Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1938)

2 %deoemten( ixwbiiori FILM BULLETIN IS THE GOVERNMENT SERIOUS? A SUPERB IDEA ! {Continued from front page) panies' products or none at all in far too many cities and towns. This, the Government says, is bad for the industry. "Such a condition would surely be bad for the newspaper industry. For example, suppose The News owned most of the newsstands in town, and could thus keep the bulk of the public from buying any paper but The News. High-minded and energetic as all of us on The News admit we are, there would be a terrific urge, if The News had such a monopoly on outlets for newspapers, to let things slip here and there in the shop. The result could hardly help being a paper inferior to the present product. "The Government says this condition departed, long since from the movie industry, to a large degree. It claims that the big companies, though there are eight of them, really constitutes a trust which controls between 80% and 90% of all quality pictures produced in the United States. "If that is true, it should go far toward explaining the movie industry's present sickness. Look (if you can bear to) at the punk pictures that habitually come out of Russia, Germany and Italy, where all art is under Government control. Art, we believe, must always be competitive; will suffer grievously whenever competition is killed, whether government or private industry does the killing. "We hope this suit may bring out the right answers to all the complaints being aimed at the movies, still our greatest form of mass entertainment, though radio is creeping up on them. "Do the majority of fans really like the doublefeature idea (which we detest,) or have those polls on the subject been just a trifle phony? Do the producers, as claimed by many a disgruntled author, really discourage all original talent? Are the movie magnates as afraid of people who want to tell them how and how not to run their own affairs as they are said to be? Is Czar Hays an asset, or a liability? And so on and so forth. The Government says this lawsuit is to be much more of a friendly and helpful investigation of the movie than a hostile prosecution for monopolistic practices. We hope the Government bears that thought in mind throughout the suit; and that the end result may be a rebirth of a form of mass entertainment which up to now has spread more happiness and enabled more people to escape temporarily from the boredoms of everyday life than any other art ever did." To which we add our hope. MO WAX Elsewhere in this issue is quoted an editorial from the New York Daily News, part of which bears repeating here: "A form of mass entertainment which up to now has spread more happiness and enabled more people to escape temporarily from the boredoms of every day life than any other art ever did." That refers to Motion Pictures. We recall hearing Senator Frank Harris of Pennsylvania tell a group of industry members, both theatre and film men, that they are "too close" to the business to appreciate the great humanitarium service they arc performing in bringing film entertainment to millions of people. And the thought occurred to us then that the very neglect of the film and theatre man to appreciate that aspect of his business was responsible to some extent for the indifference with which the public has come to regard film entertainment. Now, at last, a move has been organized within the industry to re-stimulate the public's consciousness of the glamour and enjoyment of Motion Pictures. A fund of one million dollars is being raised to convince the American public that "Movies Are Your Best Entertainment." Of this sum about six hundred thousand dollars will be spent for a newspaper campaign. Five thousand prizes, totaling one-quarter of a million dollars, will be awarded to the winners of a contest made available to all theatre patrons. Of the one million dollar budget, one-half has been pledged by the distributors, one-quarter by the affiliated circuits. Independent exhibitors are asked to contribute the remaining one-quarter of a million dollars. There is no compulsion here. As the plan is drawn at present, those who do not contribute stand to gain as much as those who do their share. The option placed directly in the lap of the individual independent. We urge every independent reader of FILM BULLETIN to send a check on the basis of ten cents per seat to Frank C. Walker, Comerford Theatres, Scranton, Pennsylvania, or to this paper. The independents must do their part to make it a complete success. Those sponsoring the drive estimate an increase in patronage throughout the country ranging from ten to twenty per cent. Let that be so. We see a greater benefit accruing indirectly to the entire industry. We see the industry itself stimulated — the producer more conscientiously to fulfill his artistic obligation to the public — the exhibitor more energetically to utilize his direct association with film patrons to make them more conscious of the beauty, the recreation, the relaxation, the pleasure and the education so nominally offered to millions of Americans in every worthwhile film. This is a superb idea!