The Makino Mamoru Collection on the History of East Asian Film, 1863-2015, bulk 1920s-1990s

Series XII: Movie Theater Handbills/ Chirashi (Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods), circa, 1870-1994

This series contains pre-war fliers, pamphlets, programs, and weekly listings of film showings at movie theaters primarily during the pre-war period. Also included with many of the programs are newspaper clippings. The first file contains early Meiji handbills with some from the Taishō period (1920s) as organized by Makino. Files are then organized alphabetically by city, theater name, title (when known), and then number and date (This retains Makino's organization by location and theater name). The majority of fliers are from theaters in Tokyo (see Subseries XII.10: Movie Theater Handbills/ Chirashi: Tokyo). For these theaters, they are further organized alphabetically by location within the city of Tokyo: area of Tokyo, theater name, title, and then number and date. Some programs in this subseries are numbered and dated, while others are not numbered nor dated. The descriptions column includes the name of the film production company that managed the theater where known.

In addition to the theater name, we have included the title of the publication, which means in some cases there are multiple folders per theater name (not 1 folder per theater name). Makino kept some handbills together based on region (ex. Kyūshū) with correspondence from theaters in the area or film production companies (ex. Nikkatsu) and kept them with local entertainment guides (Subseries VI.12: Local Film and Entertainment Guides. These have been moved to the end of this Series, Subseries XII.18: Movie Theater Handbills/ Chirashi: Regional Movie Theater Correspondence, Handbills and Additional Production Company Handbills. This series also contains an assortment of music fliers for films (Subseries XII.15: Movie Theater Handbills/ Chirashi: Other Handbills).

For post-war fliers from the 1980s collected by Kobayashi Keizaburō/小林圭三郎, see Subseries I.6: Director Files: Kobayashi Keizaburō. Subseries XII.17 contains Movie Theater Labor Dispute Materials/労働争議資料, documents which concern movie theater personnel, but are also related to the production companies. For handbills for news films/news reels, see Subseries VI.7: Subject Files: Documentary Film Materials. For movie theater handbills for films promoted through G.H.Q.'s Central Motion Picture Exchange (CMPE), see Subseries VI.14: Subject Files: Occupation Period Materials. For pre-war handbills advertising films from film companies including Metro-Goldwyn-May er Pictures, Warner Brothers, United Artists, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, MGM, and others, or for handbills from post-war films, See Subseries VI.6: Subject Files: Distribution and Entertainment Industry, Sub-subseries VI.6.3: Show Distribution materials. See Series XVIII: Newspapers for newspaper handbills for late 1930s films that are handbills but found with newspapers. For handbills from Chinese movie theaters in Manchuria and certain cities in China, see Subseries VII.2.1: East Asian (Pre-and Post-War): China (including Manchuria) movie theater handbills. Although not handbills, this series also contains some internal accounting documents from the movie theaters, including Tsukiji Gekijō/築地劇場 theater and noted in Excel file.

A detailed listing of the items in Series XII can be consulted in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet.