Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1934)

jesday, January 9, 1934 MOTION PICTURE DAILY ii Dirty Sky Gladdens Pittsburgh }teel Plants Busier; B. O. That Way, Too By RED KANN Pittsburgh — Close to the edge of le of the high bluffs on which Pitts:rgh stands and running its full ngth is the Boulevard of the Allies, lose enough to be neighborly, but impetitors, nevertheless, it is here here local exchanges make their imes. Whether or not there was mething deliberate in planting them rectly across from the myriad of lokestacks which mark the stamping ound of much of Pittsburgh's steel dustry is not on record. But it is on cord that design or accident, as it ay be, makes it easy for exchange anagers to forget what their salesen's reports tell them by deferring the story of those stacks and the y which today they smudge with loke. Steel Plants Busier Steel plants are busier in these rts than they have been for some me. No more certain index of instrial whoopee can be found around e town. When stacks belch it means :el is being fabricated. When steel being fabricated, it means industry astir, payrolls active and pockets lging, if modestly, with wages, part J which is finding its way into picture I :atres. It does not necessarily follow that t public here is patronizing pictures 't of any particular loyalty. What offered to them and how good are portant. That goes for price as 11. The charity list is shrinking; anler index to the gradual revival .ich Pittsburgh is experiencing. The al end of the civil works program II s put thousands to work at the set IS per week figure, thereby throwing 3o circulation thousands of dollars 'ich previously did not. Part of jj.t, too, is potential box-office gross ii filmites here appreciate the fact. j! Thrived on Tough Times "Neighborhood operators seem to J/e thrived on hard times and hard jhes seemed to have helped them, -ey have cut corners and, in many Jtances, wrung out of their operaSis considerable of the water of ^ich there was never much anyway, ring on gasoline and parking and eet_ car fares on the part of the ipping public has tended to keep is in large gobs in the neighbor's where they see what the downm de luxers run at less cost merely exercising the virtue which is in .ience through waiting until cleares drop all product in the outlying _ises. ; These are factors which persuade .horitative local opinion to venture i hunch that grosses in neighbored houses are up 40 per cent over closing days of 1932. The same rces have it first runs have gone one-fifth in their receipts and, The Tenth and the Last This article on Pittsburgh concludes a series on conditions in important Middle Western cities. Key spots visited and covered include Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. while any gain is looked upon like manna from above, it, nevertheless, trails outlying houses by a cool 100 per cent. There was a time here, not so long ago, when Warners with the Warner, Stanley and Davis, and Loew's, with its Penn, had everything their own ways, always excepting Mort Shea's Fulton. Not so today, however. George Schaefer, not the Paramount general manager, but the theatre operator out of Wheeling, W. Va., is now around with the Pitt as his gauntlet thrown in the face of the two national circuits. The Pitt proceeds on a "combo" policy and is the only theatre in the city that runs vaudeville with its celluloid. It's annoying to the Warners, to say the leastFulton Also Changes Another recent change in the first run classification applies to the Fulton, which, for almost two years, featured the two-for-one coupon gag and caused much local disturbance thereby. That's all over now, but the reason finds several explanations. One is that exchanges began to get tough and started conversation which, among other things, made reference to film service. More likely, however, is the enactment of the industry code. Opening up the first run sector further will be the Alvin. That's quite a yarn on its own. The theatre is owned by Harvard University, ran stage shows for years and seats about 1,600. Recently it passed to the Harris Amusement Co., which has started to rip out the second balcony in a rehabilitation process which eventually will convert the theatre into a first run and the home of two-thirds of the Fox product. Shea at the Fulton gets the other third. Reconstruction work has been under way for some weeks. It may take a couple more months before the job is finished. The length of time involved in the conversion task has led to reports around Pittsburgh that Harris Amusement would not go through. That happens to be all wet. Fox in Peculiar Spot The twist has resulted in placing Fox in the most peculiar, as well as the most interesting, situation among all of the major distributors here. Rather than hold up subsequent runs until releases get a chance at the Alvin, many Fox attractions have been playing in East Liberty almost out of the can. To understand exactly what that means is to remember East Liberty is analagous to New York's 125th St. Without benefit of downtown run, it so happens, Fox pictures, as a consequence, are finding themselves in general release for all the houses that follow. This has made the situation at the Harris-Family, East Liberty, a sweet one. It is a 600-seat theatre once known as the Alhambra. With it Harris Amusement has been bucking the Sheridan Square, Enright, Regent and Cameraphone— Warner houses all — and doing a pretty good job of it. The understanding is that the policy of Fox first runs, ahead of downtown, in East Liberty led to the experiment on the part of Harry Kalmine, Warner zone manager, to play day and date with the downtown Davis at the Sheridan Square and first run at the Enright. The day and date idea fizzled because East Liberty folks soon discovered there was no need to go downtown to see the same product at the Davis for more money. The routine obviously was not so good for the latter. The same idea, tried on and off by the Warners in the last four years, is now in camphor-balls and probably will remain there for a couple of months at any rate. Fewer Houses Closed Today, fewer theatres are closed in the territory served out of Pittsburgh than at any other time in several years. Film Board statistics show 76 houses were closed in 1931. There were 209 in 1932. Of that number 110 opened during the year. But in 1933, the dark theatres bulked only 46. As compared with 762 houses seating 373,666 in the territory, the situation is not so black unless it is that theatremen are running houses against hope for better times. The biggest thing in Pittsburgh at the moment is a potential something which may not happen, but undoubtedly will. Brewing is a theatre tussle with Warners on one side and John Harris on the other. John is the son of the Harris of sterling character who built the circuit which Warners bought — at peak prices when theatre buying was the vogue. Part of the transaction included a five-year contract for the services of Son John. Young Harris, in fact, did run what once was the Harris string and now the Warner string until he discovered New York's ideas on what ought to be done, and how, and his didn't jell. Then, he stepped out of the job, but not out of the contract which runs about another year. All of this keeps John out of theatres, but that doesn't prevent him from operating dance halls and skating rinks. He's doing both. The Harris Outfit In the meantime, in the Clark Building, where Kalmine sets forth, are also the offices of Harris Amusement, of which State Senator Frank Harris is . the guiding hand, although James G. ("Jimmy") Balmer does most, if not all, of the work. Under this corporate entity are theatres operating in St. Mary's, Reynoldsville, Oil City, East Liberty, Jeannette. These are in Pennsylvania. Also are 1st Run Front Changing; New Factors Enter houses in Detroit, Youngstown and Warren, O. There will be more, perhaps, some of them in towns where the Warners cut much figure. In the meantime, 1935 is not so far away. John Harris contemplates a long winter vacation where the sun is warm. In the summer, not much goes on anyway. From summer to the following April isn't so long, as time has a habit of flying. About John Maloney They tell another story here. It's about John Maloney, M-G-M manager, who has grown children of his own now. When it was decided to take Katherine Variety Sheridan, ward, and reason for the founding of the Variety Club, out of the Rosalia Foundling Asylum for a bit of holiday visiting, Maloney one week-end found her in his charge and difficult to give up thereafter. He actually found himself bringing toys to the house at the close of each day and that was something he hadn't done for many years past. What threatens to divide club membership into a pleasant division in ranks is a decision on who is to get her next and in what order. Mrs. John Harris, the elder, had her, as did Jack Hooley, manager of the Harris-Family. Jim Balmer and Harry Goldstein now are charging discrimination. (Copyright, 1934, Quigley Publications) James S. McQuade Dead James S. McQuade, prominent in the early days of trade paper journalism in the industry, is dead, according to mail advices which reached New York from the coast yesterday. McQuade entered the business as one of the contributing editors of Film Index which was purchased subsequently by Moving Picture World. He continued with the latter publication as an associate editor and its western correspondent for many years. New Press Book Feature Warners have inaugurated a "Showman's Corner" in their press books, edited under the supervision of S. Charles Einfeld. This new feature is devoted to a resume of exploitation stunts which have proven successful in past performances by exhibitors over the country. Right Mayor, Wrong City H. E. Wilton is recently-elected mayor of Hamilton, Ont., not Toronto, as reported in Motion Picture Daily a few days ago. Wilton is manager of the Strand^ a Famous Players Canadian house, in the former city.