The Film Daily (1918)

#<ftt BA1L.Y Sunday, December 1, 1918 WHICH OF THESE TWO ARE YOU, AN EXHIBITOR OR A PRODUCER? Adolph Zukor, President of Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Explains Why It Is Impossible to Be Both. "It Is for You to Decide Which Path Your Interest Lies." By ADOLPH ZUKOR After careful deliberation, I have decided to comply with "Variety's" request for a frank expression of opinion on the vital issue that has been developed in the industry by those factors in the trade which are playing the double role of producer and exhibitor. I have been asked repeatedly by exhibitors throughout the country have always withheld from facing that task because of the belief that my present position and that of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation might be misconstrued through such a declaration. "Variety's" specific recognition of the situation, however, and its request for a definite statement of fact and opinion cannot now be ignored without the same possibility of misconstruction of motive. I therefore feel it my duty, not only to my own company, but to the industry at large, to paint the true picture of a situation which, if permitted to continue, will soon be beyond the control of any one factor, or all the factors, in the industry. The evil of producing and exhibiting coalitions is one of the gravest perils that has ever confronted the motion picture industry. For some time past this condition has been developing and now threatens to halt the indus= try's progress, if indeed it does not set it back beyond the point at which it first took its place among the or= ganized industries of the day. It has been permitted to develop this far because no one individual, either pro= ducer or exhibitor, has dared face the facts himself, and compel other producers and exhibitors to face them with him. Let us suppose that we are facing each other and have just decided that we wish to remain in the business in whieli we nre engaged. Do you believe you can produce, distribute, and exhibit motion pictures, all at the same time, with equal ability in all of these three distinct fields? Frankly, I am sure you don't. Then why do a thing if it is not the thing you can do best — or whyjlo other things in addition to the thing you can do best, thereby taking away from the maximum results you could accomplish by concentration upon that one thing? The day of butcher and baker and candle-stick maker embodied in one personage has passed — forever. In the modern industrial and commercial world, under the fusion of keen competition and the application of highly scientific processes, it is the specialist — the expert in an individual field of thought or activity — who alone survives. Young as the motion-picture industry is. it lias progressed so rapidly and so far within a short space of time as to develop unique talents and create a new variety of specialists. No less true than the physical law that a body cannot occupy two places at the same time is the psychological law that a mind cannot do two separate things equally well. The tremendous opportunities along new avenues of activity which the motion picture opened up attracted to the industry men with keen and agile minds, men with nn inclination toward original thought. These men, obeying the natural law of mind and will, sought that strata of the trade into which their native talents and tendencies best fitted them. So D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Thomas H. Ince and Maurice Tourneur mingled their dramatic genius with the new-born screen art, and emerged as the foremost creators of the photoplay; so S. T>. Rothapfel. Moe Mark. Harold Edel. Eugene H. Roth, Shi Grauman, John H. Kunsky, and many other great exemplars of the art of exhibition — for it is an art in the same decree as that of production — found themselves attracted to the theatre end of the business, to the temnles that they knew would be reared in which the people might worship the new arnusemnt-god ; so Jesse L. Lasky, Win. A. Brady and Max Karger contributed their combined administrative and artistic experience and became the great producing executives of the industry: so Hiram Abrams and Walter E. Greene, W. W. Irwin and Richard A. Rowland applied their sound business sense to the new commercial problems which the industry presented for solution, and developed into the foremost distributors of the photoplay. These men all specialized, and in the fields in which they concentrated their efforts have attained their greatest success and prestige. After years of constant thought for the betterment of the industry, for the progress of the organization with which I am associated, and for my personal advancement to the highest point of efficiency which I can possibly reach. I am convinced that the most important nuestion I can ask mvself. or anv member of mv organization, is: "ARE YOU SPECIALIZING?" If you are, you are insuring your business or the branch of it in which you are engaged. If you are not, your business is disintegrating, whether it is paying you dividends to-day or not: for the man who is specializing while you are not will control your business before you have become aware of his interest in it. But even a more important protection for your busi= ness than the fact that you are specializing in your branch of it is the security that comes of the knowledge that others are also specializing in their branches of the industry; for unless there continue to be producing specialists, scenario specialists, financial specialists, the greatest and most elaborate theatres will not have at= tractions for their screens, the best equipped studios