Exhibitors Herald World (Oct-Dec 1930)

Understanding Each Other IN the Better Theatres section this week, the HeraldWorld presents an article which can well be read and studied by everyone connected with the motion picture industry. Its author is Gordon S. Mitchell and its title is "'The New Motion Picture and the Public." Mr. Mitchell expresses in clear and interesting terms the essential difference between audience reaction to the silent and the sound picture. It is distinction which most theatre owners are vaguely conscious of but have not fully recognized. Writing from the studios, the author shows a surprising knowledge of the problems confronting the showman in attempting to meet the revolutionary changes which have taken place in the business. It will especially surprise the theatre owner who has felt the studio hasn't "given a whoop" about what the exhibitor was up against. In presenting this article, the HeraldWorld feels that it is not only providing interesting and instructive material but it is contributing toward a better understanding between the two extreme ends of the business, the people who make the pictures and the people who have to sell them to the public. Studio workers have had serious problems. They have made mistakes. At times, it may have appeared, their progress toward perfection has been unnecessarily slow. But they have striven to improve the product. "Perfect pictures," as Mr. Mitchell concludes, "come closer to attainment only as cooperation and understanding is extended throughout the entire field of motion pictures— the studio, the laboratories — and the theatre." The Laugh Starts AN object lesson in what is apt to happen when out■*■ *■ siders are dragged into a controversy within the industry is apparently to be written in Houston. Will Horwitz, president of the Texas Allied Exhibitors, who after attempting to fight a fair adjustment of the protection arrangements in his home city countered with an ill advised campaign for state censorship, is already on the defensive in his own town. The Gargoyle, which looks over the happenings in Houston in a sophisticated manner, not only declines to take him seriously but cannily looks in back of his public declarations for his ulterior motives. "Will Horwitz feels cut up over our having questioned his sincerity in this censorship crusade," the Gargoyle comments in a recent issue. "He carried two column ads in the Tuesday dailies (we thank him for the free ride), bought a couple of columns in this issue (we thank him for the revenue) and wrote us a letter, which you'll find over in the letter column, all telling us how wrong we are in suggesting that he is not the soul of consistency or that he mav have reasons other than moral or patriotic ones for urging a state censor board. "Not being a mind reader nor having attended his little private censorship parties, we naturally could not be expected to know how valiantly Will has been fighting in his dark room for purity on the screen, for lo ! these many moons. We'll take his word for it, though we'd like to know why he's hiding the light of his crusading virtually under a bushel for so long. We'd never thought of him as a shrinking violet up to the present. "But, in his several answers, Will failed to mention the chief criticism we levelled against his campaign — namely, that he'll have to rouse the forces of Intolerance, if he hopes to get anywhere with it. Is Will ready to join the fellowship which includes Frank Norris, Atticus Webb, Tom Heflin, Bishop Cannon? Houston's own reverend John E. Green would not only like to see censorship, he'd like to see Will and all his fellow exhibitors squelched, abolished, put out of business. He hasn't gone to a show in twenty years. Shall we now be entertained by Will's enlisting the Reverend in his crusade? Politics are said to make strange bed-fellows. So, apparently, do crusades. "And while we grant Will a certain consistency, while we may sympathize to some extent with his troubles as an independent theatre owner, we're still not dissuaded from thinking that his primary purpose in harassing the Movie Barons, as he calls them, with a threat of censorship is to secure concessions, agreements from them which he thinks necessary to the profitable operation of his theatres. We wonder, in other words, how long after they had met his terms, he would retain any active interest in the censorship business.'' Horwitz has started a laugh. It will probably reecho long after he would like to forget it. AAA Advertise and Work ADOLPH ZUKOR, one of the outstanding successes in ■the motion picture business, standing at the head of a company which has made a success in all three of the major branches of the business, production, distribution and exhibition, shares the secret of his success with the entire industry. "Advertise and work" is the message he gave interviewers in Los Angeles a few days ago. He has said the same thing many times before. It is a phrase which will bear reiteration. And it is particularly timely at the present moment. Exhibitors HERALD-WORLD MARTIN J. QUICLEY, Publisher and Editor Incorporating Exhibitors Herald, founded 1915; Moving PictureWorld, founded 1907; Motography, founded 1909; The Film Index, founded 1906. Published every Friday by Quigley Publishing Company, 407 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago; Martin J. Quigley, President; Edwin S. Clifford, Secretary; Georg* Clifford, Assistant Treasurer. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. All contents copyrighted 1930 by Quigley Publishing Company. All editorial and business corre•pondeiice should be addressed to the Chicago office. Better Theatres, devoted to the construction, equipment and operation of theatres, is published every fourth week as section two of Exhibitors HeraldWorld, and the Film Buyer, a quick reference picture chart, is published every fourth week as Section Two *i Exhibitors HibaldWorld. Other Publication*: The Motion Picture Almanac, Pictures and Personalities, published annually; Tie Chicagoaw.