Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1956)

TDA-ALLIED COMPACT Theatres Subsidise Self-Destruction Subcommittee with the draft and say that everybody wants it but Allied. Trade Paper Ethics TOA is now finding out what it means to fall out of step with the big brass in New York. Allied can sympathize because it has been through the mill. We have been able to stand up under their abuse, even when we did not know who was pouring it on. TOA will find that name calling breaks no bones. But what can be said of the trade papers that publish the defamatory statements of persons who stipulate that they shall not be identified? In our view the publication is as culpable as the phantom scandalmonger. If to make scurrilous anonymous statements is cowardly, to publish them is dastardly. Between these epithets there is little choice. Hearing Is Postponed Senator Humphrey has postponed the hearing until "the latter part of February" for reasons which are understandable and must be respected. He is a member of the Committee on Agriculture and a leading spokesman for the farmers. The Agricultural Bill is just now coming to a head in that Committee and Senator Humphrey's presence cannot be spared. It was made plain that Senator Humphrey's preoccupation with Agricultural Bill was the sole reason for the postponement and that the hearings would be held as soon as that measure is out of the way. He hopes then to be able to give more and closer attention to the exhibitors' complaints than would have been possible had the hearing been held on schedule. Our best guess now is that the week beginning February 27 will be fixed for the hearing. Complaints Flowing In The film companies must have felt pretty cocky concerning their standing with the Department of Justice and their ability to hoodwink the Small Business Committee with their arbitration draft because reports from all parts of the country are to the effect that their terms are becoming more rugged and the attitude of their sales forces more arrogant. Complaints of new floors on scales (e.g., 40% and no look) as well as complaints that pictures that have been mentioned for Academy Awards are being withheld from the. sub-runs and small towns so that they may have repeat first-runs in case they or members of the cast snag an Oscar. If this trend continues the exhibitors who have suffered from pre-releases may soon find not two but three firstruns crowded in ahead of them — a pre-release run, a regular release run and an Academy Award run. These complaints are being classified and put in shape to submit to the SSBC so that they may get a good airing. BLANK EXPLAINS TOA POSITION Highlights of comments by Myron N. Blank, President. TOA. to North & South Carolina Annual Convention. January 30. I realize that proper buying and booking is 75% of the success of a theatre. This problem becomes aggravated in direct ratio to the lessening in the number of pictures released. You all know that our business changed radically by the decrees in U. S. vs. Paramount, et al., which divorced the theatres from production. From then on it meant that the producers had no economic interest in the theatres. Their responsibilities to their stock-holders was to make as much money as possible out of production and distribution without consideration to the effect on theatres. The result has been the creation of a seller's market because of the decreasing of production and the forcing of higher film rentals on the theatres who are now in turn required to subsidize a procedure of self-extermination. Let us see why I speak of a program of self destruction under which we are operating today. We hear cries from the producers and distributors that only important pictures are economically sound and about the tremendous cost of making them. Surely this is true, but it has developed through their own making. Many producers refuse to start a picture until they have the cast to assure them that the picture will be a success. I believe that most producers feel that the cast is eighty percent of the investment required to make a good picture, and, therefore, they will not start a picture until they have proven names. This makes good sense, but the procedure is catching up with them. The agents of the stars realize the requirements of the studios, and take advantage of it. A top star asks a tremendous salary plus participation in the gross and in the profits. The agents make package demands and in order to employ a top star you have to employ others in supporting parts at prices way beyond their true value. The philosophy of refusing to build up talent, but looking only to the established stars is self-destruction, and we are being forced to support it. Finance Group Hindered What has TOA done? Approximately two years ago, aware of the shortage of production, it decided to help start an organization called the Exhibitors Film Finance Group. Many men here in this room own stock in this company, and are anxious for it to go forward, but unfortunately, we are so economically divided into small groups that the necessary funds are not available, and although I feel that all of us would do anything we can to bring about more pictures, it has proven impossible to get some 5,000 exhibitors to kitty into a fund of an unproven company to make pictures or finance pictures that cannot play in our theatres, but must be sold in the open market. I do not believe anybody wants to invest large sums to make pictures and find out that if there be a hit it has to (Continued on Page 16) Film BULLETIN February t, 1956 Page 15