Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1941)

. . . OF MEN AND THINGS By JACK NARROWER SAGE SAVINI SPECULATES Here are a few interesting comments on the extended-run situation and o^her matters of import to the subsequent-run operators everywhere — observations culled from close observation by a man who has made his living for a lifetime catering to the small operator. The man in question is Bob Savini, president of Astor Pictures Corporation, who for the past few years has specialized in bringing bark former successful features such as "Hell's Angels" and "Sky Devils." * * * Savini says the subsequent runs are suffering more than usual at this holiday season, in large part due to the policy of the producer-owned theatres extending runs on a majority of pictures whether or not they are of exceptional entertainment value. This holding of pictures beyond the usual run has resulted in squeezing dry the potential revenue that the subscquents could ordinarily count on securing. This extended playdate policy on the part of the first-runs forces the subsequents to also extend playing time in order to cover the span of playing time. Thus the small operator starts behind the eight-ball. On top of this handicap, he is paying more for fi!m rentals than under the old selling system. * * * As Savini views it, this is what the Consent Decree has done to the independent exhibitor. Before the decree selling, a major distributor would sell a group of say 52 pictures on the following general basis: three 40 percent; three at 30 percent; six at 25 percent, and the bahnce flat rental. With decree selling in groups of five, the exhibitor has been forced to take something like this setup: one at 40 percent; two at 35 percent; two at 25 percent or flat rentals. On this schedule, the exhibitor can hook himself for ten pictures at 40 percent in any one distributor's group of fifty pictures. And so on right through the schedule, the exhibitor obviously faces a disadvantage. Savini is quite cynical and hardboiled about the attitude of the big fellows in production and distribution toward the small exhibitor. He says it is a safe bet that any selling plan the big boys think up and try to foist on the exhibitors just ain't for their benefit nohow, no sirree. Bob, being a Southern gentlemian form New Orleans, speaks his piece without mincing words. * * * But some day this dog-eat-dog attitude must be modified, the Astor chief says, admitting that the average exhibitor has been very unbending in his demands and seldom willing to meet the producers and distributors on a basis of fair and equitable dealing. Always the atmosphere of suspicion has pervaded their joint dealings. Savini hopes that from the unity meeting in Chicago some real leader will arise to bring the opposing forces together on a platform of give-and-take. On second thought, the Sage of Forty-sixth Street admits that no real leader has ever arisen to weld together in harmonv the opposite poles of producer-distributor and exhibitor, and that it is asking for a miracle that the Chicago meeting should produce such a superman. In any event it should be possible, he says, to organize a joint committee representative of produccrdistributor-exhibitor interests, who can sit down at regular in tervals and by slow and patient work evolve some semblance of equitable dealing as between the opposing groups. * * * It is quite evident to all, says this independent distributor, that the Consent Decree has failed miserably in many respects. He claims the Consent Decree was robbed of its potential power to achieve anything constructive when in the formative stages the elimination of the producer-exhibitor combination was ruled out. In every other industry, Savini notes, the manufacturer docs everything possible to build up the retailers who market his product. In the film industry, the manufacturer goes into competition with "the trade" (his dealers known as exhibitors), and does everything possible to break them down. It's all cockeyed, says this old-timer. It is the money that comes from the box-office that supports the entire industry, and by constantly squeezing the vast bulk of independent exhibitors, the producers and distributors are throttling the business at its vital point. * * * As for Savini's contribution to the general industry welfare, eight years ago he set up his own exchange system, with the object of bringing back some of the big successful features of the past. He has modernized and brought back such pictures as "Scarface," "Hell's Angsls," "Sky Devils," "Street Scene," "The Bat Whispers," "Our Daily Bread, "I Cover the Water Front," "Let 'Em Have It." Savini doesn't claim anything marvelous for these pictures brought back to the screen from an earlier day. He does say very positively that to hundreds of exhibitors they have proved most welcome and profitable. Thpy are not gambling, for they are showing to their patrons pictures of proven merit that still exert a great lure wherever properly publicized. Savini is absolutely convinced that a lot of big pictures of past years can be brought back by every major producer, and the public can be educated to a point where they will look forward to these revivals. He does not want to hog this field in which he specializes. He realizes that if the system becomes general it will help him in selling his string. * * * Operating close to the independent exhibitor all the time, and knowing his problems intimately, Savini is convinced that the small theatre owner is unable to shoulder any more of the financial burden of the industry than he is now carrying. There is just so much potential revenue available from his theatre, no matter how he may extend himself. The maior adjustments, he feels, must come from the producers and distributors. Principally from the higher-ups, esp'^cially the powers who control and supervise production. This independent distributor feels that so long as a handful of men arbitrarily take an inordinate share of the profits and thereby run up production costs into unheard-of-figures, there can be no satisfactory solution to the differences existing between the three major branches of the business. "Why can't these fellows be satisfied with a reasonable take?" said Savini, smiling genially as he pawed over a stack of new sales sent in that morning by some of his 26 distributing points. * * * 24 FILM BULLETIN