Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (Sep 1935 - Aug 1936)

4 INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN' INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN Vol. 2 No. 24 Feb. 12, 193 6 Issued weekly by Film Bulletin Co., at 13 23 Vine Street, Phila., Pa. Mo Wax, editor and publisher; Roland Barton, George F. Nonaraaker, 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 7-3094 NEW YORK. Well, the Paramount studio switch we've been calling our shot on for the past month has finally happened. Lubitsch is out as head of the studio, replaced by Bill LeBaron temporarily. Watterson Rothacker, who has really been the boss during Lubitsch's supposed reign, will take full charge shortly, but Winnie Sheehan may supplant him before long. Although Lubitsch is slated to return to his old position as producer-director of a few pictures per year, we suspect he will be found at another studio after he returns from a three months Europe vacation (they usually give them vacations when they let 'em down or out!) . . . Warners' "Story of Louis Pasteur" got swell reviews here, but there's lots of doubt in many quarters about its b. o. power . . . "Mr. Cohen Takes A Walk," Warner British-made pic. opens the Astor on Lincoln's Birthday. It may do OK in Noo Yawk, but Oi Oi elsewhere . . . "Wife Vs. Secretary" comes into the Capitol Friday . . . The muddled projectionists situation was cleared up a bit by the ruling of a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice, who held the Allied operators to be a company union and ordered their contract with the I.T.O.A. abrogated . . . The Little Carnegie is reviving "Henry the VIII" again, counting on the additional value of Robert Donat in the cast. He was unknown when the picture was first released . . . Other openings this week: "Prisoner of Shark Island" at the Center; "It Had To Happen" at the Roxy; "Bohemian Girl" at the Rialto . . . "Mickey's Polo Team" wins our personal award as the funniest cartoon to date . . . MERRITT CRAWFORD OBSERVING THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY NEW YORK. CHAPLIN RETURNS AFTER FIVE YEARS — AS GREAT AS EVER! Chaplin is back! And he is the same old Charlie, changed not a whit for all his five years absence from the screen. The same tattered, tragic figure, whose timeless clowning, ever old, yet ever new, epitomizing as it does the ultimate in cinematic art in the perfection of its pantomine, once more will make box office history. That was the verdict of the critics after the premiere of "Modern Times" at the Rivoli in New York last week and that was the general opinion of the audiences, which have since packed that theatre from early morning to midnight, and which probably will continue to pack it for many weeks to come. To the older Chaplin fans many of the scenes were reminiscent of the comedian's earlier screen successes. Old gags and situations, made over hardly at all and strung together in a series of loosely linked episodes made up most of the story. But for all that they had lost none of the Chaplin magic. The roller-skating sequence, with its breath-taking acrobatics where Charlie momentarily misses doing a six story fall, recalls "The Rink," while the scenes on the escalator, in the department store where Charlie has briefly a job as night watchman, are reminiscent of "The Floorwalker." There are others, of course, but after all they are not important. The really important thing is that the old Chaplin is back, unchanged, and the millions who have been waiting so long impatiently to see him again will get their money's worth. To those who may have hoped, largely from the volume ol rumor and publicity, which the making of "Modern Times" has begot during the past year, and a half, that it would present something new in style and form as a social satire, there will be a measure of disappointment. "Modern Times" attempts no innovations in motion picture technique, nor does it undertake to convey any particular message, even though its opening theme is built around the "speed-up" system in vogue in the modern factory, with Charlie as its special victim. The fantastic assortment of huge cog-wheels, conveyor-belts and machine contraptions of various kinds are made merely the means for gorgeous comedy and not for any satiric thrusts at the machine age. The picture opens in a sort of futuristic factory, where the boss, by touching a button can get a television view of any department and by television transmit his orders for speed-up to his workers. Between "speed-ups" the boss is shown putting in his time doing jig saw puzzles, while down in the main factory room, Chaplin and his fellow workers are shown desperately trying to keep pace with a speeding transmission belt on which are pieces of machinery with sundry nuts and bolts that must be tightened before they pass to the assembly room. ELK. (Continued on page 10)