Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Oct-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

October 6, 1928 EXHIBITORS HERALD and MOVING PICTURE WORLD 29 It Won 't Be Long Now! NOVEMBER 3 That's the Date What Date? 9 9 9 • • • Industry Warned Against Parasitic Promoters by Speaker at K. C. Radio (Special to the Herald-World) KANSAS CITY, Oct. 2— So numerous have been the operations of fraudulent motion picture concerns in the Kansas City territory recently that George M. Husser, manager of the Kansas City Better Business Bureau, issued a general warning through the radio station of the Kansas City Star the other night. "Like every industry which has a rapid growth," Russer said, "the motion picture industry has its parasites, which, in the persons of promoters, fleece the investing public by trading upon the progress of the legitimate industry. Investments in well managed motion picture concerns have made money for the investors, but promoters trading upon these inherent qualities and the wide appeal of the motion picture industry, have succeeded in defrauding the public through misleading references to the success which has accompanied the growth of the industry. "A promoter comes to town, interests some leading citizen with a good looking daughter, talks 'local casts' and 'big profits' and soon he has sold a lot of worthless stock in a company that has no prospect whatever of functioning permanently. Over the country many movie scenario schools have sprung up. Statistics show that novices who send in scenarios have one chance in 100,000 of selling them. Another of the many schemes is the socalled casting school, which offers to train applicants for movie jobs. Factory girls, old men and women are defrauded." Holders of $31,000 in Claims May Lose All (Special to the Herald-World) ST. LOUIS, Oct. 2— A hearing before Referee Coles last Thursday, in the bankruptcy of Charles Sinclair, Inc., operators of the Garden theatre, disclosed that creditors with approximately $31,000 of unsecured claims will probably receive nothing, although some are hopeful of pulling out with 10 per cent. It was revealed at this hearing that vandals had destroyed $3,000 worth of scenery since the theatre closed. Arbitration Association Law Program Is Endorsed (Special to the Herald-World) NEW YORK, Oct. 2.— Unanimous support of the state legislative program of the American Arbitration Association was voted by representatives of 16 national and local organizations at the first meeting of the Arbitration Exchange of the association last Tuesday. Gabriel Hess of the M P T O A and Sol Raives of the T O C C attended. SMPE Closes Meeting Notable For Its Topics and Attendance L. C. Porter Is Elected President at Lake Placid — Sessions Declared Valuable Beyond Computation in Insight Into Depth of Knowledge of Research Leaders By F. H. RICHARDSON LAKE PLACID, N. Y., Sept. 27.— The Society of Motion Picture Engineers is now (September 27) holding its fall meeting at beautiful Lake Placid, New York. The sessions began Monday, September 24, and will continue until, and including Friday, September 28. Two Hundred Attend Convention I think we have all been more or less astonished both at the attendance and at the array of papers presented. Approximately 155 men and between 40 and 45 wives and daughters of attending members are present Lake Placid is a very beautiful spot and Whiteface Inn, where the convention is being held, has ideal facilities for such a meeting. In attendance are many notable engineers. To attempt to name them individually would possibly subject me to the charge of not including all those who should be included under that title. I will, however, single out Mr. C. Francis Jenkins of Washington, an inventor of note, who is, as you all know, literally the father of the Society, of which he is now an honorary member mention Dr. C. E. K. Research Laboratories L. C. Porte for life. I will also Mees of the Eastman than whom no more able engineer, I believe, can be found. Almost every large, and very many smaller, corporations are well represented : the Eastman Kodak Company, National Carbon Company, International Projector Corp., Bell Telephone Laboratories, Agfa-Ansco Corp., General Electric Co., Westinghouse Electrical Co., and so on through a long list. Some of these corporations have from two to four or five of their most able engineers present. Conklin Saved by a Hair From Being a Loafer ! ? (Special to the Herald-World) DES MOINES, Oct. 2.— Every baker of mature age in Des Moines was the object of scrutiny from motion picture devotees last week when a story in a local paper stated that Chester Conklin got his idea for the prize makeup from a Des Moines baker for whom he once worked. The original story set forth that Chester worked for a baker named Schultz for $4 a week. It further stated that the actor might yet be working for said baker if he hadn't lost so much valuable time in fascinated contemplation of the amazing facial adornment of his employer. Not only were the Schultz whiskers remarkable in themselves, but also in the incredible gyrations they performed in conversation or meditation. Conklin is said to have remained at the job long enough to collect a group of mustaches like them. Then he struck out with a monologue in which these crepe-hair appendages played an important part, the story said. The sessions have been much more than filled with interest. A large preponderance of the papers presented, dealt in one way or another with sound synchronization with motion. I believe there was hardly a man present who was not more or less amazed at the evidences of almost unbelievably difficult researches performed, particularly by the Bell Telephone laboratories and their "aunts, cousins," and other relations, such as the Western Electric Co., and Electrical Research Products, Inc. Some of the things spoken of with the utmost nonchalency by Bell Telephone Laboratories engineers seem almost past human understanding. They have told us within the past four days of the exact action of things that have never been seen, probably never can or will be seen, and which are comparable only with the atom in size ; yet they tell us exactly what these things do, how they do it, and what the effect is. Of Value to All Interesting? Yes, and then some. I think we have all gained an experience at the meeting which is valuable beyond computation, although frankly very much of the argument was beyond the understanding of the average man. However, that does not mean that it did not have value to us all, because it gave us an insight into the depths of knowledge attained by research men, and added vastly, I think, to our respect both for them and for the product they are turing out, which, in its commercial form, we are all more or less handling. The Electrical Research Products, Inc., gave some most valuable and interesting demonstrations and exhibitions. The Fox Case Movietone brought from New York one of their outdoor portable theatres — that is exactly what is amounts to — in charge of Technical Director E. I. Shonable, and gave us an outdoor exhibition upon the lawn of the hotel Monday evening. The apparatus which I have dubbed their "outdoor theatre," consists of a truck in which is what amounts to a selfcontained complete theatre. The truck is a small one. It looks like an ordinary, very well built covered automobile truck as it drives up, but, presto, chango ! a man turns a crank and on top of the truck at its rear there appears a screen about six feet wide by four feet high. Complete Projection Outfit Down in the body of the truck is a complete projection outfit for Movietone. The light source and the. driving motor are operated by storage batteries. The projection distance is ten feet, and everything considered, the result is surprisingly good. On this occasion, they ran one of the news reels and several short subjects, the names of which I do not at the moment recall. The exhibition was certainly enjoyed by both the delegation and all the guests and employees of the huge hotel. I believe the thanks of the motion picture industry should be extended to Fox-Case (Continued on page 58)