Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World (Apr-Jun 1930)

May 3, 1930 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD 37 J. C. Jenkins — His Colyum GREENVILLE, MICH. DEAR HERALD-WORLD: We are back again in Bert Silver’s old town. This may not mean a whole lot to the most of you but to us it means aplenty. If you knew Bert as we do, you would agree that ten minutes conversation with him would be worth more to you than a whole evening with Aimee Semple McPherson, and Aimee is considered quite an entertainer. To hear Bert recount his 60 years’ experience in playing the tanks and cross roads of Michigan with Silver’s Family Theatre Company, would be worth driving many miles, even through Iowa’s mud. Bert says he used to pack ’em in until they had to peel the wall paper off the walls to hold ’em. He loves to hark back to the old days when every show day with the Silver Family Theatre meant a homecoming celebration for the entire community, but now, since he has gone into the picture business, it has become a helluva squabble to see whether they will hang his hide on the front door of his theatre or the back door of a film exchange, and he doesn’t know from one day to another whether he will have fried chicken for dinner or liver smothered in onions. Greenville is a right smart town with something like five thousand Wolverines, the most of whom seem to be hungering for entertainment, as was evidenced by the attendance at his theatre tonight. When the Silver theatre isn’t full to capacity, Bert says he longs to be. He hasn’t been for 35 years, for that the “life for a pint” law here in Michigan makes it necessary that he confine himself to slough water, pollywogs and all. But at that, he says, he’d sooner take the pollywogs than take chances on this enamel remover that has become the popular beverage of tourists who come here from Chicago. We are going over to Bert’s house in the morning and have another gabfest with him, but the chances are that Mrs. Silver will run us both off the premises with a stove poker, for when we get wound up and going good, every hen on the place will lay hard boiled eggs and the roosters will be so disgusted that they will consort with the ducks. Bert still holds the most of the Silver Family together, notwithstanding they have all taken on the matrimonial yoke. Some are in the orchestra, some doing the usher act, one at the door and one in the booth. Mrs. Silver keeps both eyes on Bert to see that he doesn’t become too familiar with some of the customers, a failing she says he has had for a number of years, although one wouldn’t think it to look at him. Without the Silver Family theatre, they would still be bugging potatoes on the ground where Greenville now stands and when Bert’s time expired as mayor the town started back towards the Pottowattamies. * * * There is one thing about Michigan we don’t like. The exhibitors over here are so doggone scared that they will miss out on an issue of the HERALD-WORLD that they keep their subscriptions paid so far in advance that we have to skip a meal now and then, and we don’t like that. There should be something done about that. * * * A year or so ago the producers all joined in an edict that in the future all contracts with directors and stars would contain a clause whereby the contract would be automatically annulled in the event they made a picture having any objectional scenes. The public took this to mean that in the future pictures were to be cleaned up. A few nights ago we saw a picture wherein William Haines and Marie Dressier were starred and which contained a scene wherein Marie was to sign a check for a very large amount to be delivered to Haines and she purposely dropped the pen down the bosom of her dress and Haines deliberately fished it out with a pair of long handled pinchers. This scene was no doubt calculated to get a laugh, and quite likely it would down on Broadway and in some communities where a greater part of the audience is only a half an inch between the eyes, but out in a country where men and women have some regard for decency it only caused disgust and the Haines and Dressier stock took a nose dive toward the zero mark. Some issues back this magazine published a Code of Ethics promulgated by the Hays organization, making it mandatory upon the directors and stars to clean up motion pictures and to eliminate all salacious, suggestive and objectional scenes therefrom. If these rules were promulgated in sincerity and are rigidly adhered to, the motion picture industry will have taken the longest stride forward in its history, but we’ve been connected with the business so long that it has become difficult for us to distinguish between sincerity and hooey. We’ll watch and see, and if there is any hooey crops out, you will hear from us. * * * MT. PLEASANT, MICH. As strange as it may seem (you probably won’t believe it), we are finding these Michigan folks almost as nice as they are over in Nebraska. At Wayland, Mr. and Mrs. Franks had us over to their home for breakfast. Just think of it, getting up and getting breakfast for a guy they had never seen before. Then they drove over to Middleville with us to call on Mr. Bennett, who operates the Ideal theatre. We presume the reason they wanted to do this was because Mr. Bennett is a brother of Mrs. Franks and she seemed rather proud of him, which she has a right to be. But just think of a lady getting up at 6 o’clock and getting a swell breakfast for a guy she never saw before. Can you beat it? Answer: No, you can’t. F. E. Moore of the Liberty at Lakeview, and D. H. Rockwell of the Idlehour at Alma are a couple more boys who impressed us as about as near 100 per cent as they make ’em. Somehow we feel that these boys have spent considerable time west of the Missouri. They act just like Nebraska fellas. Here at Mt. Pleasant we met our old golf comrade, G. A. Ward of the Broadway theatre. G. A. got up a terrible sweat trying to beat us when we were here three years ago, but the score didn’t offer him any consolation whatever. Geologists claim that there is no oil here in Michigan, but you would have hard luck making Mt. Pleasant folks believe that, for there are several producing wells right close to town and the field is only partly developed, and it is causing Mt. Pleasant to swell up like a poisoned pup and she is beginning to look upon Oklahoma and the Panhandle country as second in the petroleum field. They have at least proven one thing, and that is that the geologists don’t know their onions. The Broadway theatre is the bright spot in the community, and Mrs. Ward in the box office adds considerable luster to it. These delightful folks had us to dinner tonight and we filled a vacancy in our inside workings that had become alarming. Mr. Ward has been coaxing us to stay over tomorrow and play golf with him, but our regard for his feelings prevents us from doing it. We just haven’t got the heart to do it. We have uncovered something over here in Michigan that, if true, will be a startling revelation to you exhibitors. At this time we are not sufficiently familiar with the facts to give them to you, but as soon as we get to Detroit and ferret this thing out and get at the actual facts, we will advise you, so it might be well to watch this colyum, for if true, it will be red hot stuff. J. C. JENKINS, The HERALD-WORLD man. P. S.— The HERALD-WORLD covers THE field LIKE an April shower.