The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

Page 172 The Educational Screen it was a large sum, and that is why it was not then a going concern. He was negotiating for backing among his Wall Street friends, and there were indications, he said, that it might be forthcoming soon. It might be tomorrow, it might be next year, and, then again, it might not come for a decade. How ever it might be Skinner was quite resigned to waiting. Whenever the happy day arrived, he would be found still working to perfect the plan. As it happened, it was a decade, indeed, and, just as he had said, when it came he was at work on the plan. In the interval he had become an organizer of Motion Picture Research Council and treasurer of the Payne Fund survey of the eflfect of photoplay exhibitions on children. Most of the time he had kept driving at his ambitious paper project, correcting it here and there as improved ideas came to his notice, noting the names and capabilities of those whom he would put on his payroll when the zero hour arrived and he might go over the top. But all the while he was losing, in the purple byways of his dream, more and more of his once considerable per- sonal fortune. Long since he had had to give up the employment of a scout to uncover news of current developments, although Brooks, then employed in the New York office of Educational Pictures, tried to do all he could to help, without pay, out of the goodness of his heart. When I talked to Brooks about Skinner in later years, he wagged his head in mixed admiration and vexation at the man's tenacity of purpose; but at the same time he renewed his pledge of fealty. Truly the star which guides us is not a seeable thing but an Idea! In 1941 and 1942 I was to work under the same roof and in close association with Walter Brooks, he distributing and I producing Latin-American propaganda films for the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; and I " was to realize then that Walter Brooks had gained a reward for that experience after all—an unmatched over- view of the non-theatrical field, an acquaintance with its practical problems and pursuits, born of his inquiring habits as those had been fostered by Skinner. Towards the close of 1935, George Skinner, then residing at Scarborough- on-Hudson in the benevolent sphere of Frank Vanderlip's community influence and not so far from the principal Rocke- feller home at Pocantico Hills, found a growing appreciation in the Rockefeller Foundation. The powers there were real- izing that a time was nearing for im- portant accomplishments of films in education, and that Skinner had sifted and developed useful material. Probably, also, he had by then reduced his needs to less than two million dollars for a suitable start. The practicable use of 16mm films, instead of the 3Smm variety which had prevailed at the time when he had talked with me, must have made a sharp difference. Anyway, in the Rocke- feller establishment, he had found at last someone who really could make it all come true, someone who was practi- cally interested in studying the details with him. December 21, almost on the eve of a happy Christmas, he expected to hear the long-awaited verdict. On that same day, curiously, he had an appointment at a friend's office, for his first meeting with F. S. Wythe. For some inexplicable reason these two men, so much akin in spirit, had never come together. Now Wythe, finding his own plans so fre- quently overlapping those of Skinner, was seeking a possible merger of their interests. Wythe came to the office punc- tually, and the friend said: "George is certain to be here any minute. He never misses an appointment." Nevertheless, an hour elapsed without his arrival. The friend said: "I've never known him to be late before. Something extraordinary must have happened." A little later a phone call came from Mrs. Skinner. Something extraordinary had happened— just about an hour previous George Skinner had fallen dead. Some of his shocked friends, aware of his latest movements, put their heads together and compared notes. They learned that just before the end someone Probably the first to organize the exhibition of advertising films in theatres was Harry Levey. He was less successful, though, in trying to build a non-theatrical circuit. had phoned Skinner to say that the money for his scheme was assured, was coming through at last, after all those years, all that struggle and heartache. The con- clusion was irresistible—and grimly iron- ical : the good news had been too much for George Skinner to bear. The Opportunity Man Then there is the case of the gentle- man who, at last reports and after some years of real estate promotion on Long Island, has been recently concerned with the production and sale of novelty adver- tising displays in New York. He also had a nationwide plan for non-theatrical distribution and, in his case, he actually saw it in practice. I refer to Harry Levey. What is more, Harry Levey was proba- bly the first to attempt a national cir- culation of advertising films in theatres. About 1915 he had been in charge of Carl Laemmle's industrial department at Universal. His developed plan there had been to produce advertising reels which theatres were given free to run and for which the owners paid Univer- sal. Moreover, early in 1919 he and Don Carlos Ellis arranged with Dr. Francis Holley to distribute through Universal, films for the Bureau of Com- mercial Economics, announcing that thereby the industrialist owners could more readily check up on the actual ex- hibitions. Apparently the system of obtaining screens for industrial films in this man- ner found no serious hitch until about 1920. Just what happened then was one of those behind-the-scene mischances that do not ordinarily reach public know- ledge ; but it resulted in Harry Levey's departure from Universal. The Goodyear Rubber Company was reported to have contracted with Universal to provide a reel and distribution in certain time and quantity for a sum named as $100,000. The reel was duly produced and shipped as free "filler" entertainment to a num- ber of regional exhibitors who had been known to cooperate along similar lines previously. Time passed and the prints were returned to the exchanges. There was natural assumption that their screen- ings had taken place, and Goodyear was billed for the service. A check on all exhibitors who are supposed to run advertising reels is a difficult matter at any time, and it was especially so in those days when the present efficient checking machinery did not exist. So, when it transpired that Goodyear had made its own check and declared that some of the avowed exhibi- tions never occurred, it was up to Uni- versal to prove its point. The story on the street was that Laemmie was obliged to send out an especial booker to have the reel shown as agreed and that he expended the entire $100,000 in doing it. Something of the same sort is said to have caused Henry Ford to sever his extensive business relations with a non - theatrical producer - distributor in Detroit, a firm now out of existence. But the normal difficulties of such a situation easily temper possible blame for Levey. Besides, in Levey's instance, there may have been extra-special circumstances to excuse culpability. When Levey began at Universal he had had one Sydney S. Cohen as his oflice boy. Cohen was an exceedingly bright lad who rose rapidly to become a prominent New York exhibi- tor. In time he was even to become pres- ident of The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America. While Levey was still at Universal Cohen was telling his fellow exhibitors the inside story of how Universal was providing those "free" advertising reels. "You are fools to run ad films for nothing," Cohen is reported to have said in effect to his business friends, "because Universal is making a million dollars a year for itself out of the deal." The Universal annual net was probably not a million dollars, even with such formidable advertisers as Goodyear and the Larkin Soap Company; but it (Continued on page 190)