The Film Daily (1934)

16 FILM DAILY SPRING SHORT SUBJECT QUARTERLY Saturday, April 7, 1934 Cartoons Have Kept Faith With Public By PAUL TERRY Producer of Educaticnal's Terry-Toons THE reason the animated cartoon has endured through two decades of motion picture production is that the producers of this type of entertainment have "kept faith with the public.'' What I mean by "keeping faith with the public" is that the animated cartoon at its inception set out to provide clean, wholesome fun, suitable for the youngest minds, and it has never deviated from this plan. In a course which followed the path of least resistance, there would be many situations which sacrificed wholesomeness for laughs. In this medium the opportunities for "crossing the borderline" are leg on, but it would be fatal to animated cartrons to yield to this kind of temptation. Producers of animated cartoons must never — and need never — jeopardize the good wiil of parents. And, actually, I don't believe that in these many years a child has ever been cautioned against an animated cartoon by his mother. The absolutely universal appeal of the animated cartoon proves conclusively that entertainment can be kept clean and still be entertainment; that, as a matter of (act, the bulk of the population does not want vulgarity or suggestiveness in its motion picture entertainment. The high degree of creativeness in animated cartoons may be attributed to some extent to the fact that in steering clear of the obvious "low comedy" which often suggests itself, we have had to branch out in the development of humor. This, of course, is not easy, but its originality and freshness are the very life of the animated cartoon. M-G-M IS DELIVERING FULL LINEUP BY JULY With 52 of its 91 shorts for the 1933-34 season already completed, M-G-M expects to deliver the remainder on schedule before the middle of July. The; Hal Roach studios have completed 26 two-reelers, including four Laurel-Hardy, five Charley Chase, five Todd-Kelly, three Our Gang, five All-Star and four Musical Comedies. Sixteen are still to come from Roach. Of the shorts produced direct by M-G-M, four series consist of onereelers, only the Musical Revues being of 20-minute duration. Of six of the latter scheduled, three have been finished. The four one-reel semclude the FitzPatrick Traveltalks, seven completed, five to go; Willie Whopper cartoons, six ready, seven more to be filmed; M-G-M ties, seven of 12 already released; and Goofy Movies, three of the scheduled six completed. Several New Series Listed On Kinematrade Lineup Coming releases of shorts by Kinematrade, Inc., will include "Ye Olde Time Illustrated Song Series" of 13 single reels; "News from the Dailies," 13 one-reelers; "Head Hunters in the Amazon," two-reelers ; "A Summer Trip in Dalsland," one-reeler, and other subjects. Arrangements have been made for a quantity of material from Switzerland, England, France and Czechoslovakia, according to Roman Rebush. Kinematrade at present is releasing "Eine Johann Strauss Fantasie," "Main Stem," "Soviets on Parade," "Zitari" and a travel group of 12 one-reelers called "Screen Classics." Though not optimistic over the outlook for shorts, Rebush says public reaction to good travel shorts continues favorable. Moray Contacting Field For New Ideas on Shorts In the course of his present tenweek tour of Warner-First National exchanges, Norman H. Moray, executive in charge of shorts and trailers, will hold conferences with members of the field sales force and with exhibitors to find out what type of shorts are most in demand. Moray is now on the coast and will also visit Canada before returning to New York about May 1. Vitaphone's L934-35 lineup will be determined largely upon the results of his tour. Spec al threc-shest tising Amos bulletin used for advern' Andy cartoon. Penner Subjects in Demand Following announcement that it would re-release its series of shorts starring Joe Penner, who has achieved wide popularity over the radio in recent months, Vitaphone reports a flood of requests for bookings on these subjects. Before definitely deciding to re-issue the shorts, several t ryout bookings were made in New York with highly favorable results. The Penner eomedii were given equal billing with the feat mes, and RKO houses even prepared a special trailer on them. A new line of advertising accesis troing with the subjc RKO Dropping Slapstick In New Season's Comedies Three-color one-sheet poster supplied on the Buster Keaton comedies. EDUCATIONAL LINEUP 75 PER CENT FINISHED Production has been completed on more than 75 per cent of Educational's 1933-34 program, with 78 one and two-reelers of the 103 subjects in the line-up finished. With each production unit, both in New York and Los Angeles, working about a month ahead of the release schedule, the entire program will be finished in June. On the coast, two more AndyClyde starring comedies are yet to be made, to complete the series of eight. The first of the remaining two, tentatively titled "Hello Prosperity," has just finished camera work this week and is now being edited. The fifth Frolics of Youth is also under way, leaving one more to be made, while the second comedy starring Buster Keaton will be produced for the Star Comedy Special series. Stacy and H. L. Woodard are working on the Battle For Life subject to follow "Born to Die," which has just been released. In New York Al Christie is preparing for production the third Star Comedy Special to star Ernest Truex, and will follow this in production with the fifth Tom Howard Comedy for the season and then a Musical Comedy, the fourth in this series. With "Joe's Lunch Wagon" in the Terry-Toons series completed, and "Just a Clown" nearing completion, Producers Moser and Terry are preparing to start on "The King's Daughter," the nineteenth in this erie of 26. By LEE MARCUS Associate Producer in charge of RKO Radio (Comedy Production Unitl ANY producers of comedy subjects who are satisfied with their output, no matter how excellent that output is, are dead producers, walking about unburied! Having been engaged in distribution for 12 years I feel competent to state that the RKO two-reel output produced last season by Louis Brock was equal and in many instances superior to the best efforts of other studios. Two films were recognized by "Liberty Magazine." Another, "So This Is Harris," written by Ben Holmes, produced by Mr. Brock and directed by Mark Sanorich, won the Academy award as the best subject of its kind in 1933. Still another, "A Preferred List," was second in the balloting. With all that, however, continued progress calls for improvement. We must continually strive for better entertainment and greater box office drawing power. To that goal, our unit will make a definite yet subtle change in policy. This change will mark the beginning of a new trend, characterized by less of the so-called slapstick and by more situation, story and plot. We will have fewer, if any, time worn gags, pie tossing and parabolic tumbles. And we will have more logical, human humor, augmented by casts of better actors. Pure slapstick comedy appeals to probably not more than 30 per cent of an audience. We plan to reach the remaining 70 per cent with better stories, greater production values. That is a sound business and entertainment measure. As for musicals, no change is contemplated other than better casts and quality. ^^ A MUSICAL COMEDY s^w2 ^ BOB HOPE ; * ' f. LEAH RAY Poster in colors on Musical Comedy featuring Bob Hope.