Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1948)

SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, October 9, 1948 TO ■ If a U Last Phase Coming Up The government's 10-year old anti-trust suit against the major film companies will enter its final phase next week with the Department of Justice going before the three judges of the Statutory Court reiterating the demand for divorcement and the defendants, of course, girding for a last-ditch fight against that and the other measures the government attorneys insist are requisite to a competitive market in the film business. In all of America's industrial history, perhaps, no one industry has been more acutely plagued with litigation during so short a period as is the case with motion picture business now. Uncounted millions of dollars have been drained away from the film industry's financial resources due to the varied, complicated and expensive litigation over the last decade. But of them all, this government anti-trust suit which is now drawing to its climax has far outstripped the others both for the cost to those film companies involved and for the equally costly disturbance to normal operations of the business. Whatever the outcome, the law will be the charter under which the industry will operate. It would be hysterical to say that the industry's future hangs in the balance — for this industry will readjust to meet whatever legal course is charted. The average theatreman will do well to be alert to the fact that, in one way or another, he will be operating his business under conditions which, in the not distant future, may be at great variance, in some details if not entire substance, than obtained during the past decade. But in planning for tomorrow — don't sell the motion picture as a popular form of entertainment short. If the market affords a supply of good pictures, the exhibitor with a well-built and equipped theatre can exercise his showmanship to profitable results while he gears his business operations to the prevailing conditions of buying product. The one boon— and it should be tonic to an industry that has been in a state of flux for too many months now— would be a settled, stable environment in which business, minus the disruptions and distractions of litigation and uncertainty, can progress and prosper. The 'Joys' of Regulation As a continuing thought to the subject of the antitrust suit. It can be hoped that once this is settled, the industry will realistically face up to the fact that regulation aimed to produce a live-and-let-live system evolved and executed within the industry itself is — on the basis of experience elsewhere — far more conducive to a healthy industry than regulation from without. In Britain today the exhibitor is taking it where it hurts most under the rules for "preservation" of the industry of which he is a part. According to British trade papers, the independent exhibitors are finding it very rough -going to live up to the quota under which they are ordered to allot a total of 45 per cent of screen time to home-produced features. It may have been a "break" for producers when the government ordered theatres to play favorites to the home product under this quota regulation. But those things have a way of giving others ideas, and we saw where one exhibitor came forth with the proposal that since the government tells him what pictures to show, how about regulating the prices the producer shall charge for pictures the exhibitor must book. Regulation seems to be a brother to inflation, in that a little more of same is always in order. Hail Fellow! Rugged, colorful Jimmy Grainger — -one of distribution's most vigorous exponents of the "hail fellow" personality which clicks so emphatically with theatremen — stepped into the spotlight last week when Republic's field forces initiated a drive in tribute to his tenth anniversary as sales head of the company. Changes vast and violent have come over the field of distribution in the span of years during which Jimmy Grainger has been a prominent figure in the industry, but without in the least altering the rugged individuality of Jimmy, the well known man of distribution. Jimmy richly rates the honors being bestowed. More power to him! ▲ ▲ A Hollywood Observation We look forward to a scheduled Hollywood observation tour to begin next week. Particularly interesting will be the opportunity to note what progress has been made in the one important objective of any real campaign to cut production costs — which is the shortening of shooting schedules. It will be interesting to make comparisons with conditions obtaining just about a year ago, when economy-consciousness was reaching fever — if not frantic — pitch in the movie-making capital. —CHICK LEWIS