Motion Picture News (Jul - Sep 1930)

July 12, 1930 Motion Picture News iy Chicago Protection Scramble Blows Up; New System Contains Minor Changes fhp Columbus, O. — Domination of radio by any one group ,. portends "the greatest danger to the fundamentals of liCLUlO American republican government," Federal Radio Commis \1pnnCP sioner Ira Robinson declared in a speech before the Insti tute for Education by radio. Asserting that no one group must ever dominate radio, the commissioner declared that it "cannot be gainsaid that a monopoly of radio is now insistently claimed by a group, and that its power and influence is so subtle and effective as to portend the greatest danger to the fundamentals of American republican government." He said that "no greater issue presents itself to the citizenry." Warner Deals For Houses in Ohio Are "Off" Cleveland — Announcement of Warners having successfully consummated deals for the acquisition of various Ohio theatre interests appears to be all wet. The deals were not closed and are not likely to go to that chain. Negotiations for the Schine Sandusky houses, Plaza, State and Star, are still in work, while deals for the Ritzier houses in Lima and Pekras' circuit at Elyria are dermitelv off. Chakares and Paramount Settle Franchise Tilt Franchise difficulties between Paramount, the Springfield (O.) Amusement Company, the Chakares Amusement Company, Phil Chakares and the Regent-State Corporation of Springfield, O., have been settled out of court. Chakares resumes his franchise with the distributor, but, according to Paramount, has made a cash settlement covering breaches in the contract. Paramount originally filed suit in the Federal court at Dayton, O., charging the franchise had been breached. Grainger Closes Two Big Circuits for New Product James R. Grainger, Fox sales chief, has closed with the Famous Players-Canadian Corp., operating 170 theatres in Canada, and the Butterfield chain of 79 in Michigan to play the entire line-up of 48 Fox productions during the new season. He completed the deals during a flying trip to Toronto and Detroit. Jones, Author Again Charles Reed Jones, press agent and author, has turned the latter again with "The Torch Murder" which will be published by E. P. Dutton and Company. "The King Murder" and "The Van Norton Murders" are also to his credit. Operators Strike; Twenty Theatres Start Open Shop Minneapolis — Thirty-six operators went on strike here when their demands for a second man in the booth were denied by a majority of independent exhibitors. Twenty of the latter immediately countered with the hiring of non-union men to operate the projection machines ; three theatres, the Paradise, Princess and Lyra, closed their doors, and two capitulated to the union demands, the Broadway and the lone. The lone, it is reported, is controlled by the operators' union. St. Paul exhibitors also threaten to run non-union if the operators seek to enforce their demands. Date for the showdown is set for July 19. Echo of Gotham, Lumas Heard in Bankrupt Court Petitions in bankruptcy have been filed in New York against Gotham Photoplays and Lumas Film, production and distribution units formerly headed by Sam Sax and which have been inactive for many months. Against Gotham was filed a petition for $24,733, by Little Empire Corp. The petition states that James J. Lax was appointed receiver in an action instituted in the Supreme Court, New York county, on June 11. The same company filed the Lumas petition with a claim for $13,771, likewise partly secured. Larkin Sails for India London — W. H. Larkin, Western Electric representative here, has sailed to take up his new post as commercial manager for the company in India. Well Earned Felix Feist is resting up after h:s many battles against "hat clauses" in the new contract. And how Felix did go into action against these pet aversions. New Schedules to Hays Office For Okay; Many Battles Feature Conferences Chicago — The battle of "much ado about nothing" has come to an end and the armistice finds the casus belli in status quo. In other words, the Chicago re-zoning committee, after five weeks of bickering and argument, one verbal battle following another, is back to the ante-bellum stage. The recommendations on metropolitan protection which is forwarded this week to the Hays office for preliminary approval before submitting the new system to the local re-zoning board means that protection procedure here will remain essentially the same. All important changes were killed off in conference. The final recommendations of the committee involve only such incidental considerations as admission scales as affected by double feature programs, two-for-one admission and other premiums or inducements held out to patrons. The committee's recommendations for dealing with such situations have been incorporated in a rider which will be supplemental to the main Chicago protection system. This rider comprises the only new or changed considerations locally and awaits the approval of C. C. Pettijohn, after which it will be submitted to the Chicago re-zoning board. Name Permanent Committee The metropolitan committee, also, named a tentative committee to constitute a permanent re-zoning board for the Chicago area. This committee, likewise subject to the approval of Pettijohn and the re-zoning board here, is comprised of the following: Felix Mendelssohn, chairman ; Jack Miller, Aaron Saperstein, Arthur Schoenstadt, Floyd M. Brockell, James Coston, William Elson, Clyde Eckhardt, James Kent and Henry Herbel. In the event this committee is approved and installed it will hear all existing and future protection complaints in the metropolitan area. Its meetings will be subject to the call of the chairman. It is believed that the Hays organization will approve the committee's rider recommendations inasmuch as that office has already evidenced its impatience over the time now consumed in deliberations over protection here. The conferences have been going on for five weeks and, during that time, opposing factions have demonstrated the small likelihood of any agreement being reached on a basically different protection system than the one which has been in effect here in the past. Approval of the committee's recommendations by Pettijohn. it is admitted, will mean their adoption locally. To Approve Rubens Plan The downstate committee, which was ready several weeks ago to submit a new protection plan, basically the same as that originally suggested by Jules Rubens of (Continued on page 23)