Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, October 8, 1949 7 World Series in Theatre Debut Crowds Cheer Video Version Of Pennant Classic Shown By 6 Houses In 5 Cities The World Series Wednesday made its debut over theatre television before audiences in six houses of five dif¥erent cities who cheered, booed and were frequently bored at what turned out to be an all-around successful pickup of a difficult large-screen video event. The cheering was directed at the plays in some of the earlier parts of the game. The booing was reserved in some instances for players and in others for the commercial, advertising Gillette, which the theatres had to run as part of their contract with Mutual Broadcasting, and which turned out to be the usual type of commercial. The boredom was the fault of the game which earned only one run and which early turned into a pitchers duel whicfi, while technically a dream, lacked the color for which the fans put out their cash. But Showmen's Trade Review, which had reporters at all scenes of the theatre telecasts excepting Scranton, found that all in all the initial telecast of the world series was a success technically and from an attendance viewpoint. Audiences for the first game ranged from near sell outs to good houses. Six Houses The theaters which contracted with MBS for the event were : The American Theatres Pilgrim in Boston ; The Fabian Fox in Brooklyn ; the Balaban and Katz State Lake in Chicago ; the Comerford Westside at Scranton ; the St. Cloud Amusement Company's Tower and Oriental at Milwaukee. In Brooklyn the 4,100 seat Fabian Fox was almost sold out though empty seats could be seen in the auditorium. The audience seemed on the whole satisfied with the telecast of the game, though iBrooklyn, being the home of the Dodgers, found that the cheering section had a tendency to yell for the Bums and boo the Yankees. There was some cheering for the latter also. When the Yankees made the lone score on a home run in the second half of the ninth, a large number of the audience got to its feet cheering. Not Up to Standard As to definition the television picture was not up to motion picture standard. However, this in part may be excused by the fact that light clouds covered the sky and a haziness ( Continued on Page 8) Your Best Entert-oinment A prisoner of the Jefferson County Jail in Louisville seemed to be bored with his usual activity, and while unloading a truck at the jail as a trusty he managed to slip out and proceeded to the National Theatre where he bought a ticket, went in and started to watch the show. A theatre employe making rounds noticed the escapee's jail uniform and immediately telephoned the authorities. The jail guards came over to the theatre and promptly captured the escapee. Since the theatre had opened but a short time earlier, only a limited number of seats were occupied making it easy to spot the prisoner. Would Cut Tax to 5% Sen. Wayne Morse, (R. Ore) last week introduced a bill into the Senate at Washington calling for reduction of admission taxes on amusements from 20 per cent to five per cent. What chances it has is an open question. The measure, which would eliminate certain other excise taxes altogether, also calls for a Tax Commission to study the nation's entire tax structure, including the overlapping of federal, state and municipal excise taxes. Declaring that he considered excises tcixes unsound "for I believe they hamstring business incentive because they are unfairly discriminatory in nature," Morse pointed out that the high wartime rates had been enacted as economic control measures, "with a clear promise on the part of the Congress that, come the end of war they would be removed." FTC Asked to Investigate Paramount, RKO Bid Policy Southside Theatres Charges Unfair Trade Practices On 4 Features Offered The Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D. C. acknowledged this week that it had been requested by Southside Theatres, Inc., of Hollywood, Calif, to investigate the bidding activities of Paramount and RKO in connection with two pictures from feach company but declined to give detailsWhile the FTC's silence was in accordance with its rules not to divulge information on any complaint before it acts, reliable sources said that the complaints alleged unfair trade practices. This allegation was based on the assertion that neither company would make public the bids it received and neither company pledged itself to sell to the highest bidder but apparently reserved the right to consider all bids and then sell to whom it pleased, regardless of the amount of the bid involved. May Go to Justice The same sources indicated that the complaints, though possibly within the scope of the FTC's activities, might be turned over to the Justice Department insofar as the latter federal agency was immediately concerned with allegedly unfair trade practices within the motion picture industry and that the two companies against which the complaint has been lodged have signed consent decrees with the Government. In Hollywood, Marco Wolff of South Side Theatres, Inc., made public correspondence he had conducted with the two companies and that which he sent the FTC. This correspondence revealed that RKO had offered "Strange Bargain" and "Roseanna McCoy" for bids while Paramount's offer for "competitive negotiations" involved "Top O' the Morning" and "My Friend Irma." Different That the two companies operated somewhat differently was evident in that RKO advised Wolif that his bids must be made direct to Daniel J. Loventhal of the RKO legal department at the home office in New Y^ork, while Paramount assumably lets the bids be handled by its Los Angeles branch manager. In his reply to Paramount Wolff said in part : "You do not state that the offers received from the exhibitors are to be disclosed to them, so that they have the same information which, you will have. . . . Furthermore, you do not promise to make contracts with the exhibitors submitting the best and highest offers. We therefore assume that you do not intend to make contracts with the prevailing bidders, or with any exhibitor on the basis of the offer submitted by him, but that. . . you intend to make contracts for the pictures with any one and on any terms you may choose." A similar reply was made to RKO. Southside Theatres operates the South Side. No Exchange Cuts Seen Major distributors have been conducting a constant study of exchange operations with a view to trimming expenses but have not decided to cut down the number of exchanges they operate domestically, it was reliably learned in New York this week. The exchange heads all denied that they planned to lop off exchanges and Avere almost as certain that they did not plan any further cuts in personnel. The general answer from the sources queried was : "We're satisfied with things as they're running now. We don't plan any cuts." Last year exchanges had tried to lop off salesman and had experimented with telephone and letter selling only to learn that to sell a picture it still takes a man in the field. Extend RKO Time RKO this week won a six-month extension of time from the Justice Department in which to carry out the divorce provisions of its consent decree. The decree had originally provided for divorce of RKO's production-distribution from its theatre operation by Nov. 8. Announcement of the extension was made by RKO President Ned E. Depinet and not by the Justice Department. This is the second concession made to consent decree signers by the government, the first being to Paramount, which was granted an easing of terms on income tax payments by stockholders part of whose dividends were to be held in escrow.