Motion Picture News (Jul - Sep 1930)

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16 Motion Picture News July 12, 1930 The Insiders' Outlook SOCIAL note and perhaps something more : Adolph Zukor and Joe Schenck are slated to week-end at Nick Schenck's place on Long Island. They may be expected to talk about this and that and, who knows but that a rather important piece of business involving United Artists and Paramount will enter the discussions. The two companies may finally throw their individual hats into a collective ring. Or they may not. But, if you are interested in tying U.A. into the merger picture which is filling the industry's screen these days, remember that Art Cinema, which finances the Schenck productions and some others that go through the United machinery, owes Mr. Zukor's company $3,000,000. It doesn't take much imagination to dope out where Schenck will go for advice on how his company fits into the two-camp division in which this business is rapidly falling, does it ? Say Not So Over the wires from the coast comes a complete denial from Mary and Doug. Empeenews' merger yarn of last week is untrue throughout, a representative for Mary pointed out. Her relations with Schenck are most cordial, she avers and vouchsafes there are no two closer business friends in the industry. Further, he queries : "If there was any trouble over policy isn't it logical to assume that Fairbanks would not agree to go into 'Reaching for the Moon' as a favor to Schenck?" There you have that. From U.A. in New York, nothing but a dead silence. Down on the Farm Every year following the Fourth of July holiday, Zukor spends a week on his farm at New City. This year, according to schedule. Because he hasn't been seen around the town in the last few days, reports have been piling up that he is prepared to retire, content himself with an exofficio chairmanship of the board and permit Paramount to pass to other hands. Not so, The Insiders are assured. Nothing could be further from the truth. There you have a confidential retort to the rumor-spreaders. But — and this comes from downtown where sit the men who control this business— wouldn't Zukor sell if he could •make the deal he wanted, one that would preserve intact the prestige of Paramount and, at the same time, take full care of the trusty aides who helped build the structure? In the same breath, the answer comes : "He would." Why then the delay? It seems that last fall the grandest tumble in history got under way. Before it landed at the far end of the toboggan, the good old American public turned so completely sour on stocks and ticker tapes that today, eight months after the festival, that public is still bilious. Investors are trying no end to get their systems adjusted. That, in turn, Riddles WHAT national circuit, operating in a city near New York, is losing $75,000 a week with two theatres in the town shut down tight? What circuit — another one this time — will show the worst quarter in all of its h'story when figures for April, May and June are made public? Incidentally, this Insider slid off his base last week. In this very spot, too. He was talking about a chain — still another — that had lost $480,000 in one week. What he meant to report was that receipts had dropped that amount over the previous seven-day period. There was still a profit. Sorry. makes stock issues hard to sell. And without stock issues, who is going to absorb the purchase price of company acquisitions? The Legal Way Big company making big profits. Hot after theatres. Gobbling them everywhere. So fast, the head of this outfit didn't quite know himself how many his scouts were annexing. But now the picture changes. Announced deals are not going through. A whisper here and there that the promised cash is not forthcoming as plentifully as the sales arguments used at the outset had indicated. Money is tight these days and millions can't be bandied about like nickels. This organization is learning that and, in its recentlv acquired infinite wisdom, is now checking when the proper time to apply the brakes has long since passed. The stakes are being pulled up wherever possible. And in a hurry. Even a paltry trick like insisting that the legal department unearth as many as ninety objections on a solitary theatre in order to break down the seller's resistance sufficiently to have him cry quits. S-c-a-n-d-a-l There's a real front page story in the making. Concerns a prominent Hollywoodite who is casting about for the divorce that will permit him to marry a prominent English society woman. This chap's wife, likewise a w.k. Hollywoodite, adds a semblance of mutuality to the proceedings by moving for a divorce on her own. This will smash into headlines if it ever breaks. Hysterical Showmanship The legitimate has been through another sickening season, with the usual exception of plays whose ingredients contained liberal portions of brains. Two-a-day vaudeville has but one home in the length and breadth of this country, and it's dying out in part-time houses with heart-rending groans. Every theatre situated on gay Broadway, with the exception of one, now closed for the summer, houses motion pictures. Mix those facts together and you have the theme for a sermon that certain reputed showmen in this business should hearken to. Hit by a slump which could easily be explained by hot weather or attributed to the stock market collapse, these heavy thinkers came to the hysterical conclusion that the public wanted to see flesh on the stage. They did not stop to consider that, if it did, it could find it on the vaudeville stage and legitimate stage. So they plunged. Reports are coming in from all over the country. Stage shows aren't clicking. The showmen are puzzled. They're spending time worrying that they could profitably devote to doing some constructive thinking, if that were possible. One company has been making frantic efforts to put over one of its Broadway showplaces. It is experimenting with masters of ceremonies, with name bands, with vaudeville acts. Only when a good picture comes along does the box-office smile. This Insider has often walked out on its stage shows. Incidentally, this company makes dandy short subjects. But they're never seen in this Broadway house. Here endeth the sermon. THE INSIDERS Published weekly by Motion Picture News, Inc. Founded in September, 1913. Publication, Editorial and General Offices: 729 Seventh Avenue, New York City, William A. Johnston President and Publisher; E. J. Hudson, Vice-President; Maurice Kann, Editor; Charles F, Hynes, Managing Editor; James P. Cunningham, News EditorRaymond E. Gallagher, Advertising Manager; Los Angeles Office: Hotel Roosevelt, Hollywood, Walter R. Greene, Western Representative. Chicago Office: 910 So' Michigan Avenue, Harry E. Holquist, Central West Representative. Subscription Price: $3.00 per year in United States, Mexico and all U. S. Possessions. Canada, $5.00. Foreign, $10.00. Copyright 1930. by Motion Picture News, Inc., United States and Great Britain. Title registered in United States Patent Office and foreign countries Entered as second class matter at the Post Office, New York, April 22, 1926, under Act of March 3, 1S79