Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1938)

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independent exhibitors FILM BULLETIN PRICE, 15 CENTS A WARNING ! It is an unhappy truth that our potentially magnificent motion picture art-industry faces a gloomy future. Call that pessimism, if you will, but he who shuts his eyes to all the portents is no friend of nlmdom. For just about a full decade now most of our production and distribution leaders have been so blinded by the glare of their self-importance that they have not only allowed this ominous situation to arise, but have actually pushed us toward it. They are still content, despite the unmistakeable warning signs, to talk vaguely of the glowing promise for that elusive "next season" when their pictures will all be "specials" and the boxoffice millenium will have arrived. But no one takes them seriously any more. We all know that they speak only to enable their salesmen to wheedle a few more dollars from the gullible exhibitor. Hollywood no longer stands at the crossroads. Some years ago it took the wrong road and has been travelling downhill ever since. The head men in the studios there salve their consciences and their wounded pride by blaming the theatreman for instituting practices in exhibition that have "forced" a lowering of the quality of production. They speak self-righteously of the evil influence of double features, as though they are a cause, rather than an effect — as though they are a legitimate excuse for the ineptitude or negligence of the producer of poor pictures. Let's nail that lie quickly. Trace the beginning of the spread of double features and What Is Wrong with Universal's Production? • Which Studio Has the Most Big Pictures in Work? The answers to these and all other questions you may ask about Hollywood's activities are found in FILM BULLETIN'S PRODUCTION SECTION Turn to page 1 1 you are led inevitably to the day when the major film companies plunged into the policy of producing fifty to seventy features in a year. The men who started that breakneck schedule of production must have known it was an impossible task — impossible in the sense that most of the films could not be of decent quality. But they had a motive. They feared the intrusion of new producing organizations and they felt that by gutting the market with a plentiful supply of pictures, competition would be stifled. To this day they have remained adamant in their determination to keep the field to themselves, EVEN IF IT RUINS THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY, including themselves! The national economic scene has been too distorted in the past ten years to give us a clear picture of the exhibition business. We remember well enough the hardship suffered by theatre operators during the Hoover depression. The Roosevelt pump-priming of '3 5, '36 and '37 gave them a shot in the arm, but the current recession again has caused boxoffice receipts to dip to the worrying point. It has been, therefore, a bit difficult to discern trends in such unsettled times. Some sign posts are apparent, however. Dual bills have continued to spread in good times, as well as bad. Games, dishes and other artificial stimulii have become increasingly important as a means of keeping theatres out of the well known red. What interpretation can be given this trend other than that an ever growing number of exhibitors are finding are nnding fewer (Continual on [uige 2) and H X w < o o M o i— i o > in 2 d tn •u m % O tn H m X X w I — I H O (A