Guess How Japanese Movie Theater Owners Enticed Customers

In the Yasaka Grand Theater, Kyoto, in January 1950, at a special admission-paid preview of Little Women (Mervyn LeRoy, 1949), the following attractions were offered: free admission for groups of four sisters; "lady’s lucky cards" for female patrons, with a sewing machine as the first prize and fabric for western style clothes as the second prize; as well as scholarships for winners of an essay competition for female high school students.

This method of attracting viewers by arousing their gambling instincts, together with various tie-in schemes, reached its peak in 1951. Let’s take some of the local newspaper advertisements of the time as examples:

October 1950: During the celebration of its first anniversary, the Koraku Kaikan presented medicine for colds and headaches or bars of soap to the first two thousand patrons daily.

March 1951: During the first run of Wagaya wa Tanoshi (Home Sweet Home), the movie theaters run by the Shochiku Film Company offered thirty thousand yen in cash as the top lottery prize, and a thousand-yen fixed deposit account as Chiyoda Bank as second prize. Patrons wrote down their names and addresses on empty boxes of Morinaga Milk Caramels and put them in ballot boxes in the theaters.