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The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University HOLLYWOOD, AFRICAN CONSOLIDATED FILMS, AND "BIOSKOOPBESKAWING," ORBIOSCOPE CULTURE: ASPECTS OF AMERICAN CULTURE IN CAPE TOWN, 1945-1960 A Thesis Submitted to the Department of History at the University of Cape Town for the degree of Master of Arts in African History Town Cape By of David J. Gainer, B.A. University Washington, D.C. 31 January 2000 CONTENTS LIST OF CHARTS AND GRAPHS ........................................ iii ABSTRACT .................................... , ...................... iv INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 1 CHAPTERS 1. Overview of 'Americanization' and Consumer Culture in Twentieth Century South Africa ................................... " 4 Literature Review ....................................... 6 American and South Africa Economic Connections, 1930-1960 .. 22 American Automobiles, Mass Marketing and South African Consumer Culture ................................ 26 2. 'America' in Cape Town's English-speaking Press, 1945-60 ......... 41 3. The Organisation Of The Cinema In Cape Town, 1930-1960. .. 70 General Overview: Cinemas in Cape Town .................. 72 The Film Industry in South Africa . .. 87 Hollywood Films Dominate the South African Market.Town ........ 101 'The Big Three' in Cape Town ........................... 109 4. The Film Circuit, American Images, And 'Modem' Cape Town, 1945-1960 ................................ , 114 The Circuit And The Genres Of Films InCape Cape Town ......... , 116 Differences Within White Cinemas and Within Coloured Cinemas .........................................of 128 The Cinema And South Africa as a Modem, Western Nation .. , 138 5. Exploitation: The Marketing Of Hollywood And America In Cape Town, 1945-1960 ................................ , 149 Methods Of Exploitation . .. 152 6. The Death ofthe Residential and Downtown Bioscope and the Decline of American Images in Cape Town, 1945-1960 ................ 180 Television,University Monopoly Hearings, and Ster-inry . .. 180 Zoning, Drive-ins and the Death of the Residential Cinema. .. 184 Changes in American Films ............................ " 194 CONCLUSION ..................................................... 196 APPENDIX........................................................ 199 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................... 270 11 CHARTS AND GRAPHS Charts Page 1. American Manufacturers in South Africa, 1920-1960........................ 24 2. 1953 Cape Times Film Contest ..........................................62 3. Post World War II Cape Town Bioscopes ..................................81 4. Films Inspected, Rejected, or Otherwise Classified by South African Board of Censors, December 1952 ................................... 125 5. Films at Alvin Theatre, Camps Bay, First Saturday of the Month, June-December 1950 ............................................ 131 Graphs Page 1. Films in Cape Town, By Country 1946-1960............................... 64 2. Genres of Film in Cape Town, 1946-1960.................................. 65 3. Number of US Films v. British Films in Cape Town, 1946-1960.............. .103 4. Genres of Film, By White v. Coloured Theatres, 1946-1960................... 121 5. Total Number of Films by Neighborhood and By Genre, 1946-1960Town............ 127 6. Number of US Films v. British Films by Neighborhood, 1946-1960............ 183 Cape of University 111 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the deep-rooted history and structure of American culture in South Africa during the twentieth century. It examines one aspect of that cultural penetration in particular, the cinema industry, in Cape Town, a region ofpredominantIy British influence, in order to illustrate a process in which America displaced Great Britain as South Africa's political, economic, and cultural centre. Based on a wide range of unpublished government documents, oral interviews, periodicals, and a survey of motion pictures in Cape Town between 1946 and 1960, this thesis illustrates that not only did American images and products dominate the South African market, but American methods of mass marketing and advertising intensified South Africa's development of Town a consumer culture. Chapters on the coverage of' America' in the Cape Town press, the structure of the South African film industry and its circuit of cinemas, the genres of films shown in Cape Town, and the marketing of HollywoodCape films in South Africa illuminate the connections between the cinema, local businesses,of magazines, newspapers, and the music world, showing not only the structure behind tremendous amount of American culture present in 1940s and 1950s South Africa, but the involvement of South Africans themselves in producing and presenting such a culture. University IV INTRODUCTION At first glance, Cape Town in the 1940s and 1950s seemed to be a bastion of colonial British influence, the farthest thing from the vulgar commercialism of the United States. Two visitors to Cape Town in the 1940s-H.V. Morton and Douglas Reed-felt that the Cape had a uniquely European feel to it. As Reed put it, Cape Town was "distinctively an outcrop of Old Europe.") Capetonians cheered their favourite rugby and cricket teams. Bridge was played at local clubs and hotels such as the Glendower in Rosebank, and tea was served in the afternoon throughout the Cape peninsula. And Cape Town went wild with the Royal Visit of 1947, as Vivian Bickford-Smith describes: To greet the Royal family's arrival in Table Bay, children fromTown Sea Point schools formed a living 'Welcome' sign on Signal Hill. On shore, the royal motorcade traveled through the crowded main streets and across the Parade-'the picturesque centre of the non-European welcome'-before ending at Government House. In the evening the biggest fireworks display ever seen lit up Green Point Common. The Cape Town visit was filled withCape the likes of state banquets, civic balls, reviews and garden parties. A ball for 4,000 coloured Capetonians in the City Hall featured a 'Malay' pageant-includingof a mock wedding-introduced by LD. du Plessis.2 The outward presence of American culture in 1940s Cape Town was difficult to discern amongst British, Xhosa, Afrikaner, Malay and Khoisan influences. Few ) Vivian Bickford-Smith, Elizabeth van Heyningen, and Nigel Worden, Cape Town in the Twentieth UniversityCentury: An Illustrated Social History (Cape Town: David Philip, 1999),368-369. 2 Ibid, 383-385. In this paper, the terms 'white' and 'European' are used to designate South Africans of British and Dutch, German, and French descent. 'Non­ European' is a larger classification covering all groups that do not fall into the above, such as 'black,' who are often referred to as 'Natives'; 'Coloured' (who are of European, Bantu African, and Khoi-san descent), and 'Indian' or 'Asian.' These racial terms were used in the classification of films and cinemas by the South African Board of Censors. 1 Americans visited, worked, or emigrated to the Cape. The majority of American visitors were naval crewman stopping in Cape Town on leave. Often they would play baseball against local squads, play jazz at the local bioscope (as cinemas were called in South Africa), and get extended coverage in the press. But such visits were rare. Business-wise, most American companies located their headquarters on the more economically productive Rand. Architecturally, the American-style of low-slung, concrete petrol stations, car dealerships and shopping marts were not found in downtown Cape Town but rather in the northern and southern suburbs along Voortrekker Road in Parow and Goodwood and along Main Road in Salt River and Woodstock. 3 But inside and outside of Cape Town's bioscopes, and on the Townstreet comers, and in local hotels and cafes such as the Princess in Retreat, the Blue Peter in Blauuwberg, the Cobweb in Fish Hoek, the EI Morocco in Sea Point, the Winter Garden in District Six, and the Langa Community Centre. American swingCape and jazz music played. And on the second of January, Cape Town's Coon Carnivalof marched through the streets of 3 Chester R. Chartrand to Department of State, "Semi-Annual Report for December 1950-May 31, 1951," 13 July 1953, Decimal Files, 511.45a17-1351, Department of State, Record Group (RG) 59, National Archives and Records Administration of the United States (NARA-US), College Park, MD. Although ten American shipping lines by 1945 provided regular service to Cape Town from Philadelphia, New York,University New Orleans, Baltimore, Galveston, Houston and San Francisco, few Americans traveled to the Cape in the 1940s and 1950s. The U.S. government estimated that about 1500 U.S. citizens total were living in South Africa in 1951, and that the majority of these worked for American corporations such as Coca-cola and Atlantic Refining. As for American immigrants, an average of 308 people per year emigrated from North America from 1945 to 1958. This number was fairly consistent from year to year, and it was small in comparison both to the total number of emigrants to South Africa (4,315 out of 232,431, or 1.85%) and to the number of emigrants from the United Kingdom, who averaged 7,898

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