Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1959)

W. $. J. OK's the B.O. Boom $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ financial Paper Cited VaticuA tfeaJchJ ffcr rfttetufahce Pick-up The thundering boom in theatre attendance this summer is now official; the Wall Street Journal made it so by proclaiming last week (July 29 issue): "The motion picture business is picking up." What's responsible for the spurt in moviegoing during the year's second quarter (after a poor first period), how long can it be expected to last, and other important aspects of our industry's vagaries are discussed in the lengthly Journal article written by Stanley W. Penn, the financial paper's regular motion picture reporter. Numerous sources are quoted by Penn to support his "business is picking up" statement. At the outset he calls on the statistics of Sindlinger & Co. to point out that attendance has been on the upswing steadily for four months, with June displaying a six per cent jump over the 1958 month. And, according to the Journal piece, the large theatre chain owners are quick to agree. Simon B. Siegel, financial vice president of American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, according to Penn, says that profits from the firm's 505 houses in the second quarter were the highest for any similar period since 1955. Profits, in fact, Siegel is quoted, "were sufficiently ahead of last year to more than offset the first three months, which were somewhat behind the same period of 1958." The same feelings are voiced, too, by a spokesman for National Theatres. Although boxoffice receipts "were behind", Penn quotes, in the first quarter (compared with the same span a year ago), they climbed in the second quarter "for a combined gain in the six-month period." RKO Theatres vice president Harry Mandel notes in the article, "From June right through to the present, business has been better than last year." And the story also is much the same at Loew s Theatres. The Journal makes an interesting — and quite pleasant — observation that many industryites believe moviegoing is once again in vogue. "I frankly feel," a New York exhibitor is quoted, "it's becoming more popular to go to the movies. A few years ago, it was smart to say, 'I haven't seen a film in a dog's age.' But now you hear people talking, 'Did you see "The Nun's Story," or "Gigi," and weren't they good?' " Penn notes, however, one must look to other trends, too, if he hopes to explain the attendance rise. One trend the financial reporter sees is this: "A number of moviemakers are pulling in larger grosses this year over 1958 even though they are turning out fewer movies. Clearly, the trend is to fewer but costlier pictures, in the belief held by producers that the public will pay to see a lavishly-made, large-budget, star-studded film, in contrast with a cheap, quickly made movie bearing a close resemblance to the old movies seen free on television." As substantiation of this thinking, Penn points to Universal, which he notes, "sharply cut back production about a year ago in favor of fewer, more expensive movies." In a 37-week span ended July 18, Penn says, Universale domestic billings from 17 pictures were $1 million ahead of the same period one year before, when it had 32 films in release. And, the Journal continues, big pictures such .is "Imitation of Life," "Some Like It Hot," "Anatomy of a Murder'' and "The Nun's Story" figure to keep the business (ires burning brightly for some time to come. But not only the big films are doing the big business this summer. "In recent weeks," notes Penn, "even some smaller budget movies have been catching fire at the boxoffice. One such film is 'Hercules,' presented by Embassy Pictures Corp., of New York, which grossed at the boxoffice a whopping $252,981 at 135 metropolitan New York movie houses on opening day last Wednesday," he adds. And this tremendous success of the low-budget picture prompts those exhibitors who operate sub-run theatres to renew their contention that the industry needs and can use more pictures. "Most neighborhood theatres depend upon a solid base of regular repeat customers," notes Milton H. London, a Detroit exhibitor. "The shortage of available product," he says, "has forced most of these neighborhood movie houses, which formerly offered two or even three programs a week, to show one program for a full week or even longer. This, of course, drastically reduces the number of potential customers per week,'" London concludes. "If you had a bigger volume of production, you'd be bound to get more hits," contends Walter Reade, Jr., head of the Walter Reade theatre chain. Many theatremen who side with London and Reade point to the success the British-made "Room at the Top" has enjoyed. It cost only S600,000 to make and is expected to return almost $2 million in rentals. It is quite obvious that even an impartial observer such as Penn finds the product dilemma a thorny one. But more films or less, business is, as the Wall Street Journal points out. "picking up," and for th.it. the entire movie industry is happier this summer than in several years. Film OULLETIN August 3. 1959 Pago 17