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Prairie Canada’s introduction to cinema started in July 1896 when people crowded to see an early film projector, called a Vitascope, that entertainment entrepreneurs Richard Hardie and Fred Wall had brought to Winnipeg. Soon enough there was a movie theatre in practically every neighbourhood, and movie-going became an integral leisure activity.

In Reel Time: Movie Exhibitors and Movie Audiences in Prairie Canada, 1896 to 1986, Robert M. Seiler, an associate professor emeritus in communication and culture, and Tamara P. Seiler, a professor emeritus of Canadian studies, trace how that happened. The two authors present a wellresearched and interesting look at how movie exhibitors employed different tactics to popularize movie-going, such as grandiose theatre designs (of which their book includes photos), programming strategies, seating arrangements, pricing policies, and marketing schemes.

For example, a pivotal moment in the growth of the motion picture industry occurred in 1903 at the first film exchange in San Francisco, where exhibitors could buy or lease films from producers for twentyfive per cent of the purchase price. Prior to this, exhibitors paid fifty dollars for one title, which they played until the prints fell apart. Film exchanges cut the costs for exhibitors and allowed them to more frequently change the title motion picture.

Reel Time offers an in-depth look into the rise of movie-going and movie exhibition on the prairies in the context of the social, economic, and technological developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.