Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (Sep 1935 - Aug 1936)

4 INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS :F I L M BULLETIN INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN Vol. 2 No. 2 Sept. 18, 1935 Issued weekly by Film Bulletin Company, at 1313 Vine Street, Phila., Pa. Mo Wax, editor and publisher; Roland Barton, George F. Nonamaker, associate editors. Telephone: RITtenhouse 4816. Address all communications to Editor, Film Bulletin VIerritt Crawford, Publisher's Representative 1658 Broadway, New York City Room 486 — Circle 7-3094 ADVERTISING RATES Write or call us for our Advertising Rates. Weekly circulation 1000 copies, covering every theatre owner in the Philadelphia and Baltimore-Washington territories. for "immediate action" and said that Fancho and Marco are "victims of a conspiracy" and the theatres involved are "being destroyed." Denial . . . Local attorney for Warners, Samuel Jeffries, denied that such was the case and declared that it was the common practice, in cases of death in the family of counsel, to postpone hearings. He told the court that the U. S. Government is trying to "crucify innocent companies." ' ! October 1st was finally set by the judge for hearing of the temporary injunction plea of the plaintiffs. This was agreed to by Hardy only after the film companies had consented to pay the expenses of the Government's witnesses, which the Federal attorney claimed cost between #4,000 and #5,000. Executives' Trial Sept. 30 . . . This latest delay in the injunction proceedings throws it back to follow the criminal conspiracy trial of the six executives of the three major producers, scheduled for September 30th. Ned E. Depinet, president of RKO; George J. Schaeffer, vice-president of Paramount; Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros.; Herman Starr, president of F irst National; Abel Cary Thomas, secretary of Warner Bros., and Gradwell Sears, western sales manager of Warner Bros., are slated to go before the Federal Court on that date to justify their actions in connection with the alleged "freezing out" of the independently operated first-run houses in St. Louis. A N. Y. CRITIC IS DISTURBED ABOUT DUALS In Which Andre Sennwald Discusses Two For The Price of One' Decrying the recent spread of double features in New York as "probably the worst thing that has happened to the cinema, artistically speaking, since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences called Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert the most distinguished screen performers of 1934," one of the foremost metropolitan newspaper film critics, Andre Sennwald, views with alarm this tendency in an article which appeared in last Sunday's New York Times. Recognizing that the dual bill policy must be good business, or it would not be adopted by exhibitors, Sennwald quotes C. C. Moskowitz, Loew's general manager in New York, for testimony to that fact. Nevertheless, the movie reviewer feels that the widespread use of the dual policy will drag down the quality of film product— and following is what he has to say on this topic in his Sunday dissertation, entitled "Two for the Price of One"; "There is not much room for argument in discussing the pestilential spread of the doublefeature program, lately climaxed and solidified when the great Loew and RKO theatre chains formally adopted the practice. It is probably the worst thing that has happened to the cinema, artistically speaking, since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences called Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert the most distinguished screen performers of 1934. Its effect on Hollywood will be to speed up a system that has always suffered from overproduction. It will, if that is possible, corrupt the standards of the film public still further, thereby increasing the hazards of making films like "The Informer" so considerably as to discourage whatever artistic enterprise is still alive in Hollywood. "This is so obvious that it is useless to write it down except as a formal expression of chagrin. The uncritical masses that have permitted the American screen to become a mammoth film cannery are definitely in favor of this bargain counter arrangement which makes it possible for them to see two pictures for the price of one. The rise of the double bill during 1935 has been the natural response of a highly competitive industry to the demands of its customers. An exhibitor is a bad business man when he clings to the single feature and lets his rival across the street take his clientele away from him. ' C. C. Moskowitz, who manages the theatre operations for the Loew organization, assures me that box-office results prove the commercial benefits of the double bill. He points out that the system has its disadvantages for the exhibitor by reducing the audience turnover at the same time that it is increasing the film-rental cost. (Continued on Page 7)