Canadian Film Weekly (Feb 5, 1947)

Page 4 The Stepping Stone formation, the public Imows little of the non-glamorous domain which lies between it and the places where motion pictures are made. Occupied by theatre and film exchange workers, this overlooked island is the great stepping stone used by the artists and craftsmen of Hollywood, Elstree and other production centres to come within profitable reach of their objective, the attention of the people. The patron, if his mind wanders from the screen to what is behind, thinks only of the studio. The motion picture community in each city, in spite of being starless, has many interesting aspects and quite a few persons of colorful character. I am surprised that it has never, to my knowledge, been used as background material for occupational fiction. This semi-private world can be engrossing to students of the varied ways of Man. Although in it the motion picture is firstly a commodity, the community can be described as theatresque, humoresque and even picturesque. RE ARE the film exchanges, to which come pictures from every part of the world for distribution to theatres in their particular area. In each there is that neverending drive for screen time or, as the trade has it, dates. No merchant scanning the sea for the approach of his next cargo ever exceeded in eager anticipation the exchange man awaiting the arrival of an important film. The word circulates like the wind when such a film has arrived. The men whose duty it is to convince the operator of the Independent theatre or the representatives of the chains that the film will be worth exhibiting at the terms asked file into the miniature show called the screening room to see it at 9.30 a.m. or almost immediately upon arrival. Once seen, the print is sent to the censor for approval, then to make the rounds of the chains’ screening rooms. There it will be studied by the buyers, who will negotiate the terms, and the bookers charged with placing it at convenient periods in those theatres whose patrons prefer that type of film. If the exchange men, after seeing the film, find that it lives up to the producer’s grandiose claims, there is great satisfaction and the office is a gayer place. If it doesn’t, there are conferences involving the salesmen and the publicity representative, the aim being to make it appeal to theatre men and the public. When the film opens its first engagement there are worrisome eyes on the boxoffice, the weather and opposing attractions, If the boxoffice suffers from acute inertia due to customer neglect, the example is not accepted fully, with many explanations being offered. It is never the picture at first and the next engagement-is studied anxiously. If the film continues to falter the terms are lowered. “We died last night,” a theatre manager will say and an ordinary citizen, overhearing, looks about him for the bodies. “It was bad all over,” the exchange man says hopefully. After a week or several he pays off or collects the bets he won from rival exchange men on the boxoffice potency of the picture—or the lack of it. But if the film is one with outstanding A sormatio ever-hungry for movie in Canadian FILM WEEKLY On The Square uit. Hye Bessin earning possibilities, things begin te happen to the exchange men. An order is immediately issued that no outsiders must see it until it reaches the theatre, presumably doing away with the exchange of films between executives of rival companies for their screening pleasure. The can with the reels is guarded as though it contained butter. There is apparently some kind of fear that good luck will change mysteriously to bad and that the picture will turn magically and tragically into a B production. Of course, in a few days perfect strangers to the industry are telling you all about the film, having seen it at a private screening. During this period there is an air of great personal pride and an aura of genius pervading the atmosphere of the exchange. Each refers to the film in the same possessive manner he uses for his most-loved one. It is as though the general manager produced it, the branch manager directed it, and so on. This form of sublimation is understandable in persons whose work does not provide the pleasure of creation afforded by the practise of an art or cratt. ND SO IT GOES. Each season’s product is a challenge, the marketing of each film almost a personal and collective crisis. “I also venture to think that last week’s gigantic, colossal, magnificent, super-motion picture, is of very little value, because it is replaced this week by something more colossal, more magnificent and more superior,” Sir Cedric Hardwicke once told the Empire Club in Toronto when comparing the stage with the movies. Behind all this loco commotion is that instinctive fear of all men and animals who, regardless of what high degree of luxury they enjoy at the moment, have inseparably connected with their livelihood such uncertain and uncontrollable things as weather and public whim. The moving picture, be. ing neither utilitarian nor edible, is not essential in the real meaning of the word. Each fine film represents the imagination of one group of persons aimed at appealing to the imagination of millions of others. It is conceived in uncertainty and offered in a spirit of hopefulness. What seems a sure formula today becomes a group of meaningee and expensive ideas tomorrow—and too ate. Is it any wonder then that Hollywood, which has the greatest per capita annual earnings of any city in the world, has also the greatest percentage’ of nervous breakdowns? S° MUCH FOR the film exchanges, each of which is a nine-to-five hive for most occupants, whose habits of work match those of the rest of the business world. But the theatres! They have many more things about them which appeal to t gination, for they are the centres sons enjoyment-bound in a holiday Neither the presence of that spirit yn departure can be unfelt. There is that scene outside the boxoffice just before six o’clock, when the folks who decided to stay downtown instead of going home from work scan the streets anxiously, — wondering whether the person being awaited will arrive before the prices change, There is that wonderful Saturday night audience, the least critical of the week, with its all-dressed-up and my-night-out air, Tt is very responsive to. the lovemaking on the screen, the boys sneering and the girls tittering, both self-consciously. There is that sudden change of mood when the picture ends and a rush by the men’ to hide the tears and the girls to repair makeup before the lights go up. Then that — lively march as the audience exits and the sweepers wait impatiently for the lounge lingerers to vacate. And always the epilogue of the patron returning to point out where he or she thinks the glove, rubber or scarf was lost. ; When the audience has left the auditorium changes character. The work lights help to reveal the effects of time, so recently hidden by the kindly glocm, and the ugly litter of candy wrappers and popcorn. The cleaning women at the top and the bottom work toward each other and there are the © zeal and good spirits which always accompany the beginning of each day’s work everywhere. Snatches of song break out now and then, with the banging of the brooms against the iron seat stands adding a crazy rhythm, and go echoing through the building as others join in for a few bars before the sounds dwindle out. In the office the manager is completing his report, trying to determine what work can be left until tomorrow, thinking about the would-be mashers who were warned for changing seats too often, and wondering whether those who complained about imagined insults by the ushers will bother the head office about it. There is that scene on the street after the seat sale has closed on the last night of the engagement. Curtains shroud the boxoffice windows. The shadow boxes, awaiting new tenants, have empty spaces where beauty and excitement in picture form had attracted the passersby. Letters lie on the sidewalk in seeming disorder as young men in colorless street coats and colorful uniform trousers sort them out and hand them up the ladder to the one who will fit them into the marquee. There is the glitter of flitter on the ground, which came free when the displays were T@moved. OON THERE is no longer the warmth of human presence and all is dark. And dreary, for there is no place in all the world so lonely as a theatre lobby after midnight. In the shadows the cans whica contain uae film are waiting to be picked up and delivered to the place of their next appointment. Again and again they will repeat their me chanical imitation of life, entertaining the contented and helping the weary weave new dreams. he imaof perSpirit, or its