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A page about the Picturegoer archive
A Short History of Picturegoer Magazine
Picturegoer © 2009 IPC Media | info@picturegoer.net
A short history of Picturegoer Magazine
The web collection was started in 1995 and is still growing. We have a been fortunate to purchase a number of collections over the years.
The Picturegoer Magazine ran from around 1913 until 1960 and went through a number of mergers with rival magazines. There were several different styles to it. It started as a Theatre and Silent movie weekly review which was quite serious in comparison to later formats. At the time of the Talkies it developed into a sort of weekly catalogue of the available films on show at UK Cinemas.
Then along came WW1. The UK film industry was scaled down and the world turned to the USA for movie production. After WW1, Picturegoer became a standard film magazine on sale in all cinemas. This was the period of the first really great stars. Most of them appear on the front covers of the magazines on the site.
WW2 witnessed another great change in the format and style of the magazine. Patriotic, morale boosting films were being produced in the UK and America. Much of the 40's glamour, represented by US stars, is reflected in the covers. "The Cinema" became "The Movies" at around this time.
After WW2 there was a lot more competition for Picturegoer Magazine. Chains of cinemas; Rank, Odeon, ABC, etc, were publishing their own magazines and Picturegoer lost many traditional outlets. The response was to become more sensational, featuring the 1950's style Cheese and Beefcake front covers. Many would say that these 50's Bikini clad starlets were best magazine covers in the collection. Around this time too, the industry in general was competing with Television which was now available to the majority of the population in the UK.
Finally, Picturegoer Magazine merged with a pop music title called Disc Date. Soon after that the Picturegoer name was dropped and the new format magazine concentrated on pop music only. The last Picturegoer was published on April 23rd 1960. The cover featured Jackie Rae and Janette Scott and can be seen on the site.
Who are we
This site was started as a hobby in 2001. After publication of the first site the e-mails from film fans started to flood in. After so many requests we decided to develop the site into a resource for Picturegoer fans. The posters and the CD have been developed as a result of requests from site visitors.
Please feel free to contact us with queries about the site, Picturegoer magazine or other Film Star related information. We will reply to all e-mails.
Copyright and Licencing
Picturegoer.net is not the copyright holder. We hold a licence to use the images. In certain circumstances we can give permission to others to use the images too. Licencing can be a little complex, but if you have any questions about this subject please contact us directly, via snail mail or e-mail.
Contact details
Picture Productions Ltd The Cottage in the Dale Wensley Derbyshire
Arthur Worboys - sales@picturegoer.net
Peter Dell - info@moviestarsmagazine.com
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