National Box Office Digest (Feb-July 1941)

4 BOX OFFICE DIGEST Ike. jtujldUfhte*.: Covers the Picture News Front in a Quick Glance Hollywood’s highlight of the recent week is pretty obviously the move which has Bill LeBaron stepping out of Paramount’s top producer berth, and B. G. DeSylva stepping in. . . And the surprise caused. . . Not so much because LeBaron dropped the reins, that is something that has been hinted at, and possible, for some time. . . But because of Buddy DeSylva taking on the headaches that go with the executive direction of a studio’s entire program. . . It is no cinch, mah friends. . . It is one thing to concentrate on one or two pictures a year, and another to accept the grief that comes when spreading a budget allowed by the purse-holders over some fifty pictures. . . If you don’t appreciate the heaviness of the task, check with David Selznick on his days as RKO chieftain . . . Or. for more current testimony, you might speak to Darryl Zanuck. . . Or Hal Wallis. . . Theirs are jobs that should be spelled in capitals, with the letters spaced, something like this: J-O-B-S. . . . Buddy DeSylva is today’s top Broadway producer in point of money hits, with enough coin coming in from mass production of hits to make it unnecessary to borrow headaches. . . DeSylva must now start thinking of release schedules, the voracious appetites of distributing and theater organizations, while trying to keep the weather eve cocked on quality and showmanship . . . It’s a hefty two-shouldred burden. RADIO-RKO ALSO GIVES A STUDIO HIGHLIGHT While Paramount is making its shift in helmsmen, there comes also the news of a similar move at Radio-RKO. where Ned Depinet. the company’s top executive, moves into direct charge of studio operations. . . Harry Edington preparing to step aside. . . Almost seems to parallel the decision by Paramount which brought Frank Freeman from Eastern fields to Hollywood pastures. . . . With the likelihood that it will have equally good results, because Freeman and Depinet are much alike in executive char acter. . . Both come from the front line trench sector of the industry — the place where you sell ’em . . . Both have a background of more practical efficiency in getting a dollar’s worth of return for a dollar spent than has always been the pattern of the Hollywood mind. . . Both have the personalities that command respect while gaining good-will and popularity among associates and subordinates. . . Few there are among this industry’s veterans who have travelled the country on sales work as many years as Ned Depinet and retained so much good will, few in studio control who should be expected to have his wide knowledge of the theater man’s desires. . . So interesting days seem in store for Radio. . . Harry Edington, it would appear, went in on a promise to deliver the biggest of stars to the company to make its pictures automatics. . . . But Harry discovered that selling stars and buying stars are two different things. . . When you sell the star, your job is done; when you buy a star your job has just begun. SAM GOLDWYN FINALLY SMOKES THE PEACE-PIPE WITH UNITED Gosh, there really was some news around town in the recent week or so. . . Sam Goldwyn and United Artists got together in a deal that avoided further expensive court actions, and enables both parties to set their plans for future activity without being entangled in too many "if’s.” . . . Sam can go ahead with plans for individual production, and make his release arrangements where he desires, United can bear down on its production schedules without the bothersomeness of figuring that they might still get Sam back on the sales sheets. . . . It will be interesting to see where Sam lands, and it is a safe bet that he already has some idea of that landing place; it will be interesting to see how United shapes up the coming year’s selling list without its two top producers of recent campaigns, David Selznick and Sam Goldwyn. . . And, speaking of David Selznick, there seems to be quite a campaign on among the rumorriters to get David hitched to a full-time production job now that Jock Whitney has picked up his "Gone With The Wind” marbles and gone back to less worrisome pastimes than the backing of trillion dollar epics. . . So far they seem to have picked on almost every company in the business except Republic and Monogram as Selznick’s next landing field. RUNNING IN A CIRCLE JUST TO CATCH STUDIO HIGHLIGHTS Bill Perlberg, who must be feeling pretty happy these days over "This Thing Called Love ’ and its husky box office figures, can have another reason to feel cheerful when you consider the possibilities of a Jack Benny picture as his next bait for exhibitors . . . For that matter. Bill should be all-out happy just over the fact that he is now hanging his chapeau on a Zanuck hatrack, with memories of Columbia in the past . . . Perlberg and Jack Benny made a quick hop cross country and back last week to look over New York’s sensational stage hit, the revived "Charlie’s Aunt” . . . Sounds like fun just to say, "Jack Benny in 'Charlie’s Aunt ”... There’s a hint of box office news coming up from Columbia, too, in a Fred Astaire picture, with Cole Porter lyrics . . . That’s a combination . . . Even better box office news is the starting of Alfred Hitchcock’s next Radio picture . . . The title is "Before the Fact,” with Cary Grant and loan Fontaine for the marquee . . . Eddie Small is lining up his forces, with assignments to Directors Ralph Murphy and Tim Whelan . . . Reported that George Schaefer is so enthusiastic over the way that Frank Ross-Norman Krasna-Jean Arthur combination has worked that he is already talking new deal . . . Zanuck is quick to cash in on "Tin Pan Alley’s” great reception with announcement of another one to team Alice Faye and John Payne, "The Straight Left,” story with a prize fight background. “FANTASIA” Walter Disney’s latest has finally reached Hollywood. Because of special and expensive new sound equipment it will remain a road show proposition for some time. "Fantasia” isn’t really for review in a motion picture trade publication. True, it is produced on celluloid, but there the contact almost ends. It is a new form of entertainment, an experimental one, that will require many ballots to be taken before a verdict can be given for picture showmen. The production could be reviewed in the music pages and feel more at home. But they would not be the pages catering to the average run of picture ticket buyers, they would be — to put it bluntly — the highbrow pages. Apparently there are enough of those elevated foreheads to have given the picture an extremely successful New York run — still on — and to have started it off well in Hollywood. The question to be faced is, how many of the eyebrow lifters buy theatre tickets in the hinterlands. Your reviewer must confess that nature may have put him in the low-brow classification. There is so much din, noise, and symphonic roar for over two hours, that he was tired. So tired, when it was over. He admired the cartoon technique, the outstanding Technicolor effects,, but the acrobat in the circus doesn’t do the same trick over and over again. And this production is acrobatics sugar-coated with appeal to the superior intellects. "Fantasia” can be put another way: It is like eating an eight course meal with five or six of the courses caviar, a couple or so of them corn. And we do hanker occasionally for roast beef or fluff desserts.