Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (Sep 1935 - Aug 1936)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25. 1935 7 The Management an d E mploy ees OF THE QUALITY PRINT SHOP EXPRESS THEIR SINCERE WISHES FOR A prrg Xtnaa AND Sappy Npui f par H OLLYWOO D SENDS Season's Qreetings JOHN COLDER Wo Wish Our Many Friends | Compliments of the Season a i I Theatre Premium a Sales Co. jj 1 255-257 N. 13th St. g I a PHILA., PA. MERRITT CRAWFORD OBSERVINQ THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY BEN STERN 3 I LOU FOXMAN | NEW YORK. This is the time of year when the film industry, as represented by the production, publicity and distribution sections of it, at least, used to call it a day, and for a week or so before Christmas and right up to New Year's Eve, forget everything but the minimum of business routine in celebrating the holiday. In nearly every office there were parties, free for all comers, frequently quite wild, at which hospitality in the way of food and drink was dispensed lavishly. No one thought about business and seemed to care less. For all knew (or, at least, took for granted) that the golden flow that streamed endlessly back from the boxoffices would continue after the first of the year just as it had for the year past and for the year before that and before that. Presents and bonuses were the order of the day everywhere. Christmas cards, original, formal and informal, and often most expensive and artistic, were printed, tinted and turned out by the million, and loaded into the mails. The desk of every big and little executive, down to the head office boy, was piled high with them, each seemingly vieing with the other to see how many he could send out and receive. And all of it was in the spirit of Christmas good will and cheer. Actually, of course, it partook also somewhat of natural human vanity and the desire to showoff which general prosperity tends to produce. For all that, it was an era which many of us look back at with more or less poignant and tender memories. "Them was the good old days," as the ungrammatical but highly descriptive saying puts it. They were indeed! But I wonder whether the best thing about them isn't that they are gone? There was an unreality about them, after all, which made it difficult to make accurate evaluations about men and things, that inevitably tended toward ultimate disillusionment. Nowadays, there are far fewer parties and Christmas cards. The lavishness of entertainment, which once marked this period of high holiday on all hands, is no longer generally evident. Such gifts as are distributed are given with a maximum of discriminating business acumen, indicating a definite hope of a bigger value to be returned to the donor by the recipient some time later. As for the bonuses and honorariums, such as most of the larger film firms used to dispense with a more or less lavish hand to their employees at this time of year, they are now practically non-existent. Although most of the larger film companies report substantial increases in their net profits for the past year, only one — United Artists — as far as the writer knows, is giving a bonus to its employees this year. Most of the others have not even fully restored the heavy salary cuts which were made during the past five years to maintain profits or prevent losses, although the general improvement in film businesses, as regards producer and distributor, would seem definitely to warrant it. All of which tends to indicate that the general tone of prosperity, the return of business conditions more nearly approximating those of the golden era that existed prior to 1929, while imminent, will not necessarily bring back the old days. Large profits will no doubt be made, but they will not be shared by the rank and file of the industry as in former years. As for the exhibitor, his situation is about the same as it has always been. The economics in overhead obtained by the big producing companies are never passed on to him in the way of reduced rentals or in improved entertainment quality in the pictures he has to show. (Continued on Page 11)