Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1939)

2 FILM BULLETIN Final Installment of A CHAPTER FROM THE PRESSURE BOYS THE SENSATIONAL EXPOSE OF LOBBYING IN AMERICA By KENNETH G. CRAWFORD (Continued from Last Issue) FAT SALARIES Some of the highly paid movie crowd have shown a willingness to part with their money in order to build up reputations for political potency. Louis B. Mayer, for example, was well known as an angel of the Hoover faction of the Republican party in California. He played a prominent part in the campaign that eliminated Upton Sinclair and Epic from the national scene in 1936. Anyone with Mayer's income and his power over others with comparable incomes is per se a political power at campaign time if he is willing to share his wealth with the candidates of his choice. At the time in 1938 when Hollywood studios were preparing to cut their $80,000,000 annual payroll by one third— taking it mostly out of extras and minor players — Variety reported that Loew's, Inc., was making executive contracts providing for payment of $4,712,400 a year in salaries and bonuses to its 14 top executives. Yet 23,000 extras worked a full year in Hollywood and got for their efforts a total of $2,250,000, according to the Central Casting Office. Although the big advertising campaign on which the movies spent so much — the movies-are-your-best-entertainment campaign — was a notable flop and profits fell off, there was no great reduction in executive salaries and emoluments. It is notorious that the top executives of the movies arrange to cut up big slices of the cake among themselves. Even their enormous salaries don't tell the whole story. But they tell enough when laid alongside those of the underpaid extras, studio workers and minor players. Some of the big money is plowed back into political influence. While Kent was testifying before the Smith subcommittee in 1939, the Treasury made public the big corporate salary payments for 1937. This list showed that the movies paid forty of the sixtythree salaries of $200,000 a year or more. Mayer, as production director of Loew's, Inc., got the highest salary paid that year to anyone in the United States — $1,161,753. This was supplemented by a little matter of $134,750 paid to him as vice-president of MetroGoldwyn-Mayer Corporation. Thus Mayer alone received more alary in 1937 than all members of the United States Senate combined. In addition to Mayer's salary, Loew's paid J. M. Rubin, a vice-president, $651,123 and Nicholas M. Schenck, president, $489,602. Other movie salaries included: Greta Garbo (Loew's) $472,499; Marlene Dietrich (Para.) $370,000; A. M. Loew (Loews) $356,074; THE PRESSURE BOYS, Kenneth G. Crawford; Published by Julian Messner, Inc., New York; Price $3.00. SUPER-COLC THE INSIDE STORY OF THE FILK Joan Crawford (Metro) $351,538; Fredric March, $334,687 from Selznick-International and $150,000 from Paramount; David Bernstein (Loew's) $320,416; Spyros Skouras (National Theatres, 20th Century affiliate), $320,054. Clark Gable (Metro) $289,000; Fred Astaire (R-K-O) $271,711; Joe E. Brown (Loew's) $267,500; Hunt Stromberg (Metro) $265,500; Charles Boyer (Warner) $265,191; Darryl Zanuck (20th Century) $260,000; Ernst Lubitsch (Para.) $260,833; Claudette Colbert (Para.) $248,055; William Powell (Metro) $246,110; Bob Burns (Metro) $242,856; Gary Cooper (Para.) $238,416; Jeannette MacDonald (Metro) $238,299. Warner Baxter (20th Century) $225,961; George Raft (Para.) $219,399; Sonja Henie (20th Century) $210,729; Adolph Zukor (Para) $210,479; Kay Francis (Warner) $209,100; Hal Wallis (Warner) $208,083; Wesley Ruggles (Para.) $203,051; David O. Selznick (Selznick-International) $203,500; Katherine Hepburn (R-K-O) $203,751. Herbert Marshall (R-K-O) $196,166; Samuel J. Briskin (R-K-O) $197,333; Wallace Beery (Metro) $190,000; Ginger Rogers (R-K-O) $187,776; William LeBaron (Para.) $183,929; W. S. Van Dyke (Metro) $178,816; Dick Powell (Warner) $176,249; Robert Taylor— listed as Arlington Brugh— (Metro) $173,362; Jack Conway (Metro) $168,621; Frank Lloyd (Para.) $166,208; B. H. Hyman (Metro) $165,456; Jack Oakie (R-K-O) $164,416; Carole Lombard (Para.) $164,000, also $150,000 from Selznick; Sam Goldwyn (S. G., Inc.) $163,000, also $26,000 as president of United Artists; Roy del Ruth (20th Century) $162,144; Victor Fleming (Metro) $160,000; R. Z. Leonard (Metro) $160,000; Clarence Brown (Metro) $159,000. E. J. Mannix (Metro) $157,500; Sam Katz (Metro) $156,000; Louis Ligon (Metro) $158,250; Henry King (20th Century) $157,444; S. Eckman, Jr. (London office of Loew's) $154,302; Mervyn Le Roy (Warner) $153,517; Myrna Loy (Metro) $152,583; Ronald Colman (Selznick) $150,000; Eddie Cantor (20th Century) $150,000; Walter Winchell (20th Century) $150,000; Loretta Young (20th Century) $150,000. Among the Hollywood writers were Preston Sturges (Para.) $134,250 and Joel McCrea (Goldwyn) $106,500. BUY OFF ENEMIES Now and then, despite all its skill and care, bits of revealing fact about the lobbying of the Hays organization have leaked out. The New York World in 1929 revealed that the movies made a practice of buying off reform organizations. This was done simply by hiring — Brookhart, on the floor of the Senate, called it bribing — leaders in those organizations. Later in 1931, when the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America published a report on an invesigation of the movies, it was forced to reveal that its own senior general secretary had been on their payroll. He had received $150 a month as a "consultant" on religious pictures. The Council of Churches found that fifty-one persons, regarded by the public as disinterested movie reformers, had received generous expense allowances from the Hays organization to reimburse them for attending meetings. In some cases fees also were paid to these reformers for making speeches. Discussing these phenomena, the Council's report said: "Some very liberal payments of expense accounts have been made. In a few cases honoraria were paid for addresses given. In no such case except one . . . was the recipient in a position of responsibility in an organization co-operating with the industry or the Hays organization. Those receiving expenses for travel and entertainment, however, included influential persons connected with social and religious organizations. Some of them were co-operating actively with the Hays organization in winning support for its co-operation program and opposing censorship. 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