Exhibitors Herald (Jun-Dec 1917)

I This is an Open Forum i for the trade, where all ! persons in the industry — S especially exhibitors — ! have an opportunity to IS register .suggestions or;s complaints. Every signed : communication will re ! ceive careful attention. : [To the Exhibitors Herald]: As president of the Indiana Motion Picture Exhibitors League, I kindly ask that you publish the following article in your very next issue: Motion picture exhibitors of these United States must be up and doing this very minute, get busy when you read this and for the next few days give your entire efforts and attention to the Federal tax question. Do you realize the importance and dire consequences of prohibitive tax? I wrote and asked a Canadian exhibitor to give me the results of how a tax of one cent on each ticket had affected the exhibitors in that country. Extracts from a Long Letter He wrote: "Our tax regulation is the most costly in the world except perhaps the Italian government. "People did not protest in time and now it is too late. We pay one cent on each ticket and this obliged us to raise the admission price from 10 to 15 cents and now people do not come: they have not the money to come so often, and business has fallen off one-third. "Some motion picture managers, and as picture managers usually do, tried to put each other out of business and pay the extra tax themselves, and all profits were lost and they were in the hole. "Enclosed you will find a sample of war tax ticket that we have to pay and since paying many shows have closed up and are going out of business because it costs hundreds of dollars which the shows cannot raise. Some fools paid the tax out of each admission and lost everything. "I say you had better hold together and protest in time or else you will suffer commercial death and the people will suffer because amusements are all to charge high prices and only the large houses remain in business and cheap amusements for the poor and middle class people will end." These are facts quoted from experience and not theories and need no further explanation except to briefly review what has been done up to date. When the house committee proposed a tax of 10 per cent on gross receipts, the Indiana organization sent a delegation to Washington and found only one other state taking an interest in the tax question. Mr. Varner. Mr. Sams and Mr. Wells or Xorth Carolina, the same gentlemen who came to the rescue over two years ago on behalf of the small exhibitors. We found Mr. Ochs and some trade papers and film manufacturers saying to Congress that the tax of 10 per cent was all right on the exhibitor, but there should be no tax on film. As usual, gentlemen, let the exhibitors pay the whole burden and again as usual most exhibitors calmly submitting to the axe. North Carolina and Indiana have been working diligently ever since, and Mr. Crandell at Washington, an exhibitor there, was splendid help. Through filing briefs and seeing our representatives and senators we have been able to show and prove that a tax of 10 per cent or of 1 cent on every ticket, which is 20 per cent on a 5-cent ticket, would put most of us out of business. Fortunately, Xorth Carolina was in a position to be of great service and Mr. Varner, who has now the second time come to the front in behalf of the exhibitor, deserves a great vote of thanks by the exhibitors of the United States for his work. But our work is not finished. We need the co-opera "Whatever You Want ■ To Know" — For any in: formation you may re• quire about films, theater 5 accessories or any motion S picture subject, write ! this department. Your ■ inquiries will be anS swered below, or by lets'ter if of a private nature. tion of every exhibitor in the United States this mighty minute. If you don't say anything. Congress is liable to believe that you are able to pay the tax. Here is the status at this writing: The senate committee report no tax on amusements of 25 cents and under admission tickets. Indiana and Xorth Carolina senators and representatives have been advised fully by their exhibitors how drastic this bill was and all we want is the rest of the states to do the same. Write letters to your senators and congressman; wire them or talk to them over the wire. But if you want to get somewhere, go down to Washington and see them in person, the way Xorth Carolina and Indiana have done, and won't wait. As a Canadian exhibitor has said: "Go before it is too late." F. J. REMBUSCH, President of the Indiana Motion Picture Exhibitors' League. Shelbyville, Ind. ' P. S. — Exhibitors, we should say to producers, all film men and everybody not an exhibitor: "Keep your hands off; it is not your business and you do not know what an exhibitor can pay in the way of tax." * * * [To the Exhibitors Herald]: Gentlemen: Can you refer us to a concern that sells ventilators for roofs of motion picture theaters? We desire to install something besides electric fans, in the way of something like a skylight proposition so that the front doors need not be kept open, with a resulting free show to a certain class that is looking for something for nothing. WAIT BROTHERS. By J. Paul Wait. Sturgis, Mich. Reply. — The Ilg Electric Ventilating Company, 154 Whiting street, Chicago, or the Batterman-Truitt Company, 18-20 Kinzie street, Chicago, 111:, can, no doubt, furnish you with what you desire. RAGING FOREST FIRE IN LUMBER REGION IS FILMED FOR NEWEST KATHLYN WILLIAMS-W. REID PLAY "Big Timber," an adaptation by Gardner Hunting of Bertrand Sinclair's famous story, has as its co-stars Kathlyn Williams and Wallace Reid. It is a Morosco-Paramount picture, staged under the direction of William H. Taylor, witli John Burton. Alfred Paget, Joe King and Helen Bray in the supporting cast. In order to get the settings for this production, which, as the name suggests, is a story of the California lumber district, the entire company traveled from Los Angeles to Fort Bragg, in the heart of the lumber district. The felling of big trees and scenes on the timber chutes form interesting parts of the action of the story. By dint of careful watchfulness the players were able to film a forest fire raging in the big timber. It is forbidden by law to start such a fire, and the company was forced to bide its time until a fire was discovered and reported by the rangers. Duluth, Minn. — Mertens & Hoff, proprietors of the Orpheum Theater at Ironton, have leased the Empress Theater here and will start operating it about July 1.