Universal Weekly (1920, 1923-27)

September 4, 1926 Universal Weekly 15 Exhibitors Praise Universal For Double Music Cue Sheets Both Taxable and Non-Taxable Music Listed — Theatre Owners Chamber of Commerce Urges All Producers to Follow Suit. Universal Comedies To Play Leading A. H. Blank Houses AN important comedy deal was closed over the week-end by Dave Chatkin, short subject buyer for Publix, and Julius Singer, sales manager for Short Product for Universal, whereby Universal comedies, including the new Stem Brothers series and the Gump comedies, are to be played first run in four important A. H. Blank situations. They are the cities of Omaha, Des Moines, Davenport and Rock Island. In Omaha, the Blank houses, the Rialto and Strand, and the Farnum now nearing completion, will show comedies of three of the Stem Brothers series, namely, “The Newlyweds and Their Baby.” “Let George Do It” and “The Excuse Maker.” In the Strand, Palace and Majestic, in Des Moines, the Capitol, Garden and Family in Davenport, and the Fort Armstrong, Spencer, and Majestic in Rock Island, the following Universal product will be presented: the Buster Brown comedies, “The Newlyweds and Their Baby” comedies, “The Excuse Maker” series, the “Let George Do It” comedies, the “What Happened to Jane” comedies, all of which being Stern Brothers comedies in series of twelve or thirteen each, and the twelve Gump Comedies to be released by Universal during the next year. This represents a 100 per cent, arrangement of Universal two-reel comedy releases. Metzger Announces Personnel Changes LOU B. METZGER, general sales manager for Universal, late last week announced several important changes in the Universal exchange personnel. Manny Gottlieb, who has been the manager of Universal’s Des Moines Exchange for several years, has been promoted to the managerial chair in the St. Louis Exchange. He replaces L. E. Goldhammer, who has just resigned. Goldhammer was preceded by Lou Hess, who took a leave of absence last Spring to visit relatives in Europe. He returned recently and has just been appointed as Complete Service Contract representative, with headquarters in the Universal Home Office. Ralph B. Williams, Universal’s Sales Director with supervision over the South, and who has jurisdiction over the St. Louis office, is now in that city installing Gottlieb in the new territory. The former Des Moines manager will be succeeded in Des Moines by George Naylor, Universal’s ace-salesman in that territory. Finkelstein 8C Ruben Close With “U” For New Product AN arrangement has just been completed between the Universal Pictures Corporation and Finkelstein & Ruben of Minneapolis whereby practically the entire Universal product for the coming year will be played in F. & R. houses. All Universal Jewels, Universal comedies, Stern Brothers comedies and other Universal product will be played first run in the big theatres of the F. & R. circuit in Minneapolis and St. Paul and in a majority of the other towns covered by the theatre corporation. The deal was engineered by Phil Dunas, Universal manager in Minneapolis, who made a special trip with F. & R. representatives to the Universal Home Office in New York in connection with the arrangement. Fourteen towns and cities are included in the deal, which involves 58 theatres. F. & R. have 14 houses in Minneapolis, including four big first runs; 21 houses in St. Paul, including an equal number of big first runs, and one or more houses in the following towns, covered in the Universal F. & R. arrangement: Fairbault, Austin, Brainerd, Chisholm, Eveleth, Hibbing, Rochester, St. Cloud and Virginia, all in Minnesota; Grand Forks, N. D., Madison, S. D., and Superior, Wis. Included in the deal are four Minneapolis houses of the American Amusement Co., affiliated with F. & R. Lois Weber Builds Country Club Set LOIS WEBER, no<v directing “The Sensation Seekers” at Universal City, is shooting on one of the biggest sets ever constructed at the studio. It represents a country club and is complete in every exterior detail. On one of the giant stages she has an elaborate interior for the same building which is three stories high with a roof garden. This story of the modern influence on flappers and cake-eaters has a cast featuring Billie Dove and Huntley Gordon and including Raymond Bloomer, Will Gregory, Phillips Exhibitors from aii over tb« country are writing in commendation of Universal’s move recently to include both tax-free as well as taxable lists of musical suggestions with the music cue sheets. This arrangement satisfies both the big theatre, which desires to play the popular and taxed music, and the small theatrt. which cannot afford to use taxed music, and does not pay the tax to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. The Universal cue sheets are prepared so that every scene or music cue indicates two possible musical selections which fit the tempo and nature of the scene. One of these suggestions is selected from non-taxable music and is listed under a column prominently headed TAX-FREE. The other is suggested composition, which falls under the taxable class, and is so headed. Since Universal inaugurated the double music cue, the idea has been taken up by various exhibitor bodies, the Theatre Owners Chamber of Commerce in New York, headed by Charles L. O’Reilly, passing resolutions urging the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, through the president of that organization, Will H. Hays, to provide such cue sheets on all pictures. The resolution passed by the Theatre Owners Chamber of Commerce was as follows: “Whereas the feeling in general among motion picture theatre owners and exhibitors that injustice results from the imposition of the present music tax by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and that some method should be determined upon to facilitate the use of tax-free and non-copyright music through the use by producing companies of cue sheets showing tax-free compositions in order to permit of some measure of selection being made by exhibitors, therefore “BE IT RESOLVED by the Theatre Owners Chamber of Commerce that the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America be, and it is hereby urged to request all producing companies to institute a system for the publication of taxable and taxfree cue sheets so that exhibitors may have the opportunity to elect whether they wish to play taxable or nontaxable music in their theatres.” Smalley, Helen Gilmore, Edith Yorke, Sidney Arundel, Cora Williams, Clarence Thompson, Nora Cecil, Frances Dale, Lillian Lawrence. Fanchone Frankel and Hazel Howell.