Motion Picture News (Nov-Dec 1925)

Motion Pictui Volume XXXII ALBANY, N. Y., AND NEW YORK CITY, November 14, 1925 No. 20 A Real Step Forward THE announcement of the appointment of Joseph M. Seider as Business Manager of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America is of more than passing importance. If we see ahead as clearly as we feel we do in this instance, it is, potentially at least, the most important happening of this rather hectic season in the trade. A good man has been secured — clean, aggressive, level-headed, a sound business man. We have watched his career as President of the New Jersey League; and we feel pretty sure that he took this job in a characteristic way — first sweeping the deck clear of all politics and demanding a four-square business regime. * * * From the official announcement it would appear that already business — and most important business — has been done, namely a series of conferences with Will H. Hays in which "progress was made on the question of a more equitable (arbitration) contract." "Several suggestions," says the statement "have been advanced and most cordially received." If a workable arbitration contract is evolved — and certainly that is possible — a most important trade objective will have been won ; but we are greatly in hope that there will be other occasions of joint action between the Theatre Owners Association and the Havs group of Producers and Distributors, whereby some of the major problems confronting this industry may be solved in the industry's larger interests. We take up our minds pretty much with the various trade amalgamations, real and imaginary, and with trade politics in general. It is about time that we considered, and seriously, the public relations of the motion picture — how the public regards it and what Congress and the State and the local bodies may do to it. That's where the real health and future of the box-office lies. As we have remarked countless times, and until we tire of it, nothing will ever be done for this industry, in a broad and lasting way, until producers, distributors and exhibitors act in concert and secure not merely present box-office prosperity but the respect and confidence of the American public. Said a prominent exhibitor to me the other day — a far sighted and practical man: "I don't give a rap who leads up here in New York, or how the different factors shuffle the cards. But I do insist that the leaders be constructive. I'll support the constructive ones, whatever their affiliations. My string of theatres stretches over a section of a million homes, and those homes are holding me responsible for their motion picture entertainment. If I can't hold my head up before them I'll lose it, but so also will the motion picture and this industry. I tell you, it's a tremendous responsibility." So it is. But also there's a responsibility which this exhibitor cannot avoid — and this applies to every big exhibitor in the country — and that is to join and give his best efforts to the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America. This membership should come about through his state organization. The local work to be done is just as important as the National. But the point is that the larger theatres of the country, with their hundreds of millions invested and paying as they do threequarters or more of the trade income, have simply got to, for their own protection and ad (Continued in next page)