The Exhibitor (Nov 1938-May 1939)

SPECIAL FEATURES HOLLYWOOD NEWSREEL • HELLO FOLKS! This is WARREN STOKES speaking to you from Hollywood over the JEP network. Now in our 20th anniversary number we open the switch on our new weekly communication service over this same network. Henceforth we shall be talking to you regularly every Wednesday at this same time. • MORE SPOT NEWS from the production center, a faster reviewing service, pertinent paragraphs on who’s who and what’s what in Hollywood, timely production notes giving you a faster constructive news service, with the JEP facilities speeded up to keep pace with your industry — the fastest growing industry in the world. Well, it’s fast anyway! • HOLLYWOOD’S FUTURE TALENT will come from the small towns, according to TED LESSER, head of Paramount’s talent department, who tells us that most of the top stars of todav are small town products. Most of the top grossing pictures are in the same catagory. Hollywood fails to realize that most of its fans are in the small towns, that the small town theatres, collectively, prove a better business barometer for its products than the metropolitan situations. Success of the new family type pictures proves thar down to earth stories are relished as much on Broadway as in Punkin Cener. Hollywood itself is still a small town. The press agents have made it look lots bigger than it really is. And they’ve made some small town graduates look so big they’re too big to speak to the press agents anv more. If the producers could put half as much showmanship in the product as the publicity boys put into the press releases, exhibitors would be able to introduce the new generation to an SRO sign. • TWENTY YEARS AGO America fought to make the world safe for Democracy. Twenty years ago the exhibitors fought for lower rentals. You could see a picture for a nickle then. Today the customer is lucky if he gets a nickle back out of a half dollar — and the exhibitors are still fighting for the nickle. The producers are making pictures just as good today as they did 20 years ago but for some reason or other they cost more money. Now the producers are fighting for a nickle. CECIL B. DeMILLE explains the situation: "If the movie fan takes his wife or girl friend to see 'Union Pacific,’ and it costs one dollar,” he says, ”65 cents of that dollar will stay right in the fan’s own community.” • PUTTING THE CART under the horse is Movieland’s latest achievement. The horse represents the mount of a New York policeman in the RAY MILLAND-OLYMPE BRADNA film, "Say It In French.” A small European automobile secured for the scene was photographed going through a hotel lobby and then scooting under a horse’s belly. That’s one way to put a belly laugh in a picture! • AN OLD TIMER comes back this week in the person of MARY MacLAREN. Twenty years ago, she was a famous star of silent pictures. You will see her hitting the comeback trail with vigorous stride in "The Duke of West Point,” an EDWARD SMALL production for United Artists. Her work in this picture caused Hollywood to take a second look at her acting talents and she has signed on the dotted line with Warner Brothers to play a supporting role in the new BETTE DAVIS picture, "Dark Victory.” After 20 years we might extend greetings to MARY MacLAREN. • BEST PICTURE OF THE WEEK is "The Great Waltz.” In previewing this picture, I was impressed by the logical use of the muchly abused production value. For the first time in a decad? I saw cinema entertainment enhanced by the value of massive and decorative sets which really belonged to a perfect whole, moving the story forward, and playing a vital part in the emotional conflict from beginning to end. It introduces to the screen a new personality, MILIZ^ KORJUS, a European import with a magnificent Greetings J. Samuel Berkowitz FINE ARTS PICTURES RELEASING THROUGH GRAND NATIONAL PICTURES, Inc. voice, a refreshing personality, and a box office bet of the first magnitude. And that brings us to the end of another edition of your Hollywood Newsreel. In the next 20 years, who knows? Maybe exhibitors will learn the Hollywood method of putting things on the budget plan and be able to ascertain how much a picture is going to cost after it is released and be one jump ahead of the producers who now know what it is going to cost before it is made. This is WARREN STOKES, saying So Long Folks. LOCAL NEWSREEL The poster exhibit of the MPGY drive, illustrating the development of the movie from a peepshow to modern features, is now being shown in schools, libraries throughout Massachusetts. Originally intended for a theatre lobby display, the popularity of the exhibit led to requests for its use by educational institutions. November 15, 19)8 ON YOUR DESK EVERY WEDNESDAY