Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1956)

Pre fa Act CcutterA Va4e Hflecum fa Mara J Jed Qiltn PwAufeHU THE STOCKHOLDER Mi — Lang May Me Howl! By LEONARD COULTER "All the world's a stage and all the people in it merely players", wrote William Shakespeare. This may have been true enough in the Bard's lifetime, but that was before movies. Nobody wants to be just a player today, but a producer, director or company executive — especially a company executive. The motion picture industry has a unique glamour and excitement. The rewards it offers those who attain the seats of the mighty run high. Thus it receives more than its fair share of attention from financial opportunists. In the past several years five of Hollywood's companies — Twentieth Century-Fox, Loew's, Columbia, Universal and Republic — have had to run the gauntlet of stockholder crossfire. All have emerged unscathed, Loew's being the latest to repel (or absorb) Wall Street's attack. But, by the very nature of the industry, company presidents can never sit back feeling themselves secure and unassailable. A new assault may be mounted any time. At this moment, in particular, the industry is sensitive to outside interference. It is in a state of transition. Many financial string-pullers are itching to make a quick killing. There seems to be prevalent among them a conviction that Hollywood, which is only just beginning to move into television, will once again become the prime source of mass entertainment, that this is the ground floor, and may the devil take the hindmost (especially if he's in exhibition!). Now it is true that if the motion picture industry remains a closed shop, barred to newcomers, it will inevitably die a slow and tortuous death. A creative medium such as this needs a constant inflow of talent and ideas, both in the making and in the merchandising of product. And it is equally true that some of the film companies are direly in need of new blood, that the founders of those companies still refuse to yield the saddle to younger, more aggressive men who might bring a fresh slant on how to deal with the brand new problems that face our industry. Not, mind you, that youth is a prerequisite for capab management in movie affairs. What man twenty or mo years the junior of Spyros Skouras could possibly mate the keen, young-in-heart showmanship of 20th Centurj Fox's dynamo? Because Skouras' vast capabilities are s widely recognized, proxy fighter Charles Green butted h head against a stone wall when he sought to wrest cor trol of 20th a few years back. A large segment of exhib tion — which would relish seeing some film company mat agements upset — rushed to the defense of Spyros Skoura In this transitional era, it is important that all those wb derive their income directly from motion pictures shoul understand the problems inherent in the conduct of co porate affairs, and especially stockholder relations. Tr pressures being applied to management these days is eno mous. From their remote position, dividend-hungry shar holders chant "sell to TV, sell to TV". Without a care f( the future of the company or the industry at large, the dream of the delicious loot they could share in if the 1 brary of depreciated features were peddled to television. The Pressure on Arthur Loew To take only the most recent example — the last annu stockholders' meeting of Loew's, Inc. — how many peop outside the MGM board room gave even a passing thougl to the tremendous mental strain which the company's nev ly-elected helmsman, Arthur M. Loew, had been throug when he calmly rose to deliver his first address as Nichol; M. Schenck's successor? For weeks the financial marts had seethed with rumo that big trouble was brewing. MGM's business had n been good. Profits had slumped. And yet — mysterious — the price of its stock had been rising. Why? Who was buying? Ah, said the wiseacres, some powerful financial groi! lurking in the dark canyons of Wall Street, was makir a bid to gain enough votes to oust, or undermine, the mai agement. (Continued on Page 2 Pag. 6 Film BULLETIN March 5, 1954 I