Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1938)

54 MOTIONPICTUREHERALD Augustl3,l938 9,367,500 HOURS TO SEE CURRENT FILMS, SAYS ALMANAC, JUST OUT Time and Motion Pictures n Minute and Dollar Costs "What is the average running time of motion pictures? What were the ten longest pictures of all American features available at midJuly, 193 8? How do the costs of screen and radio time compare? These and many kindred questions are answered in the article, "Of Time and The Picture", in the 193 8-39 International Motion Picture Almanac. Excerpts follow: The average time per picture in minutes 73. The 448 American pictures average 71, The 61 foreign productions 85, Averages in minutes of productions by companies: 62 90 R? Columbia 66.25 First National-Warner Brothers . . . 75.00 Gaumont British 79.42 Grand National 63.5 5 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 87.87 Monogram 59.96 Faraynount 76. Republic 63, RKO Radio 74, Twentieth Century-Fox 75, United Artists 87, Universal 66, 42 10 10 28 58 46 Miscellaneous 60.00 The ten longest pictures in the market of the period under discussion: Lost Horizon 118 The Life of Emile Zola 116 The Firefly 131 Conqtiest 112 Girl of the Golden West 121 Rosalie 122 Test Pilot 119 The Buccaneer 126 Dance Program (foreign) 120 The Dybbuk (foreign) 120 The most expensive picture of the '37-'38 season cost, per minute of screen time $23,200 It is estimated, on current returns, that this production will take in slightly less in its world gross than its negative cost; so the loss, after distribution costs are added, will be in terms of minutes of negative time, about $3,400 At the top of the radio list is "Good News of 1938", the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer show, advertising General Foods and costing F.O.B. the microphone in Hollywood, each minute of listeners' time (for production only, not including time or wire cost) . $416 Dollar Volume of the Advertising Picture Medium Nine to Ten Millions, Statistical and Biographical Annual Shows Were the motion picture theatre managers of America required to preview all currently available product it would take them, collectively, 1,069 years, 4 months, 7 days and 12 hours, without stopping for coffee or sleep. Personally viewing all the 509 features, exclusive of revivals, which were available at mid-summer, would consume 9,367,500 man hours, or 1,170,737 eight-hour days, for the 15,000 theatres showing motion pictures reg"Ularly. Terry Ramsaye, writing "Of Time and the Picture," in the 1938-39 International Motion Picture Almanac, out this week, says that these figures "make obvious why reviews and reports to showmen supplied by Quigley Publications are of vital importance." Approximately one thousand persons in the United States, including the reviewers of the public press, "make their living looking," and "all of the thirteen thousand exhibitors and their eighty-odd million customers have to take some part of the word of that thousand when they buy." $23,200 a Minute The most expensive motion picture of the 1937-38 season cost $23,200, per minute of screen time, whereas in radio entertainment, "flung to the winds like rain," at the top of the list was "Good News of 1938" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, advertising General Foods and "costing F. O. B. the microphone in Hollywood," each minute of listeners' time, $416 (production only, not including time or wire cost). A factor in the marked contrast between motion picture and radio time is the participation of many unpaid performers in broadcasts. But that a large part is played by motion picture players and other personalities in the entertainment offerings of the radio is shown in the Almanac in a listing of film individuals and their air programs. New Players In a year in which the international scene has been changing with bewildering rapidity, the motion picture business has experienced its concomitant shiftings. The biographical section of the Almanac, with its recordings of personal data con cerning more than twelve thousand individuals active in the industry, evinces the change in the large number of recruits, particularly in the field of player talent. On the wider horizon of statistics, incidentally— taxes paid the Federal government were estimated at one hundred million dollars — the year brought a reiteration of the axiom that in a period of general business recession the motion picture industry is one of the last to show a descending line on the chart. The Almanac estimate of weekly attendance for the motion picture year remained within the range of 83 to 88 millions of the previous year with a gross paralleling that of 1937-38, in line with scattered indications of improvement until the end of the year. In this connection, George J. Schaefer, distribution executive of United Artists and chairman of the committee of the industrywide campaign now in preparation with the slogan "Movies Are Your Best Entertainment," last week quoted an estimate of $800,000,000 as the total box office receipts of the past year. A detailed study of the field of the socalled advertising picture is a feature of the new Almanac. While the advertising film is as old as the hand-lettered slides of the nickelodeon days — the first actually was made in 1896 — the medium has come into real prominence in only the last few years. The dollar volume of the medium in the calendar year 1937 reached a peak of between nine and ten millions. The volume covers the total spent on production and distribution to theatres of "minute movies," usually 60 to 90 feet long, the production and distribution both theatrically and non-theatrically of single reel or longer films which in their most (.Continued on following page)