Exhibitors Herald World (Oct-Dec 1930)

44 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD November 15, 1930 -* 3he Sound ^>o>c~ STAR GAZER HOLLYWOOD Mr. Garfinkle, the best salesman in the whole exchange, is talking to Joe Holstein, who owns the Peekaboo Movie Emporium. Mr. Garfinkle is trying to sell Mr. Holstein his company's product for the new year, but Mr. Holstein is doubtful. Garfinkle : Like a brother I'm talking to you. Why don't you buy our pictures and be done with it? Holstein : Ah ha ! Buy your pictures and be done with it. Just like I suspect. Buy your pictures and I'm done with the business. Garfinkle : Listen, Joe, this is no time for jokes. I'm talking to you man to man. Here we offer you pictures with the biggest stars in the industry, Mary Moozle, Ida Filch. . . . Holstein: Ida who? Garfinkle : Filch, Ida Filch, what's the matter, you never heard of the big Broadway star, Ida Filch? Holstein : No. Garfinkle : Joe, stop your joking, you'll get me angry. Every idiot knows Ida Filch. Holstein : Fm not running an insane asylum. No idiots see my pictures. If you think you can palm off this Finch person on me for the price of a special you're crazy, I'd sooner open a golf course. Garfinkle : Her name is Filch, not Finch, you're making me mad, Joe. Such a product we got ! A wild west story. . . . Holstein : Old fashioned. A mystery picture. . . . Again mystery pictures? A horse racing picture. . . . Again horse racing pictures? Joe, you're making me mad, this product is absolutely the best 'Paris Green" alone will gross even more than "Oh, Garfinkle : Holstein : Garfinkle : Holstein : Garfinkle : in the industry. Why, Ho, Ohio" did last year. Holstein : I lost $200 on "Oh, Ho, Ohio." Garfinkle: Listen, Joe, don't exaggerate. Always you're losing money, and last month you bought a new car. Holstein : Who's asking you about my private business you big nose you. All I need now is you should tell everybody this territory is making a lot of money so maybe Warners and Paramount and Fox and Radio should build theatres here tomorrow. Garfinkle: I give up. Better I should try and sell a sailor roller skates. In all my life, fourteen years I'm in this business. I never saw such a dumber like you. . . Holstein : Noo, get out for my part. I lose money now, I could lose money without your company. Good bye. . . (Garfinkle picks up his stills, his books, and begins to leave. Holstein calls after him). Moe! What! I'm going to play at Sam's tonight. Why not? But remember, no more than a quarter limit. Sure, sure. You better call for me, so the missus can pick up your wife at Holstein : Garfinkle: Holstein : Garfinkle : Holstein : Garfinkle : the house. Holstein : Garfinkle.Holstein : every cent. Believe me, I All right. Well, dumber, you going to sign this paper or not? I'll sign it, I'll sign it, good-bye the whole business. I'll lose I want to wait for the other salesmen. Every year it's the same, next year. . . (In New York Harry Blumberg picks up a memo, reads it, and turns to his vice president, George Schlicht.) Blumberg: See, Schlicht, this Garfinkle is a salesman. I took one look at him and I sized him up. He sells. He's a modern go-getter. Business in the modern way. Nothing old-fashioned about him. Right to the bone. —NORMAN KRASNA. HOLLYWOOD. ALL-AROUND MAN Amateur boxer — football star — musician — composer — executive — director — lawyer — dialog writer — 'Creator of story ideas — casting director — adapter of fiction to motion pictures — author. No, this isn't an enumeration of the persons necessary to make a motion picture. It is just one man. That man is Leo McCarey, just turned 32, and one of the leading directors in the motion picture business. He was, at one time, vice-president of Hal Roach studios. He teamed Laurel and Hardy and got them headed for fame and fortune. He writes his own songs and plays them well. He is the sort of fellow to whom you can hand a magazine story and forget about it until it is previewed as a motion picture. He talks pictures, thinks pictures and makes them. Following the completion of Fox's "Shepper-Newfounder," McCarey will pack up and move to the United Artists studios for some heavy work. The things which have made the producers McCarey-conscious are numerous. The first was "The Sophomore." This was followed by "Let's Go Native" for Paramount. On its heels was "Wild Company" for Fox. McCarey, since he was graduated from the law school of the University of Southern California and admitted to the bar, has done practically everything there is to do but be an actor. "I'll do that next," he told me. "That is, if I get a chance." 1 had lunch with him at the Fox studios. I tried to talk with him about himself, but the idea didn't work out at all. The above listed facts were assembled by talking with his friends. He has an amazing sense of humor which he uses to ward off any attempts to gain any information about himself. He says more in a few close-cropped sentences than most men do in a lot of big worded paragraphs. The main reason for this is that he has a camera eye and works on the theory of the Chinese proverb : "One picture is worth 10,000 words." Every time I tried to talk about Leo McCarey he started talking about his next picture, which he has handled from the time Fox purchased it and asked him what he could do with it. When he started in, the story had three characters and was a rather short short story. When McCarey got through telling me what he had done to it, I was rathered startled. He had picked every piece of copy which had photographic value to it and had patched it up and amplified it until he had a screen play. McCarey has a peculiar faculty. As he talks, the listener can see each scene just as if it were presented on the screen. Only one other director I know can do that, and his years of experience date far back — much farther than That man is Edwin Carewe. another talent which stands There used to be many direcfrom the cuff," or, in other words, just used a few notes to guide them as they put the players through their paces. Today, dialog writers are supposed to write the lines. They do in nine-tenths of the pictures, or even better than that. McCarey, however, still "shoots from the cuff," interpolates his own gag lines, invents his business as it occurs to him, and makes a real go of it. To that three box office successes attest. —CHURCHILL. Leo McCarey's. McCarey has out these days, tors who "shot