Variety (July 1919)

T 7 "''"''' ' :;: ^^'-^^^^^^'-^-- ■■■'■■■■■•■ ':■■■■''> --.r ■'■ .."'■■■■:' .--i '■'■; ■' ■.- -W; ^i:&*\- ■ '-Tfif-p^ '" if ■' * -r O V INiJ ^^1C^RES ; £iJ $600,000 FOR MAJORITY STOCK IN LONE STAR FILM COMPANY Interest of Freuler-Hutchinson Disposed of. Exhibitors* - Mutual Now in Control. Old Mutual-Chaplins Secured by Purchase. To Be Retitled and Reissued. Demand for Chaplin's Latest Con- . sidered Remarkable. m ': V&: : A syndicate said to represent the Exhibitors-Mutual and . headed by President Clarke of that corporation purchased this week 51 per cent, of the stock of the Lone Star Film Corpor- ation, paying $600,000 for the control. The principal sellers were John R. Freuler, formerly president of the Mu- tual, and S. S. Hutchinson, of the American Film. Through the purchase the Exhibit- ors-Mutual secures the 12 Mutual- Chaplins, made by Chaplin when under "1ns "first big contract with the Lone Star, which then distributed. through the Mutual and was looked upon as a subsidiary of that distributor. Chap- lin received for his dozen Mutuals $685,000 in salary. The Lone Star, af- ter paying additional costs, including production, was reported at the time to have made a handsome profit on the Chaplin engagement. The Lone Star passed Chaplin up at the expira- tion of his contract, much as George K. Spoor for the Essanay had done before it. Spoor had the first Chap- lin chance, but seemed to miss gaug- ing his future value on the film as a comedian. The value of the Lone Star stock ma- jority, placed at $600,000, basing the whole at about $1,200,000, is reported to have been only through the Lone Star's possession of the 12 Chaplins. These are to be re-titled and re-issued, it is said, and again placed on the mar- ket under the Exhibitors-Mutual direc- tion. -The demand from exhibitors for Chaplin's latest (First National) "Sun- nyside," may have had something to * do with the appraisal of the Lone Star stock, value. Notwithstanding it is conceded by exhibitors that "Sunny- side" is one of Chaplin's poorest in re- cent seasons, still the strength of his . biggest success, "Shoulder Arms," which immediately preceded "Sunny- side" as a Chaplin release, has brought requests from exhibitors for "runs" and return dates in such quantities that the First National may net a larger profit on the poorer Chaplin than it did on Chaplin's best. Exhibitors who ordinarily would have played a Chaplin for two days have booked "Sunnyside" for a week, and there are many indications Chap- lin's hold on the lovers of film fun is so healthy that "Sunnyside" can not perceptibly dent it. To crest this current popularity the new controllers of the Lone Star be- lieve is the opportune time to realize once again upon the old Mutual-Chap- lins. >' FILM IN TWO HOUSES. The feature "Open Your Eyes," which opened at the Central last Saturday, is to be shown at two theatres at the same time in New York. If the ar- rangements are successfully concluded the picture will also be on exhibition at the Republic next week. The advertising for the picture was a copy of the letter from the National Board of Review, which was sent to all of the daily papers in New York last week. After running the ad in one edition, the "Evening World" in- formed the management of the show it would be unable to accept it. The morning "World" followed suit. At that one of the laudatory notices that the picture received appeared in the "Evening World." With two shows on Saturday the picture played to over $2,000 on the day and Sunday was practically a turn away from noon on at the Cen- tral. . A. H. Woods has given over the Woods, Chicago, for the summer run of the film there. DISEASE FILMS INVESTIGATED. Investigation by the District Attor- ney of the legitimacy of ownership of several sections of certain clinical sex films now and recently bidding for patronage within the zones of Greater New York is presaged by the presence of government observers at certain performances of the "Fit to Win," "End of the Road," "Open Your Eyes" type now bidding for States Rights buyers. The claim has been made that enor- mous footage included in some of the pictures is government property, for which the revenue department at Washington received nothing, and that in certain instances the army and navy footage was obtained speciously, if not fraudulently. In the case of "Fit to Win," it is averred by the influence stimulating the District Attorney's office that both the government and certain divisions of the marine and military arms of the county were imposed upon, the consent of the latter to appear in the pictures having been gained upon the assurance that the films were to be shown for military or naval purposes, that posing for th^ picture was a patriotic duty. One of the pictures ("Fit to Win").being investigated, is controlled by Isaac Silverman, a for- mer $1 a year man in Washington, who recently branched out as a pur- veyor of social hygiene features for public consumption and private gain. "Know Thy Husband," the newest of pictures of the sort, is being hurried to completion this week, and will be offered initially at the Belasco, Wash- ington, D. C, next Monday. It has been made-by Samuel Cummins, after an original scenario, by Jay Holly, di- rected by J. D. Williams. Cummins claims every foot of his picture is a legitimate part of his production, and that any_ government naval or military footage included has been turned over to him regularly by the government; that he is backed by the moral sup- port of national and Manhattan sex hygiene bodies, including Health Di- rector Royal Copeland, who will be pictured in one of the groups. PA. DISTRIBUTORS' LICENSE. Harrisburg, July 1. Among the bills passed finally dur- ing the closing days of the Pennsyl- vania Legislature was the Soffel bill requiring motion picture distributors to take out an annual license at $50. The State Board of Motion Picture Censors is empowered to revoke th*. certificate of approval of any film which is being exhibited under a lease from a distributor who has failed to secure a license and to refuse to grant certificates for the films of a distribu- tor who has neglected to take out a license. ^^ ..*, On and after Jan. 1, 1920, every dis- tributor desiring to do business within Pennsylvania shall keep on deposit with the Board of Censors an amount of money or securities equal to the amount of deposits held by such dis- tributor and paid by exhibitors as a license or as pare payments on con- tracts of leasing, or as a pledge or security lor damages or for any other purpose provided for in any contract between the distributor and exhibitor. N. W. EXHIBITORS ORGANIZE. - Seattle, WasiL, July 1. The Northwest Exhibitors' Circuit was incorporated here last week with 75 members. The new organization went on record as being violently op- posed to pictures of a salacious char- acter. It will endeavor to raise the 'standard of picture presentation, im- prove working conditions and promote a spirit of co-operation and unity of aim. The business of the new organization will be to stabilize and render uniform as far as possible the handling of films, to manufacture, rent, lease, buy and sell, films and pictures productions of all descriptions and to buy and sell all kinds of merchandise and equipment for the use in picture theatres. The following officers were elected: James Q. Clemmer, Seattle, president; Frederick Mercy, Yakima, first vice- president; C F. Hill, Albany, second vice-president; B. W. Bickert, Boise, third vice-president; Frank T. Bailey, Butte, fourth vice-president; H. B. Wright, secretary and general mana- ger. The directors are as follows: Tames Q. Clemmer; J.,OStille; H. T. Moore; Frederick Mercy; John Ranz; Frank T. Bailey; C. F. Hill. $300,000 MYSTERY SERIAL. ; The news of the projection of two new big mystery serials by Louis Burston, one with Francis Ford as the lead, and another with King Baggot as the man of suspense and adven- ture, is followed by the organization, consummating Monday, of a new re-, leasing combination to shoot a 15- episode mystery serial with Romaine Fielding and Mabel Taliaferro as the stellar headliners, the new production to cost not less than $300,000, and to be, in design, the most pretentious of all recent installment dramas of the suspended climax type. The picture will be marketed by the International. Lloyd Lonergan, who wrote "The Million Dollar Mystery," is announced as the author, with Fielding directing. The backing by the Howell Motion Pic- ture Corporation is said to come from a combination of Michigan automobile men desirous of making a film plunge. FEMININE STARS NEEDED. At their wits' ends for feminine camera stars of high power voltage enough to blaze box office profit, the fiicture producing corporations, that be- ieve in the star system are fast being driven back over their trails to take supplementary consideration of stellar material they have sporadically em- ployed and then let go. The return of the producers fol- lowed the discovery by one that the biggest successes in the film business popularly are scored invariably by players familiar with the screen, whose personalities are adapted to camera reflexes. A result of the situation has been a line-up by one of the biggest of the producing syndicates of about all the feminine and male players of star qual- ity who have scored worth while suc- cesses under the camera within the past several years, and the eventuation the securing by this company of op- tions on the work of three of the female stars and two of the men players so reconsidered until the com- ing holidays, barring the engagement . of these particular pantomimists by other companies meanwhile for a long- er period. The corporation that bored most comprehensively into the drive for new material compounded a digest cover- ing the /past half dozen years, the deduction from which pointed clearly, according to the compilers, to the conviction that a better knowledge of the capacity of player% now available is more needed by the pickers for the big film troupes than a raking*over of the beauty and virility marts for new film subjects. The digest listed among those now riding the high rollers of production and public popularity Mary Pickford, Pauline Frederick, May Allison, Mar- guerite Clark, Nazimova, the Gish girls, Bessie Barriscale, Dorothy Phillips, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Elaine Hammerstein, Louise Glaum, OlivesThomas, Charlie Chaplin, Doug- las Fairbanks,- Charlie Ray, June El- vidge, Evelyn Greely, Eugene O'Brien, Viola Dana. Theda Bara, Dustin Far- num, Bert Lytell, Anita Stewart, and among those qualified by past per- formances to be as successful as any of the above, a long list no member of which, it is said, is retained long enough by any one producer to cinch the hold oh the public that the occa- sional pictures make, this list including among others, Louise Huff, Leah Baird. Blanche Sweet. Grace D'Armond, Gail Kane, Anna O. Nillson, Henry Walthall, Zena Keefe, Madeline Traverse, Mar- garita Fischer, Ruby De Femer. Orme Hawley. Lillie Leslie, Claire Whitney, Bessie Love and Ruth Stonehouse. The compilers of the digest make a special notation of the many admirable players for the screen whom circum- stances have practically eliminated from big work, though but a few sea- sons back their names were house- hold words for big companies that went defunct or suffered a- loss of identity through the constant amalga- mations that are a part of every day's filmdom. EDEL COMPANY FORMED. Lionel Edel, brother of the late Harold Edel, has formed the Edel Pic- tures Corporation to specialize in two- reelers. Eastman Numbering Film Footage. The Eastman Kodak Co. is now num- bering its raw film footage from 1 to 100,000. This has proven of considerable aid in cutting pictures. The deleted foot- age may easily be replaced through it and a record kept __^ INSURANCE SPECIALISTS TO THE THEATRICAL and MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY I* EUBE/S IAL one Jo/in tfGUbPn 'ns|jr,i sag 1-.' -■'■■'■' g i -1 v.