The Moving picture world (November 1926-December 1926)

November 29, 1926 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 293 Grainger Talks About Motion Pictures "You Have to Get Out In the Field to Sell Product," He Tells Interviewer ('Continued from ipage 266) you the amount of bookings, which I have already received, personally, from showmen on my simple recommendation, 'unsight, unseen.' You would think I was talking telephone numbers. "The day when anyone can sell pictures from the Kew York office, however, is over. You've got to get out in the field — and stay out. You've got to study exhibitor problems— big and little — by direct contact with the theatre owner, himself. "A lot of exhibitors, especially the big circuits, now want to do business with the New York man. They want to get his word for things and his advice. They realize that they have got to have increasingly better pictures to meet their overhead, and are willing to take your word now for things, which in other days they would have discounted utterly. A far better understanding exists today between the theatre owner and producer, in my opinion, than ever before in the history of the screen. "The producer realizes that he must give the exhibitor a fair break, and the exhibitor also recognizes that problems confront the producer of increasing difficulty in making good pictures for him and arc ready to meet him half way. "The need for more and better pictures convinces me that there will be more independents than there are now eventually, and that this business no matter how big it gets can never be monopolized. "Need New Screen Face*" "One thing which I feel is most needed at this time is more new faces on the screen. Right now it is the exhibitor, who is holding back this very necessary development. He believes he must have stars to attract his patrons and to some extent he is doubtless right enough. But he must aid the producer in exploiting and promoting new and promising personalities today or a few years from now he will find that he is going to meet difficulties in keeping his house open with profit. "I have just two thoughts I would like to pass on to the industry in this connection. The majority of motion picture patrons today are between the ages of 18 and 30. Half of this number can't remember the stars of half a dozen years ago, because they were too young. A new star would have just the same amount "of pulling power with them as one of our established favorites, many of whom are beginning to show lines and signs of advancing age, which the camera cannot conceal. "Another angle to this thought is that many of the outstanding box office successes of recent years have been practically without big names, though many of them made stars of their principals almost over night." "Take such productions as Fox's 'Over the Hill,' Metro's 'Four Horsemen,' Famous Players 'Humoresque,' First National's 'Sea Hawk,' 'The Big Parade,' 'The Iron Horse' and many others, that will occur to you for illustration. She Has Two Loves Dolores Del Rio as Cfaarmaine, the French girl in "What Price Glory." "Each of them was a tremendous attraction, but none of them had in their casts any name of premier box office quality, when first presented. "My contention is, that more good pictures should be made without big names, using promising acting material from among the younger artists. These pictures, of course, should be properly publicized and advertised, so that the exhibitor may more readily recognize their attraction value. Meanwhile he ought not, for his own ultimate good, be so insistent on star rather than story value in his booking arrangement. "The picture, after all is the thing. And it is always going to be the element of primary importance in box office values." "Jimmie" Grainger is a showman to the tips of his toes. He has always been in show business, in some capacity or other, generally selling, during his entire business life. In Pictures 17 Years He was born in New York City, a distinction not usually enjoyed by big successful men in this metropolis, who customarily are recru'ted from other sections of the country or abroad and come here to make their "clean-up." The year of his arrival on Manhattan Island was 1882 or thereabouts. After a tour through the New York public schools "Jimmie" annexed a job as assistant to a bill poster, who was billing for Barnum's Circus. That set him ofif. The next few years saw him with various carnivals, roadshows, in burlesque as an advance man and in practically every branch of the amusement business. About seventeen years ago he first came into pictures. His first picture was a single reel western, which he peddled, carrying the reel-box under his arm from theatre to theatre. That didn't satisfy him, however, so a little later he got a bull fight picture, seven Exhibitors Know Him and Believe In Him to the Limit for His Integrity or eight hundred feet in length and took it around to fairs, carnivals and parks, where he played it quite successfully. For a time in those early days he was associated with his present chief, William Fox, just then beginning his battle with the Motion Picture Patents Company, which ended so victoriously a few years later. Then he was in the State Right business on his own for three or four years. When the Edison Talk ing Pictures first appeared "Jimmie" handled the sales end of the business forsaking tliat company to "put over" the world famous "Cabiria" for Werba & Luescher. He succeeded so well that this may be said to mark his advent into the field of big time, high-powered showmanship, which he has since occupied. The history of the ensuing years is so recent that it hardly needs to be recorded. At one time Mr. Grainger represented William Randolph Hearst, Charles Chaplin and Marshall Neilan simultaneously, looking after their productions, released. respectively, through Famous Players and First National. His great success with Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid" is too well remembered to require comment. He secured Marshall Neilan his contract with First National and was responsible for W. R. Hearst releasing his productions through Goldwy-n, and later allying himself with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, when that merger took place. Was With Goldwyn All this time, "Jimmie" was coming to know personally, more and more exhibitors, and what was more important, a lot more exhibitors were coming to know and believe in "Jimmie," until he had a list of showmen friends, that stretched from Coast to Coast and from Canada to the Rio Grande, that is without a rival. He was general sales manager for the Goldwyn Company, when William Fox and Winfield R. Sheehan, the latter in order to give him undivided attention to the production end of Fox pictures, decided that they needed the best selling and organizing talent they could find in the industry for Fox Films Corporation. Naturally, they didn't have to look far. They went over to Goldwyn and got it. Not quite two years ago, the name of James R. Grainger, general sales manager, appeared on some of the Fox stationery and since that time things at Fox have been steadily on the up-an-up. Don't take the writer's word for this statement. Ask Mr. Fox himself. Or Mr. Sheehan. You probably won't be able to ask "Jimmie" Grainger, personally, about it. He is too busy selling Fox pictures for one thing. If you see him he will tell you anything you want to know about them, but about himself and his accomplishments, his time is too limited to talk. All the same Fox pictures, as already stated, are sold just 100 per cent, in all key cities. And — get this — the dynamic "Jimmie" is responsible, none else.