Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (Sep 1935 - Aug 1936)

4 INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN' INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN Vol. 2 No. 20 Jan. 15, 1936 Issued weekly by Film Bulletin Co., at 13 13 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 Merritt Crawford, Publisher's Representative 165 8 Broadway, New York City Room 486 — Circle 7-3 094 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. {Continued from previous page) Humble Start . . . After a meagre education, Rothafel entered the business world at the age of 14, when he became a cashboy in a New York department store. A selling job, then some adventure marked his career when he joined the Marine Corps and fought in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Forest city, Pennsylvania, was the scene of his first theatrical effort. He gave his customers three reels for five cents and they sat on folding chairs. This entertainment was offered in a barroom, where Roxy served the drinks as well. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, then New York, where he took one managing job before he was signed to handle the largest movie house in the world at that time — the Strand on Broadway. The Rialto, Rivoli and Capitol Theatres also felt the guiding hand of this show genius. The crowning achievement of his career was the building and management of his own Roxy Theatre, still a monument to his name. There he held sway during the prosperous days and it was the beckon of a still greater opportunity, one that proved to be a mirage and a stumbling block in his path of uninterrupted sucesses — the construction of vast Radio City, with two immense theatres, both to be guided by him, that took Rothafel from the site of his greatest success and virtually brought to an end his brilliant career. Poor health and his disappointment over the Radio City failure left their mark on the man and he took a prolonged vacation. Then came the brief try in Philadelphia and a few minor flurries in the business he loved and did so much to elevate. But Roxy's day had closed and it was fitting and well that he passed beyond in the quiet that is slumber, untroubled by meditation on life's unkindness in his latter years. Another Barrage of Bogus "Facts" On Block Booking From the Majors! The major film producers have dropped another smoke screen of propaganda to obscure the honest facts involved in the compulsory block booking issue. It is another pamphlet, anonymous, of course, titled "THE WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES— FACTS AND FIGURES CONCERNING BLOCK BOOKING," and it provides additional proof that the big boys suffer the jitters every time they think that they may be forced to sell their pictures ON THEIR MERITS — and not by compulsion! A masterpiece of lame and impotent conclusions, this latest pamphlet from the majors and their bright boy Hays stands as conclusive proof that it is only for the maintenance of their all-powerful monopoly that the leading producers want to perpetuate the vicious compulsory block booking system. Falsely, they would have the unthinking exhibitor believe that if compulsory block booking is outlawed he could not buy more than one picture at a time. This is rank deceit, for the Pettengill bill seeks only to prohibit COMPULSORY block booking and gives the exhibitor the privilege of buying only what he needs and wants. They would have him believe that he will have to pay more for pictures if he does not buy an entire product. This is another snare and delusion to catch the theatreman who does not or cannot understand that a free market is the buyer's surest safeguard against being soaked. Even if all the misrepresentations and downright lies in that pamphlet were to be true, the exhibitor would not be worse off than he is today. If the Pettengill bill were to be enacted into law, he would still have the privilege of buying at one time the complete output of any company. Deception, half-truths and deliberate distortions of fact will never win the block booking fight for the majors — not unless independent exhibitors have no brains! MO WAX. EXHIBITOR: "So what} 1 had to play all those in the other basket!"