The Canadian Motion Picture Exhibitor (Jun 16, 1941)

June 16th, 1941 Who's Right and Whats Wrong? (Continued from Page 1) entertainment only and the public could tell a theatre from a bingo parlor? Even the critics and columnists of the daily press are seeking the solution. Most of them agree that the trouble is at the source, Hollywood. If the stuff that came out of the maternity ward of motion pictures had public appeal, they say, the people would still be pushing past the ushers. The exhibitor might even be himself, not a dealer in sundries. f Roly Young of the Toronto Globe and Mail had something to say the other day. He’s the cinema sage of some 150,000 readers, plus over the shoulder hitch hikers. Roly says it’s the sameness of the product in story ideas and locales that’s kicking us around. Also the exhibitor’s lack of resourcefulness in the face of such box-office enemies as Roosevelt’s speeches and the like. The theatre should share the general activities of the community, encouraging town activities that need an auditorium. Stay folksy, he says. Bosley Crowther, in the New York Times, takes the same attitude about the nature of current movies. Pictures should change with the times. There’s so much real drama that the public can’t go for the dreamed-up sticky stuff any more. There’s no longer escape in it. That’s why, continues Crowther, pictures like “Buck Privates’ or “The Lady Eve” or “The Road to Zanzibar” do so well. They don’t pretend to be true to life. Pictures that do aren’t. Hollywood won’t change the molds and ‘a slump is the fatal consequence.” But they’re comedies. Drama is also important. What new forms the emotional tingle-tangles ought to take he fails to state. And he leaves himself an out. “Or could it simply be,” he asks, “that the run of pictures these past few months has been uncommonly weak ?” Don’t ask us, Bosley, old boy— tell us. You’re the critic and that’s your job. On one hand you say that the old ideas are passe. On the other you suggest that they’re all right but being done badly. Then there’s Lee Mortimer of the New York Mirror. The present product, we assume from his attitude, suits him. The general public ‘goes to the films only for light entertainment, beauty, glamor and a few hours release from daily cares and nothing more.” In that he disagrees with Crowther, who writes that ‘‘we have a sneaking suspicion that grim realities have rather turned the average mind against romantic make-believe.” Well, fight it out, boys, and let’s hear how you make out. The Exhibitor On the Square By HYE BOSSIN A man you meet around our way all the time is Ben Brown, Dundas Square’s popular architect. Ben's contribution to the Square is the Hermant Building. Lucky fellow. Music is fugitive and motion pictures pass from the public mind like a flight of fancy. Woe is him whose fame is writ on celluloid. But Ben can grab a gob of confidence each morn by looking at the skyline and picking out his baby. Maybe he just looks up once in a while and mutters to himself, like Aladdin when he rubbed the lamp and the Genie shot up to the sky: ‘“Mygawd, did I do that!” * co * * oo Eary note: “He must be a big executive or a billposter. He’s always got passes to give away.” Exhib previews turn up strange screenfellows. The other night they double-billed Warners “Shining Victory” and MGM’s “Love Crazy.” Both are about people with pains in the brains. One is serious, the other a romp. For almost three hours the place was filled by the biggest nut harvest in years. To make it more something-or-other. Sig Rumann plays a heely psychiatrist in both pictures. What a crackpotpourri! Even the audience members were beginning to look at each other suspiciously. Jabs, jibes, togs and takes: Hard by the belt is Ted Lipson’s clothes closet. It’s usually loaded with flicker folk and hook hucksters. Dave Castilloux, Canadian light champ, hangs out there when in town. ... Popular passerby is Filmart’s Jack Johnstone, alias Scotty. Always ready with the time o’ day, views on the business and the odd favor. Jack just stepped into the exhibitor’s ranks, having acquired a Vancouver house. * ok *& * % There’s a story around about the new stamp Italy issued to commemorate the Axis. It showed the faces of Hitler and Mussolini. The stamp was withdrawn because the Italian people were spitting on the wrong side! * * * * * The German people think Hitler is a magician. The difference is that a magician gets his rabbits from a hat. Hitler gets his habits from a rat. * * * * F Busiest fellow in the film belt is Legalite Joe Rosenfeld. He won’t bail you—but he’ll bond you. He’s one of the armband boys in the Victory Loan drive . . . Hily Yuden grabbed off a Motion Wicture Herald citation for exploitation. Getting to be a habit. He got one last year too ... The Uptown’s Fred Trebilcock is a fervid physiculturist and can be found at any five o’clock in Art McColl’s gym teasing those old muscles. * 3% * * * Sign on a church: “Four things come not back—the spoken word, the spent arrow, the passed life and the neglected opportunity.” * * * * Dewey Bloom, Regal’s ace of space, did a record job of handling Norma Shearer’s Montreal visit. The star’s natural popularity, her return to the native heath and the Victory Loan drive gave the task a natural impetus. But the tremendous possibilities made masterful organization and handling necessary. Dewey’s accomplishment is the ta'k of the trade. o * * * * * In lowered tones: Morgan Eastman, Victory Loan Ad Committee—Thanks for your thanks . .. Karr of the Star: A sweep of my sombrero to you, sir. The death of Daley’s bird was devastating. In the face of our common sorrow, let us be brave. * * * Eo The saddest words to eye or ear: “An ad? Wait till fall gets here.” % * * * ae Smartest office boy in the business must be that Hollywood kid with a real idea. -He gets $18 per week. Each week he raffles oft his pay cheque. Last week he got back $65 for it! Page 3 My Man Mischa — Has Been Around There’s method in madness, a phrasemaker once said. Money too. Ask Mischa Auer. The suave gent with the dour kisser has sad memories of his serious days. Not until he scuttled dignity did he draw any kind of currency. His frantic antics led to hearty laughs and golden clinks. That’s music to Mischa—a musician from way back. That lean and hungry look is a hangover from the days of his artistic ambitions. The apish Mr. Auer started out to prod the soul of the world with his well-trained fiddlestick. Grandpa Leopold Auer, one of history’s top violinists, sent him on his unconquering way. He was born in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg with an unpronounceable Russian name. Mischa was twelve years old when the imperial eagles were grounded and he scrammed through the Balkans into Italy. From there his grandpa Auer took him to New York and also lent his name and fame. And a fiddle. But as Mischa grew, so did his appetite. The darned thing required periodic appeasement. Besides, his natural inclinations were for creating comedy. His impetuous takeoffs of frayed noblemen and phoney artistes got him a sizeable private following. All he got out of his efforts were laughs. He had shelved the fiddle and become an actor—not a comedian. But his flair for the comic won out and got him into pictures. He was just going along nicely until that series of chimp didoes in “My Man Godfrey.” That did it for him. It’s still what most people remember best about the picture. Mischa is resigned to comic capering as a way of life. He had thought acting would keep him in serious fields. But most people figured him slightly mad anyway. After; all, a person who wants to act or fiddle his way through life rarely gets more than a queer look from others—until his art brings in heaps of currency and clippings, It’s tough on the tyros who get left in the union rooms. Sometimes success has a strange taste. Though his madness is just a commodity, it worries him occasionally. He wonders what a certain group of people whom he has never met think of him. According to an American paper, Mischa is married to a Toronto girl. That’s all it told about his wife. But Mischa said: ‘I’ve never met my in-laws. They must think I’m nuts.” Listen to that, will you? Here’s a man who actually cares what his in-laws think of him!