Az „idegen nyelvű beszélőfilm” szerepe a pesti magánszínházak válságában
The Role of “Foreign Language Talking Pictures” in the Crisis of Private Theaters

Summary/Abstract: The paper studies the 1930 crisis discourse of the Budapest Theater Directors' Association drawing on archival material held in the Theater History collection in the National Széchényi Library (OSZK). The first chapter analyzes the internal and external communication of the association reacting to the competition of foreign language talking pictures that appeared in Budapest at the end of 1929. The organization petitioned the ministries and the municipality of the Hungarian capital for the alleviation of their financial burdens as private theaters had been operating without financial subsidies and needed to secure the conditions of profitable operation. Beside a decrease of electricity, police and fire safety costs, the main goal of their lobbying was the abolition of the entertainment tax levied on private theaters, as well as imposing the tax on foreign language talking pictures. The second chapter discusses the reasons contemporary trade journals of actors and the film industry as well as trade unions used to explain the crisis of private theaters. Unlike theater directors who were highlighting the financial burdens, they emphasized operational and artistic reasons. In the third chapter, the problem of crisis management is discussed through the career of an influential theater personality. Imre Roboz as the president of the executive committee of the Budapest Theater Directors' Association very actively petitioned against the spread of foreign language talking pictures and movie studios. At the same time, as the director of the American-owned Vígszínház, he was appointed by Adolf Zukor to lead Hungarian language talking picture making in the Paris studio of Paramount from the summer of 1930. I point out these parallel strategies of crisis management through the analysis of documents held in Vígszínház and the Theater History collection of the OSZK.

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