The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

Jan. -Feb., 1953 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 17 THOSE CINEMA SIDELINES In our last issue, our contributor " Cadmus " urged publication of figures showing the amount of ancillary earnings by cinemas. Since our article was published, Mr. J. Arthur Rank has referred, during a ccwrf hearing on a quota default, to the fact that, in one year, his organisation lost at the box-office, but made £1,151,000 profit on the sale of ice-cream. And Exhibitors, pleading for entertainment tax reduction, are reported to have declared that " the solvency of the whole industry depends on its miscellaneous sales." Cine Technician, in view of public interest involved, supports the demand for the publication of figures showing ancillary earnings, urithout necessarily endorsing every point made by " Cadmus " in his articles. Below, " Cadmus " replies to comment in Daily Film Renter on his previous article. Preceding this reply, we reprint an extract from the paragraph in the Daily Film Renter. A N article in the November-December issue of the -* Cine-Technician, official journal of the A.C.T., puts the spotlight on ancillary earnings at cinemas. It discusses the sale of ices, soft drinks and other commodities and even directs its gaze at advertising films and slides. This is the conclusion it reaches: " Tempting the sweetness of the public tooth can be a lucrative business, and when carried out by people whose prime job is ostensibly showing films, it is very much our concern." Whose — and why? By what right do the technicians demand to be told publicly of exhibitors' receipts for such sales? Their interest should begin and end with the films which they assist to produce: for their own sakes they might well be satisfied that sometimes the exhibitor can profit from the sale of other products to make up for the lack of profit on the products which they contribute! Do workers on book production demand that booksellers shall disclose the amount of their takings by selling other goods, such as Christmas cards? Do the porters at Covent Garden claim the right to know how much every greengrocer takes from the sale of deep freeze products? Do Fleet Street printing staffs require to know the cigarette sales of every newsagent throughout the country? Let's go the whole hog and have a law to empower each of us to poke his nose as deeply as he likes into everybody else's business! Dear " Commentator," When my forbear, Cadmus of Thebes, sowed dragon's teeth, fierce armed men grew up, and so when I wrote " The Public Tooth " in the Cine Technician, I naturally expected some trouble. Your fierce paragraphs in the November 13th, 1952 Daily Film Renter do, however, surprise me with their vehemence. You will remember that I put a spotlight on the earnings of cinemas from selling ices, soft drinks, nuts, screen advertising space etc., and I made out a case for the publication by the Board of Trade of the exact figures for these sales. " By what right," you ask, " do the technicians demand to be told publicly of exhibitors' receipts for such sales? Their interest should begin and end with the films which they assist to produce; for their own sakes they might well be satisfied that sometimes the exhibitor can profit from the sale of other products to make up for the lack of profit on the products which they contribute!" Leaving aside your intended insult to British film makers, let me tell you again why I believe the Board of Trade should publish the figures for the cinemas' ancillary earnings which it has so diligently collected; I repeat myself because you appear not to have read the first part of my article : "A.C.T. has for a long time maintained that the cinemas and renters get too big a cut from the box-office takings of films, compared with what the production end gets. More could go to the producers — not to mention to the poorlypaid N.A.T.K.E. cinema employees. Knowing this, the cinemas keep very silent about what are called ' ancillary earnings ' . . ." If anyone is to assess fairly whether the cinemas are as impoverished as some of them make out, or whether they are making handsome profits while British production slumps — if we are to get the truth of the situation — then a whole block of facts must be put in the balance. The article was a plea for research into what has been hidden from the public and from film workers. Film employees have a sound working rule — that when the trade press attacks them, they must be in the right ! As a serious journalist you will, not unnaturally, want a better answer than that, and I have tried to give it to you; but I must record that we are not the only ones concerned about the question of ancillary earnings. Fellow Trades Unionists in the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, now campaigning against later shop closing hours, are casting anxious eyes at the cinemas whose competition often keeps local sweet shops open late. And, as your paper recorded on October 1st, 1952, the " Hull Chamber of Trade are urging that every effort should be made by the National Chamber to stop sales of goods in hotels, cinemas and public buildings." But this evoked no editorial comment, though you did deal that day in " Wardour Street Gossip " with screen advertising in a laudatory manner. Only when a Trades Union paper gets interested do you rise to attack. Your fighting paragraphs that arose from my article like the fierce armed men from dragon's teeth will, I trust, by now have the same end as in mythology. The Sparti, as they were called, started slaying each other until only a handful were left — but they never slew . . . Your truly. Cadmus