Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1960)

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Jrctn the QuricuA f iftieA JJhtc the ^trenucuA £ixtieJ A HOPEFUL NEW DECADE BEGINS Out of the fifties and into the sixties, the motion picture business moves with plenty of painfully-acquired acumen and a full quota of scars to match. The past decade has seen some revolutionary changes. It is a measure of the film industry's basically strong constitution that, as the decade ends, there are still so many of the old bunch still doing business at the old stands. The stands have been brought up to date, and there are signs that some alterations are still under way. There have been profound changes in the industry, and there will be more. It is significant to note that while two important companies have ceased to be factors in theatrical film production — RKO and Republic — the other major companies in the production and distribution business have come through the fifties with renewed faith in the strength and vigor of the motion picture medium. United Artists, under the leadership of the Bob Benjamin Arthur Krim group, became one of the nation's major growth situations and gained increased stature as a publicly held corporation. FUTURE NOT CLEAR Spyros Skouras at Twentieth Century Fox and Joe Vogel at Loew s emerged triumphant from proxy contests and went on to bring new prosperity to their companies. Jack Warner, succeeding his brothers as head of WB, was able to report new peak profits to Warner Bros, stockholders. Milton Rackmil, after a trying period, brought Universal back into the black. Abe Schneider, assumed the top spot at Columbia and set about the building of a well-manned organization, which is now returning that company to the right side of the ledger. Paramount, under Barney Balaban, experienced three strong years via "The Ten Commandments', and looks hopefully to tolltelevision to carry it forward in the future. But there was much more to the decade than the profit and loss entries, and the future, as the fifties came to a close, was neither clear nor inevitable in its direction. The fifties can be called the era of divestiture, divorcement, diversification and diminution. The total number of theatres operating in the United States was reduced, even though there was a boom in the drive-ins. The capitalization of company after company was cut, through buying in of stock. The linking of theatres and production-distribution organizations in the same corporation was discontinued. Divestiture of theatres owned by major circuits was carried out in an effort to create a fairer competitive climate. Physical distribution facilities were pared down; companies like Warner Bros, and Columbia sold off their laboratories, and Universal sold its studio and rented it back to reduce overhead. But of all the sell-offs that characterized the fifties, the most serious was that of the backlogs. Some of the companies, like RKO, Warner Bros, and Paramount, sold their backlogs lock, stock and barrel, making their pre1948 pictures available for television. Other companies chose to lease the films to television. In any case, the dam burst, and in some quarters much of the blame for the boxoffice decline for the years 1956 thru '58 was attributed to the competition of free films on TV. ALLIANCE WITH TV At any rate, it was apparent throughout the fifties that television was seriously affecting the volume of paid admissions at the nation's movie theatres. As boxoffice receipts declined, the distributors looked around for new income, and the most available source seemed to be television itself. Faced with rising costs of film production and uncertain returns, the movie companies cut down on the number of pictures they distributed to theatres and found customers among the theatres' rivals, the nation's television stations. They sold backlog films, and they started using their studios to produce pictures specifically for video. Neither move was likely to lend aid and comfort to the exhibitor. Even the companies which had been most vociferous in their opposition to video sales ultimately changed their minds. The exhibitor will recall the fifties as the decade when he seemed for a time to have become Hollywood's poor relation. NEW TECHNOLOGY The downward trend of the exhibition business was neither inexorable nor constant, however. This was the decade when, after a generation of standing pat, the industry finally discovered its own technology. It was the decade which saw the six-months wonder of 3-D, when Polaroid glasses and linked projectors turned shabby little melodramas into boxoffice miracles. It was the decade when Cinerama brought back the road show. It was the decade when Spyros Skouras came up with CinemaScope and, in a miracle of one man's faith and determination, revolutionized the entire concept of the theatrical screen. Through CinemaScope, the theatres of the nation, and the producers and distributors as well, were able to recapture the imagination and attention of the public. It was in the fifties, too, that many an exhibitor found he, too, could enjoy the blessings of diversification. The distributors went into the phonograph record business and the exhibitors became refreshment merchants and playland operators. It was a decade with a full quota of false starts — new processes that never got off the ground, exhibitor-financed production companies turning out handfuls of relatively undistinguished films. It was the decade of the individual versus the assembly line, when, thanks in part to the tax laws and in part to the unwillingness of major studios to absorb any more overhead than they had to, the independent producer became, collectively, the major source of product and the studio a sort of banker. It was the decade when some studios first decided to maintain no contract player rosters and do nothing themselves about developing new talent, only to find one of their richest resources— talent — had gone to pot. Now they find themselves frantically trying (Continued on Page 6) Film BULLETIN January 4, l?40 Page 3