I am currently working on fleshing out the Hill Theatre that was in operation in Hillsboro, Oregon, from 1937 to 1977. Hillsboro isn’t the biggest of towns, so finding pinpoint ads in the old Hillsboro paper was easy. In fact, I got so many different movie ads that I am able to piece together a genre timeline.
The Hill Theatre is an interesting theatre when it comes to tracking the movie genres because of its close relation to another movie theatre on the same block, and under the same ownership. The Venetian was a theatre that was already in existence when the Hill became operable. So at first there seemed to be a divide where the Hill would show romance films, and the Venetian would show action/westerns.
In the grand opening ad for the Hill, the films that were advertised were The Firefly, Second Honeymoon, The Barrier, and Ebb Tide, all of which were released in 1937. They are all comedy/drama/romance. The Venetian, that same week, had Texas Trail, Hold ’Em Navy, Blossoms on Broadway, The Californian, Hot Water, Navy Blue and Gold, and Between Two Women, again, all 1937 movies. These genres ranged from westerns, comedies, romance, drama, action, etc.
Later in the ads, I found the genres mixed a bit more; romance was still favored (most likely because the theatres were supposed to be very family-friendly, as they were originally owned by a well-liked major), but they were less divided. Like an ad from 1945, the Hill was showing Heroes of the Blimp (1943), a war action story, and the Venetian was showing The Very Thought of You (1944), a romance/drama.