The box office check-up of 1935 (1936)

BRITISH PRODUCTION DIGS IN FOR NEW SIEGE C) 1935 success in American market spurs English on to greater conquests in 1936 by BRUCE ALLAN LONDON. THE American box office is a better index to the comparative entertainment merit of British films, at the end of 1935, than any of the plentiful figures, percentages, graphs and, for that matter, plain ballyhoo, that are available to express British production progress in terms of stars, stories, directors, footage and studio floor space. When the American exhibitor became conscious of the British film, the British film began to be a serious trade factor. And this really happened in 1934-35. Many American exhibitors have recently played "Transatlantic Tunnel," and are preparing to play "Things To Come." They can look back on a year in which they screened more than a dozen other British pictures. They know a great deal more about the box office value of these pictures in America than we can knew in London, but this at least has come across the Atlantic — some of these British pictures, in some American theatres, have done better business than some American pictures. To Americans this may seem a very moderate claim. In England it is an assertion that the almost impossible has been achieved. For very many years it was an article of faith with a big section of the British production industry that America was a sealed market. This conviction was guite impervious to disproof; such films as "Henry VIII" were "freaks, the exception that proved the rule," and so forth. Unfortunately for these sufferers from persecution mania, but fortunately for the general reputation of British traders as people with a grip on business fact and with a sense of humor, the "closed door" theory has become completely untenable in face of the fact that British films are being distributed in America on a 52weeks-a-year basis, that they are playing, and putting up good figures in, keyhouses, and that they are figuring with pleasing regularity in MOTION PICTURE HERALD's lists of "Box Office Champions." The 1934-35 season does therefore definitely deserve to be called historical. For "1492, Columbus Discovers America," it is at last possible to use the homologue, "1934, Elstree Discovers America." With London Films an integral part of United Artists, with Gaumont-British established in the United States on its own feet, and with every outstanding picture from other sources assured of an opportunity in New York, it is not surprising that practically every new production enterprise in England now, as a matter of course, shapes its plans and finances on a scale which assumes an American release. The important thing to remember is that the policy is new; America has so far seen only the work of the pioneers, and the real result of a fundamental change in the British producers' outlook will not be seen until the season now opening. cTS^. What may be expected from England in the way of box-office material when its production industry as a whole is mobilized for an attack on world markets, can be estimated from a consideration of the material provided during the past 12 months by the only three companies which, up to 1934, can be said to have tried consistently to provide American entertainment values — London Film, Gaumont-British and British & Dominions. London Film's biggest success in America, "The Scarlet Pimpernel," is generally believed to be assured of a total gross in excess of that of "Henry VIII," while "Sanders of the River" ("Congo Raid") has beaten "Henry VIII" receipts in the United Kingdom by ten per cent, according to Alexander Korda's own figures. The same authority placed the world gross of "Henry VIII" at $2,500,000. In a MOTION PICTURE ALMANAC tabulation of the biggest box office successes of all time, only 12 pictures were shown to have exceeded $2,500,000, and at or below that figure, were such phenomenal hits as "The Gold Rush," "The Kid," "The Ten Commandments," "Gold Diggers of Broadway," "Little Women," and "I'm No Angel." It seems, therefore, that in 1935-36, this particular British producer can make a budget with a reasonable anticipation of receipts comparable to those which, a very few years ago, were achieved by only a few outstanding American productions. London Film Productions has a much more ambitious program this coming 12 months than ever in its history, and the figures just given indicate the resources which were behind "Things to Come," and which have also been used to erect at Denham, near London, a super-studio to be used, it seems, exclusively for the production of films for the U. S. A. as well as for the U. K. Gaumont-British has just completed a first year of American distribution. During this period the standard of their production, in the opinion of good British judges, has improved 500 per cent. Undoubtedly this fact is due to a desire to secure the American market, coupled with a definite ability to absorb and apply what America had to teach. GB made its attack on the United States about the time it produced "Power." It followed up this pretentious but not very effective picture with, among others, The Man Who Knew Too Much," which at the time of its first display was undoubtedly, in a technical sense, the most successful picture made at Shepherd's Bush; incidentally, it registered a "comeback" by Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most intelligent and imaginative directors in England. Followed "The Iron Duke," with George Arliss, a picture which failed to set either the Thames or the Hudson alight; "Forever England," "The 39 Steps," "The Clairvoyant," "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" and "Transatlantic Tunnel." The signifi cance of these titles lies in their sequence. At the end of its first American year, GB was making films which, in an English and American box office sense, made its pre-1934 efforts seem amateurish. British & Dominions, with "Escape Me Never, achieved an artistic success which was also a box office draw in both the U. K. and the U. S.; it was a "Box Office Champion" in America. Other highlights THE BOX OFFICE CHECK-UP OF 19 3 5 11 5