The Film Renter and Moving Picture News (May-Jun 1923)

to THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS. May 12, 1923. STARS. AND THEIR SALARIES—Contintied. a certain standard. I had considerable difficulty in doing so, because at one time, thanks to war conditions, we had become dangerously insular, and the American buyers were not disposed even to view British productions. America was an oyster, anda star name was the only way to open it. I engaged Herbert Brennon, the well-known American producer, and Miss Marie Doro, in spite of ridicule and prophesies of failure, and made two productions, ‘t Twelve Ten” and ‘‘ The Sinless Sinner.” Their names opened the doors of the U.S.A. renters to me, and I sold both my productions extremely well in that country. This sounds as though I practised in complete opposition to what I am now preaching, but this is not so, for I undertook a sane commercial transaction and not a gamble. Had America refused to buy my productions I still should have made a'‘profit on the rest of the world’s markets. In other words, I was not banking all on one throw, nor were salaries and productions then bloated to the top-heavy conditions of tho present day. To-day, the world markets, exclusive of U.S.A., do not permit the engagement of American producers and stars at their own terms, and the only justification for asking or paying fabulous salaries is, therefore, simply and solely, on American sale. Thus, if the player believes in his, or her, hold upon the American public, and, yet, thinks it worth while to come over to work in our studios, let him or her accept the limited salary we can afford to pay out of our known markets and take a percentage of our American sales. If there is no sale in U.S.A. the artiste is not worth the immense salary demanded. If there is a sale, tho artiste henefits to the extent of his or her market value amongst their cwn people. Our business men could raise no objection to such a scheme, for their expenditure would be no greater than would have been the case without the importation of an American player. In other words, he has the stars without the stripes. APOLOGY TO CAPTAIN A. J. BARBER. ITH reference to the comments we made in our W issue of March 10, and also with reference to the letter signed by Mr. J. T. Hallinan, which appeared in Tue Fity Renrer of the issue dated Marc! 17 last, and the writs claiming damages for libel against us as publishers, and our printers and our editor, by Messrs. Norman, Hart and Mitchell, solicitors to Captain Barber, we wish to say that we, personally, had no desire to comment adversely upon Captain Barber. We know full well the honourable reputation he bears, and had we realiscd that our comments and this letter would be regarded as libellous by him, we should not have published them. To our knowledge, Captain Barber worked excecdingly hard in the Tax Abolition Committee Campaign. With reference to the honorarium to Captain Barber by the Tax Abolition Committce, this was voted out, of general funds cf the Committee quite unknown to Captain Barher, and we are-sorry that Captain Barber should have been caused annoyance by our publishing the same. We know that in full committee, voluntarily and unanimously, two different sums of £250 each were voted him as recompense for the valuable work he had done. We therefore wish to tender to Captain Barber our sincere apologies for any injury he may have sustained by reason of the publication of the letter and our comments in question. IS BRITAIN TIRED OF AMERICAN ‘ PRODUCTIONS? (By GUY NEWALL.) OUR article on high salaries for American stars greatly Y interested me, and. in the main my views on the subject coincide with your own. Personally, 1 have had no experience in the matter, inasmuch as T have never angaged an; American artiste, although the suggestion has frequently been put to,me thet it might he wise to do so. In these days, when the question of film finance seems to have become almost insurmountable, ono naturally welcomes, from a producer’s point of view, any movement that may tend towards improvement in film production. It, by paying these huge sums to American stars, British producers are able to increase their returns by the capture of the American markets, I would say that it is all to the good, inasmuch as then they could afford to spend morc on production ; but the salaries mentioned do seem to be outrageous. I feel, also, that the British public is tired of the greater number of American screen stars, and that the money spent on employing them in English films might much more advantageously be used in exploiting new talent. I was told only the other day by a high official of one of tho big American renting firms over here that their pictures are leased to the British organisation for £4,600 per picture. This organisation controls some of the biggest American stars, so that if the exhibitor can secure these films for the price that this organisation can afford te rent them under these circumstances, is he going to pay the price which an English producing firm must demand for the same, or equivalent star, to whom it has had to pay such an enormous fee? Nine-tenths of American films these days are made from old, stupid, impossible storics, ridiculous in the extreme, and entirely lacking in humanity, but (and this is a very big ‘t but”) ' they are so beautifully, lavishly, and cleverly ‘‘ dressed up,’’ photographed, and ‘* presented '’ that they ‘‘ get over.”” If only we could learn how to do likewise, and had the means to spend the necessary time and money on dcing it, then we might stand a chance of getting a permanent position in the American markets, for our stories are better, our scenarios, as Americans themselves admit, are better, and our acting can be as good. AN EXHIBITOR ON BRITISH TALENT. (By THOS. F. GILLETT, Chairman, Gillett’s Pictures, Ltd.) EFERRING to Mr. Fredman’s article in your current R week’s issue on the policy of engaging expensive artistes from America to assist in producing British films. I endorse many of his remarks, but I strongly disagree with him when he says ‘it is an admitted fact that we have a real dearth of screen talent in England." There is, in this country, talent cqual to anything that Amicrica can send us. has not, at present, the opportunity of being developed and used to full advantage by the British producer. When, in time, British productions grow te become a menace to the present American monopoly, as I feel confident they can if given a fair ebance, it will be found that there is abundant talent for screen acting, and that outstanding successes depend as much upon the producer as upon the artiste. If any exhibitor pays an enhanced price merely because a film stars an expensive American artiste, well, it’s his funcral. This policy of engaging expensive Amcricah artistes will, if continued, reduce the already limited amount of work for our own screen stars, driving the best of our talent to America, and, in time, making us even more dependent on that country for our films. The real difficulty is that this talent’