budget main feature (the A movie) ran. Although the double feature put many short comedy producers out of business, it was the primary source of revenue for smaller Hollywood studios, such as Republic
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
and Monogram
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
, that specialized in B movie production.
Attracted by business a neighborhood theatre
Neighborhood theatre
In the days before multiplexes, neighborhood theatre was the colloquial name given to smaller movie theatres located in local neighborhoods, as opposed to the large movie palaces located in downtown areas. Neighborhood theatres would typically show films at cheaper prices, and were often very...
running a double feature obtained over a higher-priced first-run theatre with only one feature film, the major studios began making their own B features using the technicians and sets of the studio and featuring stars on their way up or on their way down. The major studios also made series films featuring recurring characters.
Decline
The double feature arose partly because of a studio practice known as "block booking," a form of tying in which major Hollywood studios required theaters to buy B-movieB-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
s along with the more desirable A-movies. The U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decided that this practice was illegal in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
in 1948, contributing to the end of the studio system
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
.
Even after the studio requirement was dropped, many smaller or independent neighborhood theatre
Neighborhood theatre
In the days before multiplexes, neighborhood theatre was the colloquial name given to smaller movie theatres located in local neighborhoods, as opposed to the large movie palaces located in downtown areas. Neighborhood theatres would typically show films at cheaper prices, and were often very...
s, especially drive-in theatres, sought double features to bring in more patronage. Sometimes a film would be accompanied by a re-release, either an older feature from a major studio or a rerelease acquired by firms that specialised in rereleasing older films such as Realart and Astor Pictures
Astor Pictures
Astor Pictures was a motion picture distribution service in operation from 1930 to 1963, founded by Robert M. Savini...
, otherwise a smaller studio may have been contracted to bring in a low budget second feature. By the end of the 1940s double features were regular policy at 29% of American cinemas with 36% having them part time. After the Paramount Decree the sources of the second feature had changed. James H. Nicholson
James H. Nicholson
James Harvey Nicholson was an American film producer. He is best known as the co-founder, with Samuel Z. Arkoff, of American International Pictures.-Biography:...
and Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Zachary Arkoff was an American producer of B movies.-Life and career:Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa to a Russian Jewish family, Arkoff first studied to be a lawyer. Along with business partner James H. Nicholson and producer-director Roger Corman, he produced eighteen films...
formed their American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
with the idea of providing a double feature of two B pictures
B pictures
In the field of video compression a video frame is compressed using different algorithms with different advantages and disadvantages, centered mainly around amount of data compression. These different algorithms for video frames are called picture types or frame types. The three major picture...
for often less than the price of a single A feature, or taking a lower percentage of the cinema's grosses than the major studios.
By the 1960s, double features had been mostly abandoned in non–drive-ins in favor of the modern single-feature screening, in which only one feature film is exhibited. However, double bills of popular series that had previously been run as a single feature such as the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
and Matt Helm
Matt Helm
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by author Donald Hamilton. He is a U.S. government counter-agent—a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in spy thrillers.-The character and the series:The...
superspy genre and The Man With No Name and The Stranger spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s were re-released together by the main studios.
While most cinemas have discontinued the practice of showing the double feature, it has nostalgia appeal. In the suburb of St Kilda
St Kilda, Victoria
St Kilda is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
a cinema known as The Astor Theatre
The Astor Theatre
The Astor Theatre is a classic, single-screen cinema located in the inner Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, that has a long and illustrious history....
has maintained the tradition of the Double Feature almost every-day from its establishment in 1936 to this day. Each double bill costs the price of one normal film, beginning daily at 7:30 PM, with 20 minute intermissions between features.
Short films still occasionally precede the feature presentation (Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
films generally feature a short, for example), but the double feature is now effectively extinct in first-run movie theaters in the U.S.
Following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...
, three Roger Rabbit cartoon shorts were created to be shown as preludes to other Disney films, in an effort to revive the viewing of cartoon shorts before major films. Only three were made and the scheme failed.
Many repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
houses continue to show two films, usually related in some way, back to back.
During the 1990s, many VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
cassettes that showed two films on the same tape (the second was often a sequel to the first film) were self-named as "double features."
In 2007, filmmakers Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
released their individual films Planet Terror
Planet Terror
Planet Terror is a 2007 American action horror film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a...
and Death Proof
Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...
as a double feature under the title Grindhouse, edited together with fake exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
trailers and 1970s-era snipe
Snipe (theatrical)
A Snipe in the motion picture exhibition business refers to two things:* Any material before the feature presentation other than a trailer. "Welcome to our theater," courtesy trailers , promotions for the snackbar, and "daters", that announce the date for an upcoming show, are the most common...
s in order to replicate the experience of viewing a double feature in a "grindhouse" theater. Although Grindhouse received critical acclaim, it was a complete financial flop in the United States. The films were screened individually in international markets and on DVD.
Another recent double feature was the Duel Project
Duel Project
The Duel Project was a challenge issued to Ryuhei Kitamura and Yukihiko Tsutsumi by producer Shinya Kawai during a night of drinking. The challenge was for the two directors to see who could make the best feature film with two principal actors/actresses battling in one principal location in the...
, when Japanese directors Ryuhei Kitamura
Ryuhei Kitamura
-External links:*...
and Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Yukihiko Tsutsumi
is a Japanese television and film director. He began directing commercials and music promotion videos as an employee of Nihon Television. After spending time abroad, he returned and started his own production company, Crescendo, from which he works independently...
created competing films to be shown and voted on by the premier audience.
More recently, two double features of re-released popular films hit the big screen. The first was of the re-release of Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
and Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2
Toy Story 2 is a 1999 American computer animated film directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon. It is the sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, released by Walt Disney Pictures and the third film to be produced by Pixar...
that started October 2, 2009 before the release of Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...
in the following year. Both films were in Disney Digital 3D in select movie theaters. The second double feature, and the most recent one, was a re-release of Twilight
Twilight (2008 film)
Twilight is a 2008 American romantic vampire film based on Stephenie Meyer's popular novel of the same name. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the film stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. It is the first film in The Twilight Saga film series...
and The Twilight Saga: New Moon for one night only, on June 29, 2010, shortly before the midnight screening of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in select theaters.. In February 2011, it was announced that the 14th Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
movie Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom and Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram
Victini and the Black Hero: Zekrom and Victini and the White Hero: Reshiram
Pokémon the Movie: Black—Victini and Reshiram and Pokémon the Movie: White—Victini and Zekrom, originally released in Japan as and , respectively, are the two versions of the fourteenth film in the Pokémon anime series. They were released on July 16, 2011 in Japan...
, due on July, will be released as a double-feature, though both films are actually "versions" of each other, with differences related to plot points and character designs varying between the version being watched.