Motion Picture News (Jul - Sep 1930)

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Vol. XLII NEW YORK CITY, JULY 12, 1930 No. 2 SACKCLOTH AND ASHES THE big producer-distributors are calling in their scouts. The mad game of acquiring theatres is in the ninth inning and the score is against them. A lot of naughts in crimson tell the story. The unaffiliated exhibitor is discovering that he has not forgotten how to laugh. The swivel-chair moguls in the home offices have found out that it is easier to buy theatres than to run them at a profit. They set a Napoleonic figure as their goal in theatre holdings on the theory that they had to have outlets for their product. But when their own pictures failed to show a profit in their own theatres they began to get slivers in their fingers from scratching their heads. At some point along the path of mental travail that ensued they acquired a respect for the independent exhibitor who had originally supplied the lucre that enabled them to buy him out — or freeze him out. He had been able to make money despite costs that mounted yearly. The automatons they dispatched to manage their new theatres didn't seem to know the trick. Hence the grief. The deluge of publicity from big concerns relating their current acquisitions now has suddenly stopped. The first inkling of this reversal of policy came at the sales conventions when the big boys began to express concern for the welfare of the "little fellow." It was the theme song of every confab. Now they're beginning to unload and to pat the "little fellow" on the back some more. This is not fiction, but the punch climax is this: The sales chief of one of the big companies admitted only this week that he expects to do $14,000,000 worth of business with the independents next year. A New Deal AND the "little fellow" has another laugh coming. For years he's been taking his pictures when the first runs let him have them. The circuits set arbitrary protection schedules that were so utterly unfair that they are now donning the sackcloth and ashes. But the repentance was not entirely an involuntary change of heart. The Government became somewhat inquisitive about the scheme of things in Southern California and the big shots suddenly discovered that they hadn't been treating their lessers properly. So they hurriedly got together and framed a new protection schedule that has satisfied practically everybody. The procedure is being repeated in other sec tions. The independents hereafter will be able to play a picture before the public has forgotten it. Signs of sanity. The Funny Public LOOKING like a summer natural with its icy title, "With Byrd at the South Pole" went into the Rialto here in New York three weeks ago with an unprecedented blare of publicity and the fond expectations of the Paramount higher-ups that its run would be both long and profitable. Wednesday night it was pulled and the aforesaid officials wept tears of red ink. The public shunned the picture with a vengeance and the intake was described as "way below average." Whereas Gloria Swanson, for instance, had lured them in to the tune of $60,000 weekly, the highest daily gross of the polar film during its brief run was $5,500. Audiences Without Flappers THE flappers are credited with doing the damage. The audiences were composed of the very young and the middle-aged, but the callow youth of the metropolis was conspicuous .by its absence. The picture contained no "sex angles," and thus again the reforming profession, clamoring for "clean pictures," was confounded. A tremendous campaign was put behind the film. Byrd's arrival in town on the day of the opening — carefully planned to benefit the picture, the story has it — was looked upon as a sure-fire draw, but the picture, nevertheless, opened slowly. Nine hundred women's clubs in the metropolitan area and 33,000 Boy Scouts were contacted ; Byrd appeared in newsreels; the Hays organization did what it could ; the radio was used ; approximately 17,000 lines of free publicity were garnered. Some people saw the picture two and three times. Yet the picture flopped. Figure it out for yourself. Perhaps the public does prefer jazz and sex to this type of film, which won the unanimous acclaim of all critics. Perhaps the fact that Byrd appeared in many public places and faced so many cameras and microphones provided an invidious comparison with the selfeffacing Lindy. It's a mysterious business and a far more mysterious public. The conclusion you draw max be anything you like. To us it's as discouraging a sign for the future of better and different motion pictures as we have struck in years. K.\ N N