Room for 48,750,147

Plainly, the world was hungering for entertainment. Last week the Department of Commerce had figures to prove it: in 116 countries around the planet, the last two years had seen a sharp overall rise in movie theaters, from 78,974 to 90,097. Seating capacity had soared from 42,667,411 to 48,750,147.

Despite the barriers to its pictures abroad, Hollywood could take heart in another statistic: 72% of the feature films on the world's screens were U.S.-made. The U.S. share of showings dipped lowest (47%) in the Far East, where stiff competition was offered by British distributors and a revived Japanese film industry. It was highest, at 98%, in British Honduras. The rate in the U.S. itself: 95%.

Nowhere had theaters sprung up in such large numbers as in India and Pakistan, which had increased their picture houses 43.3%. Italy and Germany spawned the largest increases in Europe, where Soviet Russia still boasted the biggest total of movie theaters (12,614). Japan led in the Far East.

Only a scattering of countries, mostly small, showed a drop in the number of cinemansions since 1947. Conspicuous among these was the U.S. Although their combined seating capacity had grown some to hit 11,796,072, there were now 18,351 U.S. theaters, 414 fewer than were grinding away two years ago.

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