Canadian Film Weekly (Oct 10, 1945)

f Canadian FILM WEEKLY October 10, 1945 Nat Taylor Remembers= ADIES and Gentlemen, our good friends and honored guests. It is indeed a plea sure to welcome you here this evening to the tenth anniversary celebration of Twentieth Century Theatres. This is an occasion for both levity and solemn: ity. But above all we hope you have and will enjoy yourselves aS much as we enjoy having you here. It is our honor to have present with us this evening a representative gathering of the citizenry of this city, particularly as related to our business. If you look around you, you will see government representatives, bankers, numerous film men, circuit officials, independent exhibitors, press representatives, yes, and even landlords, not forgetting of course our own executives and managers. It gives me the feeling that we have come of age. Yes, I think I can feel that our organization has come of age. And when an organization comes of age, like an individual, it does well to bare its soul, look back over the years and reminisce. I think I can honestly say that tonight I do feel sentimental and a bit like reminiscing. So I shall ask you to come back with me to the year 1935, just a decade ago. In that year Metro released “David Copperfield and “Mutiny on the Bounty,’ and the latter picture won the Academy Award. RKO released “The Informer” and “Top Hat,’”’ Warners released “Captain Blood” and “Louis Pasteur.’””? Paramount released ‘Lives of a Bengal Lancer’ and ‘Ruggles of Red Gap” and “Private Worlds” and nobody had ever heard of PRC. In that year Will Rogers, our beloved comedian, died in an airplane accident — Sir Malcolm Campbell set a world’s speed record by driving a car 301 miles an hour — nobody expected Jimmy Braddock to beat Max Baer for the world’s heavyweight championship—and the next day the newspapers commented that a song very much in vogue at that time was Jim Braddock’s theme song. The song was “I Believe in Miracles,” In that year my partner, Raoul Auerbach, and myself started Exhibitors Booking Association. REMEMBER when I went to law school the boys of the legal fraternity of which I was. a member nicknamed me Necessity. But it seems to be true that while Necessity knows no law it is also the mother of invention. Recently Nat Taylor, in behalf of himself and Raoul Auerbach, welcomed associates and friends to a dinner in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Twentie/h Century Theatres. The Crystal Ballroom of the King Edward provided a gay scene but it was a warm and human one due to the remarks of Nat Taylor. They were full of sentiment and good-natured reminiscences. We think they will interest and entertain as well as inform, even though they lack the benefits of his voice and personality, and so they follow around and below this. ee a We started with two booking accounts—a gross income of $20 per week — and it was necessary for us to invent how to eat and pay office overhead. We rented a suite of offices on the 5th floor of the Hermant Building, containing not only an outer office but seven small private offices. Since we could only use two of these, we sublet the other five and thereby garnered enougn money to pay for the total rent and telephone. Our only office expense was our one employee, a stenographer. It didn’t take me long to get discouraged. We would come down to the office in the morning and wait for exhibitors whom we had canvassed the previous evening to show up. They usually didn’t. If gin rummy had been invented in those days I am sure we would have played it all day —for buttons, of course. My wife came in one day and saw me with my feet up on the desk, looking quite forlorn and lonesome. The next day she brought down a tall plant and placed it in my office. She said it would not only keep me company but would grow right to the ceiling and symbolize the growth of our business. I was sceptical about that. I had never heard about the proverbial acorn then, but looking back I think that perhaps that plant was our acorn. But things continued quiet and I was about ready to quit and go to work for what others might think me worth. But this was 1935 andjobs were hard to get. My partner Raoul prevailed upon me to stick it out. We were living cn borrowed money and hadn't starved to death yet. After that things started to pick up. As I said previously, we started with two booking accounts in June. Some exchange men kept asking us how many accounts we Some members of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners Association in 1926. Left to right, back row — Louie Mazza, Abe Polakoff, Sam Lester, Sam Lent,(7?) Front row—Lou Polakoff, Max Starkman, Hy Rotenberg and Nat Taylor, secretary Taylor was 19 or 20 years of age at the time. had and what they were. We didn’t dare tell them. One man said that “unless you have 20 accounts you won't be recognized as an organization.” Twenty accounts became our goal, even if we had to. work for some of them for nothing. Thereafter when anyone asked us how many accounts we had our answer was that we would have twenty accounts by.September ist, the official opening of the buying season. We worked day and night. We accumulated accounts, but two days before our own deadline, alas, we could count only nineteen accounts. I said to Raoul, “We have exhausted our possibilities in the city. Here is a list of potential out-of-town accounts. You go east and I'll go west and let’s see if between us we can get that one elusive account. We must make our quota or we will be a laughing stock.” I returned on the fateful day, empty-handed and dejected. But the plant which my wife brought me must have pushed my prayers to heaven for on that day a gentleman walked in and said he was opening a new theatre and had heard of us and could we handle his account? Raoul came back empty handed too and as dejected as I had been. Then I told him of our luck. Did we have a celebration! WE opened the Strand Theatre in September of that year. A month earlier the late J. M. Axler and his brother, the late Isadore Axler, father of our own Myer Axler, had come to see about opening the Strand Theatre. It was originally built as a Jewish legitimate theatre and had a large number of seats but that business had petered out so in the spring of that year they had equipped it for movies but the lessee could not make it pay. In view of these circumstances they felt they would be lucky if they could get a modest rent out of it. So when I asked them $15 a week for booking fees they vigorously protested their ability to pay. Having about 15 accounts at that time I was slightly independent so I stuck to my guns. Finally, J. M. came out with a proposition. If we would agree to work for nothing, he would give us half the profits. I knew he didn’t mean to hoodwink us but I am also sure that he was certain he was giving us half of nothing. We on the other hand were giving like value. We had nothing to lose but our time, of (Continued on Page 16)