Variety (January 1953)

WprlneBday, January 7, 1953 Forty-seventh PffiSffiTY Anniversary PICTURES 21 It’s Still a $3,000,000,000 Business, Or Movie Myths That Make Me Mad There are a lot of myths about the movies which make me mad. They are parroted by writers and speakers, as ignorant as they are influential, and they are the sina qua non (I, too, went to Harvard) for admission into the more rarified chichi circles. There’s the hoary fable, for ex- ample, that the public is drooling for films heavily laden with social mes- sages, subtle fantasy and sophisticated chatter, but that it is denied seeing these so-called mature films by un- couth, illiterate Hollywood tycoons who regard all America as a reflection of their own 12-year-old mentalities. I hold no brief for these gentlemen, having spent a large slice of my life quarreling with them about* their overhead charges and their under- hand sales practices. Of one thing, however, you can be sure. They are better equipped by nature and experience, for the pursuit of the dollar (even the 50c. dollar), than-their critics. If adult films were as popular as adulterous ones, the market would be swamped with them. I am not saying, miijd you, that it wouldn't be fine if Hollywood could make more pictures for the discriminating and the elite. I am only reporting regret- fully that any producer who, during the past 30 years, had consistently relied upon these good people for support and encouragement, would have landed in the poor house long ago. A. L. Mayer In the 30 years that I have made a precarious living in the picture business, the American public has consistently failed to patronize pictures which deviated sharply from accepted formulae and has flocked with depressing fre- quency to the conventional yen for more recondite things in the only fashion that any business enterprise, whether i* makes panties, peanuts or pictures, can understand—it has notimade them profitable. One major, for instance, made a magnificent effort re- cently to raise its sights. The higher ,it raised its sights, the lower sank its profits. In the first quarter ofMfte cur- rent year it showed a profit of lc. a share, and had it not been for an understandable procrastination in obey- ing the court order to. divest itself of its theatre ownings, it would have plunged into the red. Consider, on the other hand, the happy transformation of Universal. About two years ago it turned its back on the beautiful and the uplifting, as well as on heavy annual losses, and proceeded to specialize in “Ma and Pa Kettles,” “Francis” and other manna for the masses. As a con- sequence of this reprehensible but remunerative new policy its profits mounted and its control was sold at a whopping big figure to some New York record makers (rot to Chicago promoters, as was the case with its less successful rival, RKO, who ducked the whole issue of what sort of pictures to make by making none at all). Let me, however, recall the good old days when movie men were occupied in acquiring control of companies rather than in selling it. I got my first job in the motion picture industry with Sam Goldwyn (advertising note: I tell all about it in my shortly to be published book, “Merely Colossal,” Simon & Schuster, price $3.50). Sam wanted to bring the public the best in pictures. Actu- ally, he brought the company to the brink of disaster by importing the first great modem art film, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” Back in those benighted days there was no court decree that you had to show pictures before you sold them. I sold “Caligari” sight unseen to the exhibi- tors. No one in his senses would ever have bought it if he had been given a chance to look at it. Today the aesthetes flock to see “Caligari” 1 goggle-eyed with admira- tion, but at that time it was dismissed as “pretentious,” “insane,” “insulting”—the same choice adjectives that are currently lavished on experimental films that I import such as Cocteau’s “The Strange .Ones.” Ever since the “Caligari” catastrophe, history has re- peated itself with painful consistency. From “Long Voyage Home,” “Oxbow Incident” and “Watch on the Rhine” to “The Treasure of Sierra Madre,” “Intruder in the Dust” and “The Men,” the American public has, with a few agreeable exceptions, rebelled when asked to con- sume an increased intelligence vitamin diet, and shown a painful preference for more proletarian fodder. Today, unpatriotic though it may be, they prefer “The Great Caruso” to “The Magnificent Yankee,” just as some 25 years ago they preferred “Seventh Heaven” to “Greed” (to my way of thinking, the greatest American picture ever made). As Henry Mencken, the sour sage of Balti- more, once put it, “No one ever went broke underestimat- ing the taste of the American public.” S.A. Still the B.O. Payoff The difference between myself and the highbrows is that they write or talk about mature pictures, while I in- vest my money in them. In th.e 15 years that Joe Burstyn and I were engaged in importing films—the longest period that anyone has ever survived the hazards of supplying offbeat pictures to down-to-earth Americans—our only sensational successes were scored with pictures whose artistic and ideological merits were resuscitated at the boxoffice by their frank sex content, “Open City” began to strut its stuff when the exhibitors started to advertise it with a misquotation from Life carefully framed to omit qualifying phrases, and adjusted to read “Sexier than Hollywood ever dared to be.” -This slogan, aided and abetted by a still of two attractive young ladies wasting their feminine embraces on each other’s persons, turned the trick. Similarly, with “Paisan,” the most publicized scene showed a young lady disrobing herself with an at- tentive male visitor reclining by her side on what was an too obviously not a nuptial couch. These were superb pictures. To make them profitable, however, they had to be merchandised not on the basis of their merits, but in a suggestive fashion. this I do not blame the exhibitors, as is the preva- custom among intellectuals. I blame the intellectu- als themselves . They pay lip service to better Cinema but that’s about By ARTHUR L. MAYER all that they do pay. What the masses like, and who can blame them, are pictures like “Samson and Delilah.” The last time I was shown its astronomic figures, it had played to 40,000,000 simple souls. It would appear as if the answer to our problems, as registered at the boxoffice, is more Victor Matures rather than more mature pictures. A lot of folks seem to Confuse excellence and European. That’s Myth No. 2 in today’s exhibit. The delusion that foreign films are far superior to American is in part pure snobbishness and in part a tribute to the skillful and un- remitting labors of men like Joe Burstyn, Ilya Lopert, Irving Shapiro—modesty- forbids my mentioning myself. Th.y look at hundreds of English, French and Italian films every year in an effort to cull out only a few that are worthy of importation. For those who constantly as- sure me how “they just adore foreign pictures” I wish a ten-year sentence in close confinement with the product of Italy’s Cinecitta, France’s Joinville or England’s Ded- ham. As one who has squandered a large portion of his time and eyesight, not to mention the fragments of intel- ligence left after a lifetime in the movie business screen- ing incredibly stupid and inept foreign .films, I swear to - you on my bible, Variety, that with the exception of a few superb cinematic triumphs, their run of the mill (not Cecil B.) are by and large far inferior to our American product. Conclusive Answer That American product is not doing as badly as some of the big circulation magazines or the small journals of the aesthetes stentoriously announce. Recently I read the statement of one critic who declared, with apparently the utmost glee, that although production might make up its losses with new markets, , the cinema theatre was dead as a dodo'; I hate to minimize the glad tidings that the 20,000 theatres, their managers, employees and the neigh- borhood stores dependent upon their continued operation, are all ruined, but it just isn’t so. Actually, the present status of the movie industry reminds me of my best friend’s golf game. Once he went out and in an inspired moment shot 18 holes in 80. Since then he has been .weeping and wailing and breaking his clubs every week- end. Recollecting that one memorable occasion he can’t reconcile himself to his normal, reasonably good game. We movie people are obsessed with recalling the wonder- ful years immediately following the war when all that a manager had to do was to open his doors and quickly get out of the way before he was run over by the incoming mob. But last year the theatres of the world took in a revenue of $3,000,000,000. If that’s dead, it’s like Lenin's Hollywood’s Big Debt To B’way Stage By HAL WALLIS corpse whose hair, the comrades say, continued to grow. If the $3,000,000,000 were divided, everyone in the in- dustry, rather than a limited few, would be making a good living. That $3,000,000,000 is also the conclusive answer to the next myth in my collection, the myth that television is in the process of supplanting picture-going as the world’s favorite pastime. It scarcely seems surprising that the apperance of an amazing new phenomenon in the field c* entertainment shoqld exert a profund effect on all com- petitive forms of warding off boredom, whether that be reading books, making love, or going to the movies. It may be premature to estimate what the permanent ef- fects of television on motion picture attendance will prove to be, but a hep guy, Jack Gould the New York Times television expert, reports th*at “here in the east at ’east, the excitement of television is beginning to level off. The medium’s elements of frankness and novelty no longer are there.” ’ This confirms public opinion polls which indicate that after a period of approximately nine months, the inter- est of all except television’s juvenile devotees wane and that papa, mama and the more intelligent children revert to previous patterns of passing time. I am not referring to slugging matches, pugilistic or political, baseball games or other criminal investigations. Most males like them better than romance on a rural porch or in a Fifth Ave- nue penthouse, but the Missus does not want to stay home every night, and reversing the old ditty, papa goes where mama goes. My 'darling daughter is definitely not inter- ested in six-inch men in a little box, but in six-foot men out in the open. My advertising friends are incapable of tapping the sort of money tn^t V takes to challenge “Ivan- hoe” or to answer “Quo Vadis.” The average sponsor is looking for the cheapest, not “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Even if he were prepared to pay for it, where in the world would he find the necessary talent? Motion pictures turn out about 500 hours of entertainment a - year. TV will require more than 20,000. If I were not so old I would start tomorrow taking one of those courses in “How to Become a Writer for Television.” No gradu- ate can fail to make a fortune TV an Ultimat e AHy | In a world where only death and taxes were previously reported to be unavoidable, I will add a third certainty — television is not going to replace movies in the affections of the American public. On the contrary, like radio, :t •* will eventually prove not an antagonist, but an ally, rt will become what vaudeville was in its day: the major training course for new theatrical talent; talent, for .n- instance, like Martin & Lewis. It is serving, and will serve increasingly with the years, as the ideal medium for ad- vertising coming attractions. It will 'eventually hugely expand the apDeal of motion picture theatres by enabling them to show in. color, on a gigantic screen, Congress or the UN in debate, current shows like “The. King and T ,” while they are still on Broadway, maybe new shows specially produced for nationwide movie audiences, the opera, symphony orchestras and a host of other cultural activities. I honestly believe that the motion picture theatre, far from being obsolete, is on the threshold today of devel- opments that will make it not only the greatest entertain- ment activity but the greatest educational force that i an- kind has ever known. (I am, unfortunately, no longer on the industry payroll, so this conviction is not suspect.) . Hal Wallis Hollywood. Hollywood owes a great deal to Broadway and the Amer- ican theatre, and this seems an opportune moment to ackowledge that debt. It may be that gas station attend- ants no longer look like Dana Andrews or that girls quaffing sodas at the corner drug- store cannot do for a sweater what Lana Turner did, but pictures more and more turn to the stage and other live entertainment sources for its “new” talent. ’ The reason? It’s quite simple. We’ve found that the public demands real acting talent in its picture entertain- ment. The mere inclusion of a so- called “personality” in the cast is not just enough. Shirley Booth’s film debut in “Come Back, Little Sheba,” which she cre- ated on Broaway, is a case in point. Looking back just a short time we find among previous gears’ Academy winners such stage-trained performers as lose Ferrer, Vivien Leigh, Humphrey Bogart, Laurence Dlivier, Fredric March, Judy Holliday,, George Arliss, Paul Muni, Broderick Crawford, Helen Hayes, Paul Lukas, Joseph Schildkraut, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston, Van Eleflin, Charles Coburn, Barry Fitzgerald, Edmund Gwenn, Katharine Hepburn, Alice Brady, Fay Bainter, Katina >axinou, Ethel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Ginger Rogers, Josephine Hull and Celeste Holm. Within the confines of our own independent organiza- tion, fully 90% of the contractees have been recruited Tom the New York stage and allied sources—people like Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott, Wendell Corey, Charlton Heston and,‘from the nightclub circuit, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Going a bit further afield, we find the widest swath tn recent years being cut by such newcomers as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, all graduates of the legitimate theatre. The gifted couples who have come to pix via Broadway include such stars as Rex Harrison arid Lilli Palmer and Jessica Tandy and tlume Cronyn. No offense is meant to the proprietors of drive-in restau- rants or department stores, but please take notice: Film producers and their talent scout representatives won’t be hanging around your emporiums this year checking the field of carhops and elevator operators. They’re much- too busy running down two on the aisle for that hit at- traction on Broadway. American producers have responded to these new pressures and new responsibilities with considerably more skill and resourcefulness than their critics credit to them. Look at the record, or rather, look at the screen: “Great- est Show on Earth,” “Quo Vadis,” “Limelight,” “African Queen,” “Quiet Man,” “Streetcar Named Desire,” “Detec- tive Story,” “Ivanhoe,” “Samson & Delilah,” “High Noon,” “American in Paris,” “Jumping Jacks,” “Sudden Fear,” to mention only a few great attractions of the past year. I do not claim that these are pictures which future ages will cherish as masterpieces. I don’t expect anyone to be enthusiastic over everyone of them. I, myself, am not. But what I do maintain is that in the face of cen- sorship restrictions, pressure groups at home and abroad, police authorities, and even license commissioners, they represent a wider general appeal, a higher average of merit, than that supplied by fiction magazines, by the radio, by television, by current books or by the Broadway theatre. None of these films had any Communist content. Neither, for that matter, had any of the‘ other 250 Ameri- can pictures whfch, to pay my controlled rent and my uncontrolled taxes, I have to see yearly. No one, not even • an investigating Congressman, can testify otherwise un- less he regards the time-honored American practice of poking fun at politicians or booing the brutal banker who forecloses the mortgage on a snowy night, as part of a subtle plan to undermine American institutions. The Politbureau, realizing the vital importance of the movie medium, made a gigantic effort to have the com- rades infiltrate into the business. They made some con- verts—more than I would have anticipated—but propor- tionately to the number of people engaged in making movies, very few. Their efforts to make the Soviet sys- tem look sweet and ours sour, laid an egg, greater even than the one in Variety’s most memorable headline. My final myth for the day is that the Communists ever got anywhere in picture production. Their record, as Frank Nugent once said- of a season at my Rialto The- tre, was, “No runs, no hits, just /terrors.” When Bob O’Donnell and I were touring for Movie- time, Nat Williams gave us a copy of a magazine article; - It was grim reading. It predicted, minus a Gallup or Roper qualification, that unless we movie people prompt- ly mended our ways and called a halt to our bad pictures and opr bad conduct, the business could not hope to en- dure. The article appeared in Photoplay Magazine. Photo- play for October—October, 1918. I have been reading ■ similar lugubrious prophecies for the past 30 years. I expect to continue to read them without turning a grey hair, for the rest of my life.