The first movie magazine was published in 1911, but such publications – cheap, colourful and glamorous – became so popular that by the 1930s over 20 major publications could be found on American news-stands every month, with others available weekly, quarterly and as annuals. Despite the wide proliferation of titles, their contents remained homogenous: they provided movie reviews, news, competitions and readers’ letters, but primarily traded in star gossip.
This presentation explores the often-fraught relationship between the movie magazines and the Hollywood studios; although they frequently managed to operate symbiotically, the relationship between them was ripe for exploitation. Reversing the usual arrangement, in which magazines discussed films, this talk examines how Hollywood movies from the 20s to the 70s depicted movie magazines, revealing that this exploration provides a means to gauge relations between these two co-dependent and occasionally warring elements of the Hollywood film industry.