ABSTRACT

Government interference or indifference sometimes connected to broader programs for social and cultural reform made an impression on popular film in Iran. Towards the end of the decade of the 1930s, the Iranian filmmaking pioneer Ibrahim Muradi became a regular contributor for the journal. This chapter argues that the form of entertainment that came to characterize many filmfarsi features was different from those in the Hollywood cinema. It provides a brief account of the unique social, political, and cultural environment in which film as entertainment emerged in Iran. The chapter describes some of the public entertainments, both old and new, that competed with and contributed to the fledgling medium during its history. It examines the problems facing cinema in reaching the incipient masses during the half of the twentieth century and how creative solutions to those problems helped to give shape to the domestic industry in the years after the Second World War.