The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (Sep-Oct 1922)

— SSS eee ETUC OO EET ATT laa Leste lll The Film Renter and Moving Picture News OT TT SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1922. SIXPENCE. » Google ERNEST FREDMAN EDITS “FILM RENTER.” N announcing that Ernest W. Fredman has now taken up the reins of office of Managing Editor of Tue Fium RENTER, I am sure that all our friends in the film business will realise it would ill become me as Managing Director of the paper to write too eulogistic an account of the personality, the ability, and the undoubted power of Fredman. Suffice it to say that no announcement made in this journal has given greater satisfaction to myself and all my co-directors than to announce that Ernest Fredman is now Managing Editor. At the same time he does not in any way relinquish his previous position as Director, nor his energies in any other departments which have occupied him solely in the past. I have therefore asked one of the most notable of film pressmen—Mr. G. A. Atkinson—to write just what he feels about ‘* Freddy.”’ “FREDDY.” 66 REDDY ”’ is not so much an entity EF as an explosion, a kind of intellectual bomb or human voleano. This is an attempt to express the inexpressible. Those who have heard him, and most of us have, in the full eruption of oratory or social discourse will understand what I mean. He has the gift of making one feel like a swimmer in a sea of effervescence. To describe him would be like trying to lassoo a cyclone or to put a lid on Vesuvius. The only essential difference, in fact, between ‘ Freddy ’’ and Vesuvius. is that Vesuvius is sometimes inactive. So much for ‘t Freddy,’’ the ‘* enfant terrible "’ of a thousand dinners, luncheons, expeditions, and social gatherings, in this most friendly and convivial of trades, And Fredman. We are all agreed that he is a demon business getter. We are all agreed, I suppose, that he has more dynamic force than almost anyone you care to name, No man is better equipped for the post, either by knowledge, intuition, experience, now for or personal quality. The main thing is that a dvnamie force in film journalism is now in charge of the editorial of the Firm RENTER. Fredman is fairly launched on a career. Fredman has now a medium in which he ean express himself freely and fully. I do not mean to suggest that Fredman’s opinions have over been other than unfettered,. In the business of drawing blood from opponents he is as diffident as a mosquito, but it is one thing to express F. NORMAN-WRIGHT. By G. A. ATKINSON (‘‘ Daily Express’’ Cinema Correspondent). opinions as a staff writer and quite another to express them as an editor. The staff writer is concerned with tactics. The editor is concerned with strategy. We all know Fredman's quality as a tactician. Now we are going to see him in the réle of strategist. The film trade is rather in the position of King John when they told him that Richard had escaped from captivity. ‘* Take heed,’ they said, ** for the Devil is unchained!’’ A lion-hearted journalist, a crusader if ever there was one, has come into his own. He will not fail to he vital and provocative and interesting. He will arouse, I hope, all the devils of opposition. Any crime but lack of interest is forgiveable in journalism, and nothing ever happens in film trade journalism. It is a profession almost as respectable and nearly as stereotyped as banking. Perhaps it is no less profitable. Something is now going to happen in film trade journalism. I look forward to being in violent disagreement with Fredman on many happy occasions. Wardour Street will be in eruption every Saturday. We shall all read the Fitm RENTER because we are all a little under the spell of the most formidable personality that the film trade has ever known. Behind Fredman’s editorship there will be his terrific personality, his absolute fearlessness, his indomitable will, his shrewd cynicism, his immense good-fellowship, and his hurricane flow of ideas. Something is really going to happen in film-trade journalism.