Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1938)

BEN SHLYEN Publisher PUBLISHED EVERT SATURDAY BY ASSOCIATED PUBLICATIONS Vol. 34 Number 3 December 10, 1938 Member Audit Bureau of Circulations Editorial Offices: 9 rockefeller plaza, new york city; Publication Office: 4704 e. 9th st., Kansas city, mo.; Hollywood: 6404 Hollywood blvd.; Chicago: 332 s. Michigan blvd. MAURICE KANN Editor-in-Chief J. H. GALLAGHER General Manager William G. Formby, Editor; Jesse Shlyen, Managing Editor; J. Harry Toler, Modern Theatre Editor; Louis Rydell, Advertising Manager ; Ivan Spear, Western Manager. CONSIDER THIS, AGAIN IT IS a peculiar commentary on this industry, as it is on many others, that direct action is taken when an emergency compels it. In 1934, the production code, quietly resting, had its teeth sharpened. The molars and the bicuspids began to bite and bite hard into the problem of cleaning up films and keeping them that way. Successful was the effort and successful it remains, despite scraps of discontent now and then, transgressions here and there. For several decades, distribution, in its essential fabric, has remained unchanged and untouched. The designated playdate, percentage pictures, holdovers have planted themselves athwart the horizon, but the system, as a system, has followed its original outline. Today, confronted by a government lawsuit seeking sweeping changes, and with a selfregulation committee trying to bring about changes without endangering the case of the majors in this suit, it can be said a state of emergency exists. The committee is determined to, and actually is, keeping on with its program . . .Yet, regardless of what develops and whether the points of issue are determined by trial or by agreement, there is a lesson, certainly, in the lesson leading up to the rehabilitated production code and the administrator named to enforce it. It is suggested now that what production has done with Joe Breen, distribution can do with Mr. X on behalf of itself and, obviously, its customers, the exhibitors. This means, initially, a code of fair practices, whether self-imposed or drawn from mandate imposed by law. It means the administration, of it by an individual whose integrity is beyond reproach and whose judgment will be respected and honored by both sides because it will be recognized as fair and impartial. The problems encountered in production every hour of a normal Hollywood day with its creative viewpoints to weigh and consolidate, its individual approaches to consider and appreciate, its international responsibility to contemplate are far greater than any which might have to be made after the product is completed. Therefore, if production was parted from many of its wrinkles by the code method, distribution can as well. Consider this as a process to mark down for deliberation. The time is propitious. With only fractional alteration, this is a reprint of an editorial which appeared in BOXOFFICE for August 20, long before there was the assurance now current that a trade practice agreement would emerge from the arduous effort which has been applied to that task. The first consolidated draft, representative of the approach to various problems by all of the exhibitor negotiators, is now in their hands. It does not follow that this initial document, finecombed by the attorneys for the negotiating majors, will be the Magna Charta ultimately to be adopted. That, we should say, is comparatively unimportant and we assume this point of view on the reasonable assumption that, with changes which are very likely, the results will closely resemble the original objective sought. That original objective cannot comprise Utopia, for, obviously again, no basic set of regulations can possibly satisfy as many diverse interests, distributor and exhibitor alike, as have been drawing the plans. It is exactly because trade practice reform seems nearer to success than ever that BOXOFFICE revives its suggestion for an exhibitor-distributor administrator. One who will profit by a knowledge of the pitfalls into which production code administration fell, but also one who can draw on the procedure and the wisdoms established by the Hollywood original. If the time was propitious in August, it is more so in December. /