Picture Play (magazine)

{{short description|American film magazine}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox magazine | image_file = Pictureplayweekl01unse 0013.jpg | image_size = | image_alt = | image_caption = Cover of the premiere issue (April 10, 1915) | editor = | editor_title = | previous_editor = | staff_writer = | frequency = Weekly <br> Monthly | circulation = | category = Film | publisher = | firstdate = April 10, 1915 | finaldate = 1941 | country = United States | based = New York City | language = English | website = | issn = }}

'''''Picture Play''''', originally titled '''''Picture-Play Weekly''''' was an American weekly magazine focusing on the film industry. Its first edition was published on April 10, 1915. It eventually transitioned from a weekly to a monthly magazine, before ending its production run, when it continued as ''Your Charm'', in March 1941.

==History== ''Picture-Play Weekly'' began as a weekly magazine on April 10, 1915.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Online Books Page |url=https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=pictureplay|work=University of Pennsylvania Library |accessdate=May 25, 2020}}</ref> By the end of the year it had become a semi-monthly magazine, and its name had changed to ''Picture-Play Magazine'', changed to a monthly format several months later in March 1916. Its next transformation came in May 1927, when it shortened its title and removed the hyphen, taking its final name of ''Picture Play''.<ref name=IH>{{cite book|title=Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine|last=Slide|first=Anthony|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2010|page=241|isbn=978-1604734140|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5hDG6auRCJ4C&q=%22Picture+Play+Magazine%22&pg=PA241}}</ref> Published by Street & Smith, its original editor was Charles Gatchell, who began as a cartoonist, and thereby had a pictorial style.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Million and One Nights|last=Ramsaye|first=Terry|publisher=Routledge|year=2012|isbn=978-1136247446|page=682 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o-wuwwDtxmMC&q=%22Picture+Play+Magazine%22&pg=PA682}}</ref> By 1917 it had built up a circulation of over 200,000.<ref>{{cite book|title=Newspaper and Magazine Directory|publisher=H.W. Kastor & Sons Advertising Company|year=1918|page=659 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EW4-AQAAMAAJ&q=%22Picture+Play+Magazine%22}}</ref> Along with ''Photoplay'', ''Screen Play'' and ''Screen Romances'', it was one of the more memorable film magazines of the first half of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Historical Overview of the Effects of New Mass Media Introductions on Magazine Publishing During the 20th Century|last=Randle|first=Quint| publisher=First Monday|volume=6|number=9|date=September 3, 2001|url=http://firstmonday.org/article/view/885/794| accessdate=December 29, 2016|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230230339/http://firstmonday.org/article/view/885/794|url-status=live|archivedate=December 30, 2016}}</ref>

''Picture Play'' ended its publication run when it continued as ''Your Charm'', “The Magazine for Moderns,” in March 1941.<ref name=IH /><ref name="Payne-2021">{{cite book |last1=Payne |first1=Chelsea L. |title=Glamour, Incorporating Charm: Two Fashion Magazines for Working Women, 1939-1959 |date=2021 |publisher=Fashion Institute of Technology |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/26526cb5b6dfa739108b78e2f4c17390/1.pdf |quote=Dissertation or Thesis |language=en}}{{free access}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category-inline|Picture Play (magazine)}}

Category:Defunct film magazines published in the United States Category:Monthly magazines published in the United States Category:Weekly magazines published in the United States Category:Magazines established in 1915 Category:Magazines disestablished in 1941 Category:Magazines published in New York City