Hollywood Spectator (1931)

Film Companies Are Going Broke By The Editor THE financial condition of the film industry constantly grows more desperate. Apparently nothing can divert a panic. The only thing that ultimately will restore prosperity is a return to the making of motion pictures, but as no one in control of the industry knows what a motion picture is, and will not allow those who do know to make them, the prospects of prosperity are remote. The allied organizations of Warner Brothers can not escape bankruptcy. Always lacking picture brains, the brothers were saved from oblivion four years ago by a mechanical device — the sound camera. Since then they have been kept going by the impetus of money the sound camera brought them. Now they are running out of money. They have nothing left. The stock exchange flatters them by still insisting that their stock is worth something. In reality it is worth nothing. Neither is the Fox stock worth anything. If the company were liquidated to-day the assets would not offset the liabilities and there would be nothing to distribute among the stockholders. Even its powerful banking affiliations can not continue to carry the load, for the basis of the company s worth is its ability to make pictures that the public will patronize, and it lacks such ability. More than any other company’s was the extent of its surrender to the stage when the screen went talkie, and that has brought about its rum. ▼ v Paramount is in a bad way. It has to absorb tremendous losses, incurred by unwise financing, at a time when its product is failing to earn enough revenue to take care of the cost of manufacture and dividend requirements. It is continuing this year to make the same kind of pictures that reduced its profits last year. To make the right kind of pictures requires an ability that it does not possess and which it is making no attempt to acquire. It has a lean year ahead of it. The only strength of the RKO affiliations is the fact that they have the Radio group as their sponsors. David Sarnoff and Hiram Brown are intellectual giants when there are financial problems to solve, but they are babies when they approach a problem that depends for its solution upon the degree in which the fundamental principles of screen art are reflected in a screen creation. The RICO end of their varied enterprises is selling screen art, but they do not know it. They think it is selling conversations. When the other enterprises are called upon to provide the millions of dollars that will be lost by making pictures that the public will repudiate, perhaps Messrs. Sarnoff and Brown will begin to ask themselves questions. In that lies RKO’s hope of a prosperous future. ▼ ▼ United Artists is passing out of the picture. What Joe Schenck started, Sam Goldwyn will finish. M-G-M is the only organization that has maintained a level of stability in its productions. It made the best all-talkies when the public was willing to accept such entertainment, and its troubles only are beginning. The weird extravagance of its production methods added to the loss of revenue for which its present pictures will be responsible, will make it as unsafe financially as all the other organizations. No one in authority in the Metro studio has picture brains. Somehow or other I have confidence in Universal’s ability to muddle through. Carl Laemmle has a lot of sense. He is used to having his back to the wall and has cultivated an ability to fight his way out. And I have confidence in Junior. He is in a tough spot. Apparently his father is the only one in the organization who wants to see him retain his job, and I hope the sense I conceded to his father is great enough to assure Junior’s having a fair chance. ^ ^ Howard Hughes is another in whom I have confidence. He is spending his own money learning the game, and he is learning it thoroughly. He is a brilliant young man who makes no outward show of brilliance, but who with stubborn persistency goes after results and gets them. I think Hughes some day will be at the head of a really big producing organization, and he will develop enough executive ability to make a good job of it. He should take over United Artists just before it reaches the point of final disappearance. Columbia has the chance of a lifetime. The bigger organizations are too cumbersome to think. A young, alert organization like Columbia could put its pictures into the biggest theatres in the country if it only had sense enough to profit by the mistakes of others and make the kind of pictures the public wants. But no doubt Harry Cohn will continue to make the same kind of talkies that the others are making. ▼ ▼ V Robert E. Sherwood THIS Spectator introduces a new associate editor in the person of Robert E. Sherwood, playwright, one time editor of Life, perhaps America’s foremost commentator on film affairs — in short, a distinguished man of screen, stage and literature. My new confrere’s writings on motion pictures have appeared regularly in lay papers and were written for laymen. It occurred to me that Bob Sherwood during the past dozen * — 4* WELFORD BEATON, EDITOR VOL. 12, NO. 1 ROBERT E. SHERWOOD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR, published every other Saturday by The Film Spectator, Inc. Welford J3eaton, president ; Howard Hlil, secretary and man-, ager ; at Los Angeles (Hollywood Station) in California. Address 6362 Hollywood Blvd. Telephone GL 5506. Robert Stanley, advertising manager. Entered as second class matter February 4, 1929, at the post office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription price, $3.50 per year; foreign, $4.50; single copy, 15 cents.