Exhibitors Herald (Jul-Sep 1922)

August 12, 1922 EXHIBITORS HERALD 69 STARS IN AMERICAN RELEASING CORPORATION PRODUCTIONS (left to right: Marjorie Daw, Helen Rowland, Frankie Lee, Pete Morrison, Monroe Salisbury, Noah Beery, Monte Blue, Pat O'Malley. ! Quality Pictures Needed Today President of American Releasing Corporation Declares Theatres Presenting Consistently Good Entertainment Will Get Patronage IN the belief that the motion picture will again capture and hold public interest and patronage when the industry deliberately and persistently produces motion pictures deserving of steady public patronage; and with the means of encouraging such prodrction and the determination to launch not merely a large independent distributing company but to be the largest independent distributors, releasing with consistency pictures carefully planned in advance of production with due consideration of all elements of exhibitor and public concern in the way of entertainment values and selling angles (thus insuring box-office success), American Releasing Corporation came into being last February. Today — five months later — with twentyeight exchanges on the North American continent and an increase to thirty-three exchanges September fifteenth, we become the chief and outstanding independent distributor in the magnitude of our plant and structure. This is naturally very gratifying to us. Yet independent merchant strength is not measured by the reach of its physical plant, as important as this is in the general scheme. What is vastly more important is the consistency of quality. Therein is our source of greatest gratification. * * * MOST of the independent distributors have had an uneven quality of product— occasional good or big pictures sandwiched between many not so good. • And this condition obtained as well with other distributors. This is the condition we wished to avoid. So even before perfecting our plant and organization, we began to lay plans very definitely for big By Walter E. Greene President, American Releasing Corp. product of uniformly high quality. That we have gathered in big names, both of players and producers, we are not stressing, as it is not our idea to present them as bell sheep to lead exhibitors into alliance with us. We have first of all big story and dramatic values reinforced with strong casts and able direction. None of our Fall product drifted into us, as so much product does drift into New York to be kicked about and proferred first to one and then to others for distribution. The product ■we have we selected, in most cases, by finding first the values in stories we wanted produced; then finding producers and directors capable of making them best and helping these producers find the players best fitted for the portrayal of their roles; and specifically found the men and women who have written the scenarios and continuities, maintaining close touch with them that they might benefit by our close touch with market requirements. And our knowledge of market requirements is by no means haphazard, but the result of minute tabulation of direct reports from scores of exhibitors throughout the country. IT was our belief five months ago, and is now more firmly our belief, that a sensible, practical, careful distribution could eliminate most of the guesswork from production. Such a distributor must have a correct and accurate editorial judgment of public liking and taste; must know the things that must not be_ produced; must sense the elements of personality that win popularity for players; must keep out of casts those players whose followings have deserted them: must encourage the right kind of newpersonalities into pictures to appeal to tired tastes and amusement appetites. We have done that in every picture that has been taken into American Releasing for distribution for the new season of 19221923. The thines we now see in our finished productions are things that we approved in the continuities. The players we wanted are approved on the screen and those we disapproved are out of the pictures. Pictures can and will be made that we like and will want to distribute — and will distribute. And pictures that we will distribute, but in which we did not have these supervisory privileges, will have to be remarkably fine. Except for the occasional accidental production, we do not believe that any pictures will be better, stronger and more saleable attractions than those we offer which have had the benefits of a distributor's careful advice based on accurate tabulation. WE have not been awed by producer or director names. Great names have, in the past eighteen months, made some atrociously bad pictures — some of the very pictures that have injured patronage throughout the nation. We have sought to reach out among producers and directors whom we know to be real workers— men willing to give everything they have to their job in preference to men drifting along on accumulated reputations. This course, exhibitors will find, has been a wise one on our part. We have obtained better pictures. For the kind of men who will be guided along the above lines, the gateways of our distribution are wide open. We are frankly selective about the product we want and take into American Releasing: this as a protection to these already taken into our mercantile institution. We are merchants who have set out to obtain the kind of wares theatre-owners will want in preference to other kinds of (Concluded on Page 74) iTARS IN AMERICAN RELEASING CORPORATION PRODUCTIONS (left to ri^ht: James Morrison, Frank Losee, J. Barney Sherry, Sheldon Ward Crane, Wm. H. Strauss, Glenn Hunter, Huntley Gordon.