Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1924-Mar 1925)

30 EXHIBITORS HERALD February 21, 1925 Pro-Dis-Co and DeMille Staff Barrett €• Kiesling^ personal representa^ tive of Cecil B. DeMille as well as publicity director of the DeM i I I e productions, which in the future will go through P. D. C. George W, Harvey, who is advertising manager of Producers Distributing Corporation, which has just signed a contract for the distribution of DeMille attractions. L, M, Goodstadt, who for seven years was casting director at the Lasky Belasco studio. More recently he has been business manager of the Cecil B. DeMille production units. Charles J, Giegerich, prominent publicist who is director of the publicity department of Producers Distributing Corporation, Giegerich is well known in film circles. Joseph 0*Sullivan, editor of **The Dotted Line,** the house organ and business promotional journal which is published in the interest of Producers Distributing Corporation, Frank Vrson, codirector with Paul Iribe of ** F o r t y Winks** and **Changing Husbands** and **The Night Club,** Former assistant director for Cecil B, De Mille and Marshall Neilan, DeMille Allies With Pro-Dis-Co in N ew $10,000,000 Concern (^Continued from page 27) ford and Robert Edeson, together with such eminent writers and directors as Jeane Macpherson, author of “The Ten Commandments,” Beulah Marie Dix and Bertram Millhauser, Bradley King, scenarist of “Anna Christie,” Olga Printzlau, Frank Urson, Paul Iribe and others of importance whose deals are approaching the point of signature. Organizes Stock Company Mr. DeMille announces that he will organize at once a stock company similar to the famous “Lasky Stock” which he organized ten years ago and from which he developed such stars as Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, the late Wallace Reid, Bebe Daniels, Agnes Ayres, Beatrice Joy and Rod La Rocque. This company will supply players for both the Cecil DeMille and Christie-Hollyw'ood studios, providing special opportunities for the development of young players. Producing headquarters of the new corporation will be at Culver City, Cal. In addition to two or three pictures to be personally directed by DeMille each year, he will supervise between ten and twenty others. In addition to the DeMille productions, the company will continue to distribute the productions of Hunt Stromberg, whose stars are Priscilla Dean and Harry Carey; A1 and Charles Christie, producers of “Charley’s Aunt” with Syd Chaplin, and other farce features ; and the Belasco production, “Friendly Enemies,” starring Weber and Fields, now being completed in Hollywood. Commenting on the future program, DeMille said : “We will shortly announce a number of productions from big independent players and producers who have been attracted by our plans but whose names cannot yet be announced. The soundness of the policy to encourage film tndeperidence has already been, and ivill continue to be, a magnet for those really big screen people who desire a more adequate outlet for new, interesting and startling ideas.” Has Strong Financial Backing The officers of Producers Distributing Corporation, P'. C. Munroe, president ; Raymond Pawley, vice-president and treasurer ; Paul C. Mooney and John C. Flinn, vice presidents, will continue in charge of the company augmented by DeMille and his associates, and the increased interest in the company’s affairs by a strong financial group of which Jeremiah Milbank, of New York, is prominent. Motion Picture Capital Corporation, the corporation which is already financing the Exhibitors to Pledge Support (Special to Exhibitors Herald) NEW YORK, Feb. 10. — Exhibitor leaders here are keenly interested in the coalition between the forces of Cecil B. De Mille and Producers Distributing Corporation and say they see much in the deal which will redound to their benefit. At this week’s meeting of the Theatre Owners’ Chamber of Commerce the matter will be discussed and it is expected the organization will go on record with a resolution promising support. One exhibitor leader, a man nationally known, but who for what he believes to be good and sufficient reasons, declined to allow his name to be used when asked to analyze the situation from his viewpoint, did so as follows ; “What does it mean to the exhibitor? “1 It means that he no longer has to accept big blocks because he fears if he doesn’t take them he won’t be able to get enough scattered independent product to insure an adequate supply of material. **2^Indcpcndence forestalls the coming of a day when group control might be so strong that ;:roups could absolutely dictate how he should run his business. “What does it mean to the Independent producer? “1 — It is the first time an adequate threefold plan of financing distribution and production has been offered. “2 It is the first time independents have gained a financial backing in one place of over ten million dollars. “3 Independents will be permitted more efiicient and economical production through elimination of duplicate efforts in the plan for a two studio alliance DeMille and Hollywood studios. “4— New plan gives independents all the value of unit control without the disadvantage of a trade mark which might blanket the fresh individual ideas which this plan seeks to encourage. “What does it mean to the industry as a whole? “1 It throws the industry into wide open competition. It insures that always many minds will work on pictures and that never will progress be stifled through filtering all thought through a small restricted opening. “2 It means that the prestige and the name of DeMille, long associated with one of the biggest companies, is placed definitely behind the independents. “3— The financial backing of the new proposition indicates that one of the biggest financial groups in New York has placed the stamp of its approval on a wide open policy in the film world. output of twenty or more independent producers for a half dozen different releasing organizations, has made contracts with Cinema Corporation of America under which it will cooperate in the financing of a several million dollar program of pictures during the coming five years. Motion Picture Capital Corporation was organized in 1923 by Frank R. Wilson, now its president, who has associated in the enterprise a strong group of downtown capitalists. In behalf of Producers Distributing Corporation the following statement was made by F. C. Munroe, president: “Since the present Producers Distributing Corporation was organized seven years ago it has been our aim to gather to ourselves some outstanding figure of the industry who would attract capital and secure support for our desire to maintain for the theatre owners of the world a healthy and normal condition of wide-open competition. Cecil DeMille exceeded our fondest hopes. He was not only willing to accept our original program but to carry it much further, to become an equal partner with us in building this idea and ideal into a thing which would benefit not only the commercial side of the industry, but more important, the artistic side; the side which will make more valuable and uplifting to the adults and children of America the stories they see fla.shed on 20,000 screens.” That the new alliance will bring into being a number of strongly constructive production policies was stated by John C. Flinn, vice president of Producers Distributing Corporation, who said : “Cecil DeMille was the last thing we needed to lead the way in the vitally important struggle for a continuation of independent thought on the screen. With him we will be able to build for the future as well as adequately supply the present. No one exceeds in ability to pick and encourage talent than the man who developed as stars Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, the late Wallace Reid, Agnes Ayres, Bebe Daniels, Jack Holt, Leatrice Joy and Rod La Rocque. His genius in that direction will have a special outlet through the medium of the stock company which will contract players for use by either the Cecil DeMille studios or the Hollywood-Christie studios. This stock company will be similar to the famous Lasky stock company which Cecil DeMille organized over ten years ago and which has been the source of more outstanding stars than have been developed through any other single channel. Through this two-studio stock company, we will be able to keep a fine group of real artists continuously busy exclusively in the productions we release.”