Exhibitors Herald (1926)

32 EXHIBITORS HERALD November 13, 1926 Re-Takes Ince Firm Sues First National for $1,700,000 Distributing Company Charged With Breach of Contract — Veidt Signs 5 Year Contract With U — Plan Valentino Mausoleum By RAY MURRAY HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 9. — First National Pictures has been named the defendant in a $1,700,000 suit brought by the Thomas H. Ince Corporation. The suit is the result of a contract which Thomas H. Ince is said to have made with First Nationa^ in August, 1921, for the delivery of 30 pictures. UNDER the contracts the Ince corporation states First National received exclusive right to distribute the picture for five years and in return was to fix a permanent exhibition value for each picture and to deliver it to the franchise holders of the organization who had agreed to pay a definite share of the exhibition value. During the time when Ince was making the contract First National enlarged its production activities with the result that it turned out many of its own pictures according to the complaint. Thomas Ince died November 18, 1924, and First National exercised its right to terminate the contract for more pictures and accepted only those which were practically completed. . ... It is further charged that First National instead of continuing to press the sale of Ince pictures substituted its own product and later conceded the Ince films as aconsideration to the exhibitors for taking new First National pictures. Attorneys for the Ince estate have spent three months on a tour of all First National exchanges to examine the books. According to Attorneys Ingle Carpenter and Charles Fourl the Ince corporation will lose $250,000 on the production costs of the last three Ince pictures. * * * Roach to Hear Decision in $ 20,000 Suit Judge James is expected to give his decision this week in the $20,000 suit of Vmgie E. Roe, screen writer, against Hal Roach, film producer, in which Miss Roe in seeking damages on the charge that the two films, “The King of Wild Horses’ and “Black Typhoon” are based on her stories. * * * Plans for a mausoleum for the late Rudolph Valentino are being submitted by architects and designers to S. George Ullman, executor of the estate. A site has been selected. 5|: 5{C Jfc David Kirkland, director, has been signed to write the continuity of “The Deer Stalker,” a Zane Grey story for Famous Players-Lasky. Jack Holt will be featured. * * * Milton Sills returned to Los Angeles Wednesday. He began work yesterday on his next picture. * * * Conrad Veidt has signed a five year contract with Universal and will be starred in “The Man Who Laughs” to be directed by Edward Sloman. a|e i}: sjs John L. Murphy, production manager for Harold Lloyd, is receiving congratulations for his miraculous escape from death in an automobile accident in Cahuenga Pass last week. Murphy lost control of the car on a steep grade and was saved from a 30-foot plunge by two telegraph wires which checked his drop. * * * Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s ball was heldSaturday at the Astor Hotel. Nils Granlund was in charge of entertainment. Many screen celebrities attended. Count Tolstoy, 61, Dons Knee Pants Sooner or later they all don ’em. What? Hollywood rompers! Count Ilyan Tolstoy, son of famous Russian novelist, now in Hollywood has fallen for knickers and colored stockings. The Count appeared on the Inspiration Pictures lot where “Resurrection” sets are being built, with tweed plus fours and bright blue stockings. He had also a red bow tie, checkered cap, tilted at an angle of 45 degrees and blue flannel shirt. Yep, it gets ’em all sooner or later. The Count is sixty-one years young next month. — R. M. Noted Authors Gather in Hollywood Joseph Hergsheimer, famous American writer, arrived in Los Angeles last week and registered at the Ambassador Hotel. He was met at the train by H. L. Mencken, Anita Loos, Aileen Pringle and James R. Quirk. * * * Announcement has been made of the wedding of J. Charles Davis II, to Mary Cecelia Bruning on Sunday, September 26, at Beverly Hills. Mr. Davis is a wellknown film executive and former president of the Vital Exchanges. His wife is known on the screen as Marilyn Mills. * * * James Hogan is directing a “Ranger” picture for F. B. O. * * Margaret Livingston has returned from Lake Arrowhead, Cal., where she played a character-vamp role in F. W. Murnau’s initial Fox picture, “Sunrise.” * * * Patsy Ruth Miller is up to her ears in work once more at the Warner Brothers studio, after her brief Eastern vacation trip. She is playing the feminine lead opposite Monte Blue in “Wolf’s Clothing.” * * * With the arrival of Carl Laemmle on the Coast, Scott Darling, supervising director of comedies, will begin preparations for an extensive production schedule. Darling is now preparing a story based on Universal’s slogan, “It can be done.” * * * Mary McAlister has been signed for the ingenue lead in the Fox production “Love of Women” which John Griffith Wray will direct. * * * Billy Butts Returns to Coast Billy Butts, who has been playing an important role in the Paramount production of “The Canadian” opposite Thomas Meighan in New York, has returned to Hollywood with his mother. WELL, it’s only 37 days to Christmas. We merely print this fact to remind you to do your Xmas shopping early (which you won’t) and to order those cigars, in case you are going to give cigars (personally we like Roi Tans, but any other kind will be accepted) or tell the bank to lay in a stock of gold pieces, in case you give the latter. * * * It has been Christmas all summer for a few Los Angeles newspaper writers of motion picture gossip. They don’t call it Christmas, however, but “surprise parties.” The trouble is these poor writers won’t know when Xmas really comes, they’ll be so loaded with presents by that time. % % % One lucky young lady movie critic found $500 under her plate at one of these “surprise” dinners given by a director’s wife — you see why they call ’em “surprise” dinners— and ever since then every movie critic in town has been looking under his plate and even under the dining-room rug when invited out. ;{: Vote for One News Item: “D. W. Griffith has severed connections with Famous Players-Lasky Corp. He will next direct a big special for Universal ( ), First National ( ), Fox ( ), Warner Bros. ( ), Metro-Goldwyn ( ), P. D. C. ( ), Sennett ( ), Hal Roach ( ), Century ( ).” * * * Rotten Publicity I see the manufacture of carriages fell off 14,000 from 1923 to 1926, thus showing that “Thanks for the Buggy Ride” didn’t help sales any. * * * How Things Have Changed Nobody can accuse Paul Gulick, Universal’s director of publicity, of being a globe trotting publicist. Paul arrived in Hollywood last week, his first trip here in about 20 years. 5*S Jfc ’Raw for “Fancies” In Hollywood, Carter DeHaven is giving a midnight matinee every Saturday, probably for those busy actors who cannot get away from the dinner table in time for the regular show. 5{C What We Want to Hear Raymond Griffith on the Vitaphone. * * * Famous Last Words “No, I don’t want to be a Wampas Baby Star.” 'K 'K And speaking of the Wampas, Tom Reed entertained them last week with witty remarks by Universal’s staff of writers and lion tamers. And the greatest of these was the lion tamer. •J* H4 Lay out my dress suit, James — the black one — have to dress for the premiere of “What Price Glory” at the Carthav Circle. — R. M. Steal Candy , Miss Cash ALBANY, N. Y., Nov. 9. — For the second time in a year, the Rose theatre in Troy, N. Y., owned and operated by Jake Rosenthal, was burglarized last week when twenty boxes of candy were taken after the burglars had overlooked about $330 which Mr. Rosenthal had placed in a steel filing cabinet in his office, rather than in the safe. Finger prints were taken and arrests followed.