Variety (January 1952)

WCTtJBES Torty-sixth Anniversary Wednesday hntmrf % 1952 Bear Hollywood Scriptwriter: Else) Is From the. Count of 9 the Pix Biz Recognizes From Realistic B.O* Performance That There*s No Embargo on Good Shows By DARRYL F. ZANUCK (Production V.P., 20 th Century-Fox) Hollywood. Like a fighter who stays on the floor for a nine-count In order to clear his head, Hollywood has climbed to its feet and looks forward to the year 1952 as another and adore promising round in the endless battle for the world's amusement .title.. There may have been a period of uncertainty— even of gloom-nluring the year which nbw draws to a close. To deny that the film industry took it on the chin during this time would be no better than self-delusion. An industry which refuses to face reality is inviting doom, and those of us who make the pictures, those who distribute and those who exhibit them, alike admit the fact that we were groggy for a whiles But, as I have repeatedly observed, Da ry • 251 k ours is an industry founded on optimism. In all the world there is no other industry which stakes such prodigious sums on a product that depends for success on the passing fancy of the public. A play, unless it be a concoction greater than its time, must appeal to the momentary tastes of its time. Whether by accurate foresight or luck, the maker of a film play must anticipate the public's whims at release time, since picture must make both its cost and profit in a comparatively short space of time. Should a man who manufactures bathtubs find a slackening of consumer demand he can place his surplus in a warehouse and hope to dispose of his excess stock at a future time. But a screenplay is entertainment, and the public conception of entertainment is a matter of moods which are influenced from many directions. Economic conditions, social and world trends, any number of other things exert a pressure on the public’s entertainment moods and can change them. This is the risk which the producer, planning his costly pictures a year and sometimes two ahead, has >to take. He knows it's "now or never" once his picture is released. Granting the inevitability of this risk it is not so much a wonder that so many pictures fail to return a profit, but that so .many of them do. By the time an idea is translated into story form, the screenplay is filmed, scored, edited and released, the people who would have linked the picture at the time of conception might be chasing a rainbow of an entirely different hue. It’s Happened Before With Radio i Added to this ever-existing hazard was the sudden flareup of popularity in the past year or so of free television programs. Those of faint heart in our industry quickly envisioned calamity but the majority of us who reeled}.and floundered under the impact did not lose our deter* ruination. We had met somewhat similar competition before in the early ascendancy of radio. We also knew that our production operations Were scaled to the economic flushness of Wartime prosperity, a situation which for several years had been dwindling Without a commensurate lowering of costs on our part. We flattered ourselves by adopting a streamline policy at a time when real cost-cutting was the real panacea. So the blow was doubly hard when it came during the, early and middle half of the current year. But, like the optimists who founded the industry Whose traditions we are maintaining, we made many adjustments. We have kept in there punching, and we are on our way. to better times again. The boxoffice barometer . is rising again. But this time the rise owes nothing to an easing of economic forces or anything accidental. It is due to our ability to face reality, to realize that we must make better pictures. And we are making better pictures. As we continue to do this more people will be going to the movie theatres,, and oftener. By N. J. BLUM BERG Publishers At Loss to Find Authors For Scientific tomes Nate Slumber g (President, Universal Pictures) Each year presents the same problem: How can we increase boxoffice receipts? This is the big question. Most of the others are simple In comparison. The many technical problems in distribution and production seem to be mountains, but if we are able to make b.o. pictures; if we can continue to ballyhoo them with all our resources; if we eah successfully develop new talent and, above all, if we mind our business and Work hard, we should improve and move forward; The future is in our hands. We must plan our business with a keen sense of appreciation for the world problems as well as problems at borne. Our industry, like all others, will reflect the economy of the country. If general business conditions are good, we should get our share. Now, more than ever, we need: a united front; If we could only straighten out our point of view to the point where We work together and realize that all branches of our business are interdependent, then we can surely face the future with confidence. We have the effective instrument In COMPO. Movietime USA has proved what can be accomplished by concerted effort. Most of my 40 years in this business have been spent in exhibition. I know that the exhibitor needs b.o. pictures. Our company is minded to the problems of. all exhibitors, large: and small, and our studio is trying to make pictures for the mass audience. Exhibitors have shown a renewed interest in showmanship which is so important to our good health. The distributor must pave the way in advertising arid publicity, but the exhibitor must do the job in the grassroots. Our company believes that TV eventually will be our ally rather than. our . competitor. But TV is only one of our competitors. Our share of the entertainment dollar has decreased. We must get more people back into the habit of going to pictures. This requires more ballyhoo, in addition to more entertaining . pictures. I would like to repeat what I said ovefr two years ago; "Everyone who iriakes a living in this business has the obligation to appoint himself a committee to dedicate himself to the proposition that purs is a great business and that he will meet every challenge that comes his way." Yes, the future is in bur hands. Let’s work more and talk less if we really want to direct our own destiny. All the Researchers Have Taken the Air! Bennett Cerf Yeh, Whodunit? Lee Shubert and I once, attended the opening of a mystery play at one of his theatres. It was a, pretty bad one. ‘ As the. first, act went along, Lee began to Wriggle in his seat and mutter strange sounds. During -the second act, which was worse, he leaned over to me and Whispered, "You know* John, I left this one entire, ly to my office. They should never have started it, •Let’s get out of here." "Don’t you want to know how it comes out?"’ I asked. "How it comes out!" Lee echoed, in a whisper heard .flowri to the footlights. "That’s no mystery. The mystery is how it ever got in." —John Golden . By BENNETT CERF The reason Why there are practically no new books of scientific research this season is that there are no scientific researchers .who can spare the time to write them. This is one shortage, furthermore, that cannot be chalked up against defense preparations. Television is the villain. Of 114 scientific researchers who were polled for this dissertation, 47% were proving that six distinct and different brands of cigarets were freer of coaltar, tabasco sauce and other foreign substances than their rivals, 31% were giving their all for toothpastes that were almost indecently kind to the gums, 11% Were up to their Adam’s apples, in tests designed to establish the health-giving properties of. various brands of beer, and the remaining i% Was undergoing general overhauling. Looks like it Will be easier to get the graft out of government than the graph out of advertising. Another drastic shortage that is a direct result of all this research is reported by the manufacturers of white surgical jackets. Obviously, the man who announces that, according to the Umberufen Chemical Co.’s charts, Whatchamacallit Cigarets ruin the digestion only 18 3/17% as much as all . competing brands, has to wear a white jacket or listeners are not going to believe him. They’ll turn instead to the properly accoutred announcer who follows on the samp network 10 minutes later and proves by a new set of charts that the Umberufen’s figures are more deceptive than those of the chorus in "Top Banana." Speaking for myself, all this TV hokus-pokus about laboratory tests and violently contradictory charts and graphs is such an overwhelming bore that I am about to declare a one-man boycott against any product that resorts to same; I realize that this probably means no cigarets, beer, toothpaste, or shaving cream in my life for a few weeks, but what’s that to a man willing to suffer something for his principles? Sooner or later some trailblazing cigaret maker is going to take time on the airwaves to tell the public, ‘‘My brand needs no chemical research. And it isn’t mild at all. What’s so great about mildness? As a matter of fact, my cigaret is just pure Virginia tobacco, bought from the same farmers who sell all the other manufacturers, arid it’s so darn strong it may knock your back teeth out,” That’ll be the boy for me. Furthermore, I bet he’ll sett so many million cigarets in the following week he’ll be able to afford a wholemonth— with his family in Miami Beach, ^ As far as those mysterious dentifrice analyses are concerned, the Only person in our family who doesn’t turn the knob the . second day they come onto the screen is: my Aunt Minnie, and she’s had false teeth for the past:16 years. Not that she’s ever gotten a pair to fit, She took, her latest set back to Dr. Pullman for regrindihg only last' Tuesday. .‘Til do it again— for the sixth time," hfe told her resignedly, "but I assure you they won’t possibly fit in your mouth as well as they, do nbw." "Who said anything about my mouth?" inquired Aunt Minnie angrily. "They don’t fit in my glass." By BOB CONSIDINE Bob Consldlne For your possible guidance here are some do’s and don’ts that may guide you in the future creation of newspaper characters in your films — r Dress him some time in something beside a trench coat I distinctly remember seeing a rel porter once Who didn’t have on a trench coat. I realize this may seem preposterous to you but please take my word. Forget What this fellow’s name was, but I remember he had on a form-fitting black cashmere job with a mink collar. Had a name something like Phoebe, or Bpebe. Write one some time about reporter who doesn’t Solve The Crime. Honest* we’re like Bugs Baer’s classic description of the bungling Hawkshaw who couldn’t track an elephant across • .... . » field of snow even though the ele phant had a nose bleed. Every time you make a reporter into a successful sleuth Who brings to bay some scoundrel Who has baffled the F.B.I., Scotland Yard, and the NKVQ you cause the pros an epidemic of headaches, Police reporters, who believe everything they see in the movies, immediately start getting ideas about how to find the guy who basted Judge Crater with cement and dunked him somewhere, and they worry the cops into assorted dead ends. Never have, a newspaper bloke identify himself as a journalist, A journalist, once said Walter Winchell, is a newspaperman out of work. Even the products of our most distinguished Schools of Journalism never call themselves journalists. We feet that “newspaperman” is * enough. In fact we’d rather be newspapermen than either President or right. Stop your boy from stopping presses. About the only newspaperman I ever knew Whostopped a press was an old friend named Barney Gluttz of the Washington Sun. He got drurik one night and fell into a press, stopping it. And himself. About the: only time the presses stop in the middle of a run is to add the results of the fifth at Jamaica. Let him cut down on the grog. There are newspapermen in this land who don’t get plastered more than two or three times a year. There are— gasp — newspapermen in this land who don’t even drink. And some who haven’t the faintest idea of what to order when they step up to a bar. Once, I swear, I saw one order a Scotch and CocaCola. Typed— -Biit Artistic 1 I’ll say. this much for you, pal, you sure, put your boys in comfortable looking restaurants. I like that Set that somebody built in 1923 and Hollywood has been using ever ince: you know, the One with the booth, where the reporter takes the girl to tell her 1) he is about to blow The Big Case even though she is. Bugsy’s moll; 2) he will Take Her Out of It; 3) he is quitting the. newspaper "racket” to write a book. Just then the fatherly waiter appears, beams, and calls our hero by his first name. Nice set, all right, but not many working newspapermen could afford to eat there. Lot of them bring their own lunch to work, or send the copy kid for coffee in a paper cup and a sandwich created by some sinister soul behind the counter of a neighborhood Quick ’ri Dirty. And, mainly, the only babes in their lives are their wives —who live in the ’suburbs with the kids and never get around to understanding why a big murder or fire or arrival home of Frankie and Aya needs writing, especially if the writing interferes with the bloke’s catching the 6:25 out of Grand Central. Surest way to starve a movie reporter to death is to Write a script which makes him quit— after bawling out the publisher, mariaging editor, head of the copy desk and other principals — -to write a . book. The average advance on • a first book is about $500. Only one in umpteen ever pays royalties after the down payment. Only one in about 20 ever gets even reviewed. Only one in about every thousand written ever gets accepted. The average newspaperman'who chucked his job to write a book would 1) forfeit his severance pay, and 2 ) have his brains knocked out by his irate wife. Most of us are pretty dull, if the dreadful truth Were known. We’re more thrilled to meet interesting people than they tire to meet us. But mainly We see press agents, and they’re even duller than we are. We can’t answer the waiter in French, or, if we can, we can’t afford restaurants that have French waiters. Most of the sportswriters and other employees of the Toy Department of papers are frustrated athletes Who, like A.A.U. officials, can’t tear themselves away from the aroma of liniment. Most theatre critics are defeated playwrights.. Most pundits have ulcers. Most film reviewers are lucky they’re riot picked up as vagrants. But, as we always say, it’s better than working for a living. Any questions? n T. E, B. Clark, scripter of "Passport: to Pimlico," was on his way back to England last year, after having -attended-' the Venice Film Festival. He had won a medal in the Selzriick Golderi Laurel competition for his film. At Customs, he was asked if he had anything to declare. "Only a medal I had just won," he declared. The Customs man demanded to know if it was gold. "Sure," was the reply, as he handed it oyer. Customs man: "You know that gold cannot be brought into: the country! What did you win it for? Oh, I see-^Tassport to Pimlico.’ They say it's a film which; takes a crack at customs practices." Clark really got panicky for he had not declared his wife’s nylons. After a pause, the Customs man threw back the medal. "All right, go on; this isn’t gold anyway." >\