Variety (Jan 1949)

ytreidnefdwt, January 5, 1949 Foriy 'third P^SriMtT Anniversary ncrrvREs IS 1949 looks like the anniversaryest year that has ever been. We can celebrate—in round numbers—a lot of things. A hundred years ago they discovered gold in California, 50 years ago they Wound up the war with Spain. 25 years ago they started M-G-M about 'which you'll hear more later. But the symmetry of the date is kicked askew by Variety, which is celebrating its 43d An- niversary. Once you get out of the round number convention, • there's an awful lot of anniyei'saiying that can be done In 1949. . : ' . Twentytwo years ago Lindy flew the Atlantic. Seven years ago the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor' Seventeen years ago F D R. became president. / Three months ago, as Herb Shriner puts it, ex-President Dewey went to Arizona for a vadation. Celebrate the one;armed restaurant, the slot ma- chine; the paper liapkin. 1949 is versatile—it cani be the anniversary of anything^ now that VARiETif has done the odd number trick. Think of it—43 years of Variety. 1906. The Big Stick was president. .The anti-trust law was enacted and pretty soon we had 47 Standard Oil companies where there used to be one. The automobile was coming in strong and a lot of people are trying to get one of those old cars today. Folks are getting miohty tired riding around in a horse and buggy and having kids yell "Git an auto!" But mark my words, we'll come back to the motor car yet. 1949 is the third anniversary of television. In the words of the first wireless, what a change this hath wrought. The saloons are now crowded and the old customers who can't find elbow room at the bar are pretty sore about these noveau drinkers, Drinking is good for television; After a few drinks the blurred image gets straightened out. And it's kind of a test of drunkenness-^if you can see anything clearly on the screen, then you're drunk. In a wavering world something about Variety remains firmly in place. It still makes its office in a store. We miss a lot of .people- Jack Pulaski, Boy Chartier and Lou RydeU. They used to look so pretty in the window. I wonder, if that wmdow has ever been cleaned. Director Can't See Why Intra-Trade Spokesmen Give the Film Biz (And Themselves) a Hot Foot! By LEO McCAREY Howard Dlefx Leo McCarey I Sime and: Marcus In the old days Sime Silverman was the boss; the wisest guy I ever met. He seemed to spend most of his time sitting in the Himting Room of the Astor with Marcus Loew, but he knew what was going on in every shooting gallery in the country. Incidentally, this is an anni- versary year for the shooting galleries. The first one was started in 1874 in, Pittsburgh. Ethel Merman fired the first shot. It was turned into a picture house in 1906 and I understand they're turning it back into a shooting gallery this year.'; : . ; Of course the biggest anniversary of all has to be M-G-M. In 1924 Marcus Loew and Nicholas Schenck decided to compete in real fashion . with the majors by forming one 'big company out of three kittle ones. They called^ it Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and' took a full page ad in Variety. You see the result. : But let's not dwell on M-frM. ■ Their anniversary is a round number. Let's take a bigger canvas, the industry itself. That's 52 years old— right in the Variety '1949 spirit. : • Well do I remember 1897 when Stanford White attached 88 cameras to a picket fence and tied 88 strings to his leg. He ran around Belmont Park, chased by Harry K. Thaw, and clicked the shutters as he went. It was a painstjjiking job. He tripped 72 times and ran out of band-aids. With blood, streaming from every shin he staggered across the finish line in triumph, shouting "Dore Schary nous voila!" If you go to Belmont, to this day you'll, see the paddock where Assault was housed just before he beat Phalanx in 1946. But I told you not to get this old gaffer'started on anniversaries. "You're Not As Yonn^ As Yon're Gonna Be!", Or A Picture Publicist's Self-Pep Talk By MAURICE BERGMAN i,Advertising Executive, Vniversal) This is the age when one makes I dimensional world feel shocked a cultivated effort to play juvenile every time we encounter the reality parts despite his particular age.: of the three dimensional world. One wakes up in the-morning with ! Such a bouncing from the intangi- the determined resolution, not only ' ble to the tangible^ gives one a to keep^ from aging, but with the resiliency that can :be found in no great will to get younger, j other business. In view of this mass Back-to- ' So, if I am "down" today, I may Youth movement, I have developed have the complete assurance that I several prescriptions Which I offer free to the amusement industry, and especially to the readers of the 43d anniversary issue of Variety. Variety, itself, Hollywood. The only really disturbing thing about the cur- rent hubbub of accusation, uncertainty and calami- ty-howling anent the picture industry is the fact that most of the yelling and wailing is coming right from our own stockade. No other business that I can; think of has done such a dismal' job of its public ifelatipris. Cer- tainly no other foreie has done as much to knock the industry, its members and its interests, as the members themselves.. : The average layman, hearihg and reading all "the welter of complaints, critical postulatloh^i ; and the singing of t'h e bities emanating from Hollywood must surely have: fdrmed ah uri* flattering though confused pic- ture of our industry; Some quarters of the picture business seem to have an almost morbid preoccupation with their mumbling and worrying about the so-called box- office recession.. What recession? The worst I can see to date is a gradual readjustment scaling down from the all-time war period peaks, ' . Statistics show that 70,000,000 Americans paid their way into film theatres last week. That isn't boxoffice hay: Extended, this means that every man, woman and child in the United States attends an average of one movie, every two weeks. Is that bad? It is a showman's natural instinct to analyze, to break down, to weigh,, to predict, to reckon various factors and hazard dpinions as to their cause and their effect. : Since there is a certain element of: gamble; as there is in any business undertaking; this is a quite natural impulse. However, talking- things over with other industry members is quite different from broadcasting longwinded, crepe-hang- ing speeches and statements to the general public. If we talk about it loudly and long enough; things will get worse. They are bound to. That is the in- evitfible psychology and state of mind ereated by. prolonged pessimistic talk. . If you get and keep enough- people talking about, it in public ,you can deliberately create a run on the staunchest bank. , Sure there is a current slack-off in Hollywood production activity, it is a natural development. Occasional letdowns are inevitably a part, of the business cycle; peculiar to the making and exhibit-- ing of film. We have, never been able to eliminate them. The situation will right itself shortly. I see no point in waving this temporary letdown in the public's face. . All of us who have made pictures for any length of time have seen' it happen before, and on a much wider scale.and lor much longer periods. In a sense movie-making, is ^a seasonal occupation controlled somewhat by .waves of activity and periods of easing, off. Some astonishingly well-known motion picture figures, have even taken it on themselves to is.sue interviews and articles for public consumption in which they make unflattering references to! general picture quality. This would be bad enough from any quarter. Coming from our own ball team, so to speak, it is well nigh inexcusable. Everytime some. Gloomy Gus gives out with talk like this; he is turning in a neat stiletto job on him- self as well as on his trade brothers. Continuoua Bad Press Unfortunately such statements usually get a marked editorial interest from the lay press due largely to the fact that they originate with men prominently identified with pieture-making. It is newsworthy-in the same sense tliat papers Would play, up a; statement froim; a toaseb^il^^^ deridihi his owji team and foihdly 'predictiii^ that ,„iii K.. Ko'',!'.,^,^-^ I they will get the tar walWed out of them every ^ n^u tomorrow because ^ ^^^ ^.^ y^j^^^j^^^^^^^^ 1 either I will have an idea or some- . ' " ■ " " " body will come along with one 1 ' From the standpoint pi news evaluation, a knock that does something to my adrenal I is sometimes worthr jni*^^ gland. . But from the. indusliT^'s. own standpoint, ^ i^^^ To those who feel thit the busi-! foolish to circulate, either through print or the If we couid contemplate 1 ness is getting a little old and that I spoken word, a lot of pessimistic rumors or alarm- >t physiologically, we might say j there are many problems ahead ! ing predictions which in the long run can only react that Variety's adrenal gland is ! which the advancing years might to our harm. It discourages production plans, new anyone conlem- younger Number; with seems to get every Anniversary mysteriously repleni.shed each ! not attack with the vigor required, .year. I atlribute this mostly to a 11 would like to recommend a little type of occupational therapy which i poem by Robert Browning entitled, occurs to everything mixed up in I "Rabbi Ben Ezra," which starts out. our belqved business. We are not i with the simple thought that "the only reborn every day by the v.ery best is yet to be." In looking back 43 years, which brings US. to the paefls of 1906, we excitement pertaining to our essen- tial function of trying to entertain „ people, but we also suffer many | were just a little flicker which al- deaths .throughout the year. How-i ready had been pronounced a ever, we immediately enjoy a quick ! novelty that could not live, Each >:emcarnation which has us budding | succeeding year saw us die and saw us reborn, The dynamics of the picture busijhess-seem to be as con- staht as the nuclear fields which keep things moving in general. But constancy, strange to say, get^ a little dull and what we need most not only in the spring, but in the V summer, fall and winter. For every gloomy prophecy which heralds the uemise of the business there are at least a hundred heralding a new era. One no sooner takes a bath occasion^ economy wav^S; and none of them toler- ate totmsXx overhead expenses when they are not justified over a period of time. : Changes are frequent and not always predictable: That is part of the fun of being in this game. We should not aqt like each minor transition period Is the end of the world. : . Most of all, we shouldn't knock the movies in any of its phases. AH in all, it's a darned fine business despite the detractors. There are always plenty of outsiders ready and . anxious to blame the picture business for all our social ills—from juvenile delinquency on up or down. If we can't <lo something to quiet this irre- sponsible kind of talk, at least we don't have to add to it. If the time comes when we do have major in- dustry problems, even then we should keep it right , in our own family. Meanwhile I can't think of a nicer business than films. Can you? Chop $75,000,000 Off Production That's Hollywood's 1949 Objective As Against $300,000,000 Prod. Nut in '48 Hollywood, Lowering the boom remains the order, of the day in Hollywood for 1949. Direct production costs and dperating overhead are the targets in the drive to slash $75,000,000 off last year's $300,000,000 pro- duction nut. As a result, the total tab is expected to be 25% less in the new year than it was in 1948. Pattern for the economy drive has alre'ifcly been well established. The campaign is aimed primarily at holding budgets down by pruning contract lists, keeping salaries, and story costs down to a college yell, and cutting comers on the technical end. Feeling among studio execs is that it's not wise to publicize economies still being effected; on the theory that customers stay away from "cheap" product. Nevertheless, the hard fact remains that costs have to be cut one-third because of the re- moval of a foreign market that accounted for 33% of the industry's revenue in former years. Domestic b.o. dip also has to be taken Into consideration. in the Stygian waters redolent of ; Of all now Is keep from being dull, complete disintegration, • when ' It's the old things that are dull, along eomes somef irrelev^int beam i We should adopt a policy about not which catapults us immediately to I talking about anything that hap- the top the rainbow. | pened more than a week ago and . These phases of elation to de- | should, give; more thought to what pression (and vice versa), are what I eould.happen in the next 52 weeks.. . the psychologists call cyclothymics. To aid this campaign for better ! most studios results of course in instances of per- .This means nothing more than I morale, I suggest the slogan,"YoU I sonal misfortune but, after, all, picture-making is that we are somewhat sensitive i are not as young as you're gonna : a business involving heavy investments that must talent, ambition on the part of plating a rjicture enterprise, and it certainly tends to make finanlcing organizations hesitant about in- ' vestments in future projects. ■ As a matter of fact the screen's future is bright. The- 'Shakedown, cruise of readjustment from war- time abnorrndtt conditions - to normal picture busi- ness levels is being made without any production or ibiting disasters. It has been commented by: others that the public is now "shopping" for its .picture entertainment. This is both natural and normal. Heavy boxoffice: patronage for any ^d every thing that can be thrown together and put on a screen is abnormal. Good pictures will still get their share of the ticket- buyer's dollar, It- is the.inferior pictures which, will feel retrenchment. In other words; so-called -'shopping" will inevita- bly, result only in a steady industry-wide shift toward finer , pictures. The long view of this tend- ency indicates a generally higher quality of screen entertainment, which is certainly not a discourag"^ ing outlook. The' policy of paring expenses now in effect in Make 'Em at $1,000,000 I folks who in our own little two- i be! be: protected, Every business on earth experiences Budget-wise, average cost for the 366 pictures made here was $1,040,000—down from the previous year's $1,128,000. New figure covers shOrt-scheduled . films as weir as the handful of multi^miHion dollar. , epics. Trend now is toward an even lower average nut—$1,000(000, to be exact—'with only a few cos- tume yams, always expensive items, being planned. Cuts in contract lists of producers, directors, actors and writers also continue. Talent hasn't been in such a shaky position on the Coast for years. . Additionally, option time is finding a number of studio executive jobs eliminated. Those toppers whose heads don't roll are discovering their duties consolidated with those of the ex-execs. New term thesp contracts are scarcer than uranium, except for some low-salaried hopefuls, and these tyros have to be pretty high in the hot-stuff league be- fore they can get a foothold. A total of 400 contract . players was dropped by studios last year, leaving' only about 325 on the payrolls. This situation was tipped off early last year also, when Charles C. Moskowitz told Loew's stock- holders that, in addition to cutting personnel, Metro's economy campaign "is making other em- ployees Work hard to keep their jobs." Salary-wise, Samuel Goldv'yn created a stir during the past year by notifying his execs they'd have to take a , 50% wage cut. Other companies followed Goldwyn's lead; with . Universal's William Goetz taking a. weekly cut of $2,500, from $5,000, and Nate Blomberg and J. Cheever Cowdin slicing their annual take from $150;00a apiece to $100,000. To get back to the actors, even the top freelancers are taking it on the chin. Where formerly they got $100,000 and up per picture, the average is now $50,000, Their deals more often than not include deferments on even! that comparatively small take. -s;^ Even so, U. S: writers who only recently could command figures ranging up to $1,000,000 for their works are so far below that point now some of them aren't even trying. Many of those still pitching in the big numeral league are being advised that studios want only originals, which can be had for anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000. These amounts for originals are half of what was paid during the. boom. ■ ye-ars'. . . , It's an old. stbry by now, that writer contract lists are practically-fill at most studios. Majority of the scripters, like the actors, are on picture-to-picture deals. A not-so-amusing sideline to this situation is the .crack made ■ by a national magazflie story scout during a recent ivisit to the Coast. It's always a sign that times are tough in the studios; he said; when his maga^-ine is swamped with stories about Hollywood. "We're knee-deep in stories about out- of'work actors and yarns by jobless press agents, described as something like 'Miracle of the Bells',"^ he said; On the lots, daily shooting time has been increased 25% over 1945-46, and this despite hefty ■ personnel cuts. The minor miracle was accom- plished mostly through the most careful pre-pro- duction planning, including tighter shooting scripts, extjpnsivo rehearsals, and technicals advancements that brought, about swifter set construction. .