Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (Sep 1935 - Aug 1936)

4 INDEPENDENT EXHIBITOR FILM BULLETIN INDEPENDENT EXHIBITORS FILM BULLETIN Vol. 2 No. 3 2 April 8, 193 6 Issued weekly by Film Bulletin Co., at 13 23 Vine Street, Phila., Pa. Mo Wax, editor and publisher; Roland Barton, George F. Nonamaker, associate editors. Saul S. Leshner, business manager. Address all communications to Editor, Film Bulletin Merritt Crawford, Publisher's Representative 1658 Broadway, New York City Room 486 — Circle 7-3094 Well, the Pathe-First Division deal has finally ironed out the way we've been calling it for many months. The cash behind Pathe, we hear, may be Proctor & Gamble's. Harry Thomas may step out and, if he does, Al Friedlander may go with him, although Al holds a contract. Eddie Alperson, the Fox theatre man and a helluva well liked guy, looks set for the presidency of the new producing-distrib firm, which will be called Premier Attractions . . . Budd Rogers' election to U's board won't affect his handling of Alliance (B.I.P.'s American distrib subsid) through some other company .... The I.T.O.A. here may ask to sit in on the proposed confabs between producers and the M.P.T.O.A., we learned today. Allied pooh poohs the possible outcome of the meetings to tone down trade practices and points out that when the M.P.T.O.A. sits down with the producers, it is just one happy family who wouldn't take anything away from each other . . . "Great Ziegfeld" opens at the Astor Wednesday night. Gala premiere . . . "Little Lord Fauntleroy" is clicking nicely at the Music Hall despite Holy Week bugaboo and will hold over . . . The Paramount looks like it might crack its low record this week with "Give Us This Night." Plenty of empty seats at all hours . . . "These Three" holding its own in third week at the Rivoli and will stay until the end of Easter Week, when "Things To Come" is slated to replace it ... It looks like Republic's "House of a Thousand Candles" outgrossed the three or four preceding major releases at the Center. Smart, timely exploitation idea helped sell it . . . "Ungardcd Hour" just about at the Capitol . . . Despite a big bally opening, Al Jolson's "Kid" isn't so hot at the Strand. The pic has a few great highlights, but otherwise shapes up as nothing unusual . . . New arrivals: "A Message to Garcia" at the Center . . . "Small Town Girl" (Friday) at the Capitol . . . ELK. MERRITT CRAWFORD OBSERVING THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY NEW YORK. Now that the Neely-Pettengill bill to prohibit block-booking, blind buying, etc., has been neatly folded and laid away in camphor or more likely buried in chloride of lime, we hear again the merry, merry spring song, this being house-cleaning time, of "self-regulation." It is an old, old melody, guaranteed to soothe exhibitor nerves, which promises to put an end to all exhibition troubles and abolish or alleviate the numerous trade practices of the big producer-distributors, which are the bane of the exhibition end of the industry. And who do we hear singing this sweet refrain? Why none other than that sturdy exhibitor and master showman, Ed Kuykendall, president of the M.P.T.O.A., who submitted, at the request of the subcommittee of the Federal Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee holding the hearings on the Pettengill bill, a 10-point platform for the adjustment of some 22 practices governing the relations of the exhibitor with the exchanges, which would be adopted (maybe) after conferences with the distributors by a special committee representing the theatre-ownejs. Mr. Kuykendall's program for the correction of current trade abuses was excellent, but he was a little vague as to whether this special committee would meet with representatives of the distributors as a whole or with individual distributors. He was specific, however, in saying that the committee would be appointed by the executive committee of the M.P.T.O.A., so perhaps it doesn't matter much, as most of the executive committee represent theatres, which are owned by one or the other of the big distributors. So now we shall shortly see the lion lying down with the lamb and the wolves (to hear them tell it) getting ready to grow nice woolly coats and eating grass. It really is a great idea, this plan, by no means original with Ed Kuykendall, to clean up the industry's house, without any outside or governmental assistance. It has been heard before. But it is just music, and not very good music, at that. It presents too many difficulties in this realistic world we are living in. The big producer-distributor-theatre-owning companies, who are running the house, while the independent exhibitors are carrying most of the overhead expenses, are concerned only with their own interests, which are PROFITS. They are not interested in the problems of the smaller theatre man. Theirs is a "rule or ruin" regime, whether it is shortsighted or not, and to pretend to talk "cooperation" with them, for the purposes of solving the problems of the independent theatre operator, is merely talk and nothing else. Of course, they will go through the motions of conferring with the "exhibitor" representatives. There will be plenty of talk about "cleaning up the industry" and various promises will be made, just as they have been made before to hold off legislative or legal actions. But in the end the situation will be very much as it is now. The best proof of this is the manner in which the big film companies opposed the anti-block-booking bill. Every effort was made by the producer representatives to discredit the exhibitor witnesses, who spoke for the bill. Personalities were injected and accusations made which really had no bearing on the merits of the measure, so much so that much of the record is irrelevant and valueless for future reference. "Colonel" Charles C. Pettijohn, able counsel for the Hays organization and the big companies, which compose its membership, may be fairly said to have talked the Pettengill bill into a "cocked hat." After "Colonel" Pettijohn (Con tin tied on page 12)