The Film Daily (1921)

riday, June 17, 1921 Kent Answers (Continued from Page 1) Fran's troubles began. As a mat of fact, the date of the letter from Akers to Mr. Uran was the y part of October, 1920, and long ^re there was any difficulty be sjen Mr. Uran and this organiza \\t that time Mr. Akers had airily tendered his resignation to the :er, and was getting out of the i,ribution end entirely. Later on j:quested Mr. Akers to reconsider rthe promise of a change to New k, which Mr. Aker subsequently and which change takes place lin the next two weeks. [ only state this to show that e was no reason at that time for l organization to become in any ■■: interested in any theater in Mat)i, 111. vfr. Berman and Senator Walker |> stated that the prices requested his exhibitor were entirely out of on, and quote as an example: $550 for 'Forbidden Fruit.' $400 for 'Heliotrope.' ! have in my possession the origii salesman's schedule, all of the >espondence between Mr. Uran \ ourselves, and the prices we rented were $300 for 'Forbidden lit,' as against $550 stated by Mr. iman and Senator Walker, and >> for 'Heliotrope." These prices represented no in se over past prices from Mattoon, ifor pictures of similar value." The whole Mattoon situation was ,i before the writer, and the re lsibility was mine when Mr. n's offers were rejected, these 's being entirely ridiculous and in proportion to what Mattoon dd pay even under the conditions Uran stated existed. ?o show our attitude in the mat • we offered to play all of these iures on any fair percentage basis iout asking him to pay us one a»r in advance for them. We were eectly willing to gamble whether <got 10c or $1,000 for each prouion, but we were not willing to isose of them outright at the ridicuN prices offered. Ve offered to put in a number of iures at his price, providing the : Its on these pictures would be i basis on which would be sold i,re pictures, or the balance of the l(k of pictures. Mr. Uran would' 0 show his books to us neither 'Id he entertain any sort of per-age arrangement, and the only 1 g we could do was to take it or ae it on the basis he offered us. Kent Approved Advertising t was not until I had fully gone v the correspondance between Mr. fin and the St. Louis office that I poved the advertising, to advise i people of Mattoon why our picJs were not running in that town. do not question Mr. Uran's right >efuse to run Paramount Pictures 11 more than he can question my it to refuse to sell at the price c>ft'ered. lie advertising campaign we put rvas as legitimate to put over our •net, as the advertising of any * r national organization that is jig to find an outlet for its pro M '"The Exhibitor's Trade Review' has made the statement that we are trying to sell stock in Mattoon and encourage the building of a competitive house against Mr. Uran. Such a statement is absolutely without foundation. "The first information that this organization had regarding the building of a new house, was when one of the Mattoon newspapers wrote us a letter stating that a certain party would like to get in touch with us regarding the use of our service, which letter from the newspaper is in our files. Until that moment we had never contemplated the erection of a house nor encouraged anyone else to do so, and had simply made up our minds to remain out. "My department is handling over 12,000 active accounts using Paramount service, and it is only natural certain disputes should come up regarding prices to be paid for our pictures. Every organization engaged in selling pictures has these same disputes and differences of opinion, but I challenge anyone to prove to me where the Department of Distribution in my control has ever tried to take theaters away from exhibitors or negotiated for any theaters in their possession. Constantly Turn Down Theaters "Not only had this department refrained from negotiating for theaters, but we are constantly called upon to turn down theater propositions that are brought to us voluntarily. "I shall be glad indeed to lay before any committee of interested exhibitors the full correspondence of the Mattoon situation, including all letters passing between Mr. Uran and ourselves, and abide by any verdict they deliver as to whether our attitude in this matter was justified. "The statement regarding the Mattoon situation were made at a meeting of the Theater Owners Association in Kansas City, and were openly disputed by Mr. Libeau, district manager in charge of that territory. "Mr. Libeau called attention to certain inaccuracies in his statement. The speaker then asserted Mr. Libeau had misunderstood him. In spite of this fact, however identically the same statement were made by Senator Walker at the Hotel Astor in New York City in this man's presence, and no attempts were made by them to get the facts in the case from this organization ; in other words, a condemnation was made of our methods before our side of the case had been heard in any phase. "It is not the purpose of this Department of Distribution to put the exhibitor out of business and take his theaters away from him. On the contrary, I am certain there are many hundreds of exhibitors who can attest that our cooperation with them during this period of depression has proved that we are doing our utmost to help them keep their theaters and to operate them at a profit. The Schwartz Case "Here are the facts concerning the case of H. Schwartz, of Willimantic, Conn., who asserts that 'he could not have any more Paramount Pictures,' and that his theater (The Loomer Opera House) was taken away from him. "From Sept. 25, 1918, until the present time, the Loomer Opera House used five Paramount Pictures. The Gem theater, the regular Paramount exhibitor, used 174 features and all the Arbuckle, Sennett and St. John comedies. "Mr. Schwartz says Arbuckle was taken away from him. The truth is that the other theater, The Gem, always showed Arbuckle, and it was therefore impossible to take Arbuckle away from Mr. Schwartz. "The statement that a Paramount salesman said, 'You can't have any more Paramount Pictures,' is therefore utterly absurd. "The Gem is a modern theater, and has bought practically all of our output. The best offer we ever could get from Mr. Schwartz was that he could use some of our features on Sunday nights only, at a rental price of $15 to $20.. which price is out of the question for a town the size of Willimantic. "Tn regard to the charge that we 'took his theater.' we wrote on March 24, 1921. to John L. Hall, of Choate, Hall and Stewart, landlord of the theater as follows : 'Being the largest motion picture producing company in the country, having the future of the industry at heart, we are keenly interested in the welfare of (Continued on Page 4) DAILY American Producers From Italy Societa Anonima "Ultra" SALUTES YOU and invites those of you who desire to make some of your productions in Italy, to come over and benefit by the massive, fully equipped and thoroughly modern studios !of the NOVA and BERNINI companies, which are conveniently situated just outside the walls of Ancient Rome. "Don Carlos' anc a The Sunset ofthe Dorias" have been made in these studios. "BEN HUR" is here in the making; the William Fox Company has contracted for a sufficient period of time to produce "NERO", and it is here where the American directors and artisans will work with the best we have to offer in the spirit of reciprocity. A^. Y. Representative 6?*™~« 17 WEST 44th STREET PHONE CABLE Vanderbilt 7296 N£W YORK CITY E R N S H I P