In this multimedia age, when new electronic entertainment devices for use in the privacy of one's home -- or anywhere -- proliferate endlessly, it can seem hopelessly old-fashioned to trendsetters to sit in a darkened movie theater watching stars emote in heart-tugging dramas, daredevil adventure stories or raucous comedies. The constantly dwindling size of the audiences for what was a mainstay of popular escapism in the early postwar years goes a long way toward explaining the decision of Shochiku Co. to sell its famous 63-year-old film-production studio in Ofuna, Kanagawa Prefecture, to Kamakura Women's College.

It is encouraging that the college both needed the space and was able to acquire it. Nevertheless, the demise of the facility at which many classics of what is considered the golden age of Japanese cinema were produced marks the end of an era. The public no longer seems interested in movies like those made by such noted directors as Yasujiro Ozu and Keisuke Kinoshita, many of which received acclaim abroad as well as at home. Ozu's "Tokyo Monogatari" (Tokyo Story) and Kinoshita's "Narayama Bushiko" (The Ballad of Narayama) were both filmed there and both are landmarks of Japanese film history. Of course, people still go to the movies, especially young people, but not with anything like the regularity that was once standard, and not to see the kind of movies that appealed to their parents and grandparents.

How could it be otherwise, with so many competing forms of entertainment making tempting demands on the limited time most people have for leisure pursuits? Shochiku executives are well aware of this. Last year the company was forced to close its much-touted Kamakura Cinema World theme park, located at the Ofuna studio, because of poor attendance. Despite all the efforts made to promote the park as a nostalgic trip into Japanese film history, and the presence of interactive attractions that allowed visitors to envision themselves as movie stars, it failed to draw people in sufficient numbers to turn a profit.