ABSTRACT
In 1908, the young German film industry was caught in its first capitalist crisis of overproduction. To get rid of superfluous films, producers and distributors lowered their prices and suffered losses on the capital invested in the production and purchase of films. In order to reverse the spiral of price dumping, the industry had to find a method of increasing and stabilizing prices. Since the abundance of existing short films did not offer any leverage, product innovations in film form were necessary. With every short film functioning merely as one item in a programme, film prices were calculated according to their length. Suppliers had to find a ‘way out’ of the short film programme, which, while popular with the public, was unprofitable. As Corinna Müller has demonstrated in detail, three innovations ultimately resolved the first crisis in the German film market. First, the expansion of the film length to at least two acts (two film reels) meant that a longer film replaced one or more short films in the programme. Second, the exclusive Monopolfilm distribution system guaranteed cinema owners that no other cinema in town could show the same film in the same week. The final innovation was the establishment of film stars as the deciding element in the public’s choosing which films they went to see. 1
