The Bioscope (Apr 1932)

24th YEAR. SUBSCRIPTION : Home 10, '6 per annum. Abroad 30/« per annum. The Independent Film Trade Paper (FOUNDED BY JOHN CABOURN) Faraday House, 8-10, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. 2. Telephone : Temple Bar 7921, 7922. Telegrams : “Gainsaid, W estrand London.” No. 1334, Vol. XCI. APRIL 27, 1932 PRICE 6d. As We See It Wall Street : Gun powder Plot The “No Budge ” Budget brought the last hopes of scores of exhibitors crashing to the ground. The prospects are black unless the effect of this devastating taxation can be offset, and the cinemas, particularly in hard-hit industrial districts, put upon a fresh economic footing. The only major adjustment offering any apparent promise lies in the direction of rentals. But American renters, distributing over three-quarters of this country’s total film supply, are being pressed to make greater and still greater returns to the “ home offices ’’ to help them to face Wall Street and the future. There is no reason why the British exhibitor should be expected to contribute to the repair of the American, as well as the British, deficit, except that he has always responded to “ the racket ’’ in the past. As long as he submits, however wearily, however protestingly, he will provide one useful excuse why the marshals of film production should hold out a little longer against the insistence of the bankers that all the tommy-rot salaries and swaggering excesses in studio expenditure shall stop. Long ago The Bioscope began to point out that the “ fancy prices ’’ to which Hollywood had grown accustomed would sustain a 50 per cent, fracture at least as soon as the banks got eaten into the industry. The process of revaluation (revolution, if you like) is going on, and it might as well be done properly. The old financial order of filmdom started in the studio, the executives of which figured that the more a picture could cost the more impressive and the more responsive would be the pubhc reaction. That proved wrong long ago, but it has taken years to weed the wasters. The new financial order — if Hollywood is to be rebuilt as the city of film fortune — had better be created on a nearer correct assessment of potential public response per million dollars. The selling value of each million dollars’ worth of printed celluloid must be re-estimated in the light of present-day public purchasing power. This means that Hollywood must give up squandering on expensive productions in the hope of forcing a profit through exorbitant rentals, and must frame its future costing schedules on a sane appreciation of the low rental which represents the maximum that most British theatres can continue to pay. While British exhibitors have been using their noses to pay through, the American bankers have used theirs to scent “ cooked ’’ accountancy in the studios and exchanges. Let exhibitors see whether the U.S. financiers like the smell of British gunpowder. Beckenham and National Citizens Randolph Richards, as C.E.A. President, is to undertake active electioneering in Beckenham, where G. T. Evans, having resigned from the local Council as a pubhc protest against the Council’s local film censorship, is trying to regain his seat on public sympathy with his point of view. This is the kind of work in which the whole strength of the C.E.A. should be demonstrated. Beckenham is a sorry example of bureaucracy gone mad, and stands out as an illustration of what may be expected in every BIOSCOPE REVIEWS ARE UNBIASED REVIEWS place where local administration is designed mainly to restrict or even destroy public liberty rather than to preserve it. That the Beckenham impasse ever arose is evidence that what we in Britain need most is a Government that will govern and not merely depute its authority to local bodies, many of whom are not even subject to the main instrument of British democracy — the ballot. This brings us to a proposal put forward by the National Citizens’ Union to the effect that a National Censorship Board should be set up (at the expense of the industry) with statutory powers to enforce its rulings uniformly throughout the land. This sounds drastic, but argues no precedent. The Administration of the Films Act, 1927, was, according to its sponsor. Sir Philip Cunhffe Lister, to be paid for out of licence fees imposed under the Act. Why not the same for Censorship and have done with pettifogging local interference in a matter of uniform national importance and upon which public opinion is not bounded by parochial or geographical considerations ? In This Issue— page Charity Disclosures ... ... 8 Octopus in U.S. A.... ... ... 8 Capitol, Didsbury, Destroyed ... 8 L.C.C. and Charity ... ... 8 Talk of the Trade ... ... 9 Box Office Film Reviews 10, 11, 13 Scottish Section ... ... ... 12 British Studio Notes ... ... 12 C.E.A. Meetings ... ... 14-16 Speaking Personally ... ... 16 Care of Film ... ... ... 17 16 mm. Recording Development 18 Showmanship Activities ... ... 19 Doncaster Majestic Rebuilding... 20 Trade Show List ... ... ... 22