The Film Daily (1936)

THE 12 <^ DAILY Monday, Jan. 20, 1936 » » TOPICS OF TIMELY INTEREST €€ a Selecting Films Roxy Theater's Mass Audiences f AM frequently asked, "How do you choose the pictures you play at the Roxy Theater?" Now, before answering this question, I would like to remind you that the Roxy Theater has 6200 seats. We give four performances daily and five on Saturdays and Sundays at a very low admission price. This price, together with the popular variety show we feature, attracts what is known as a family audience— in other words, a cross section of this city's population, what might be called "the great middle class." Now I would like very much to be able to tell you that we look at pictures in a spirit of high esthetic detachment and then buy them or reject them on the basis of their artistic merits. Actually, as we sit in our projection room, we are more like shoe buyers looking over the fall line than connoisseurs inspecting works of art. For the fact is that we, along with the shoe buyers, have only one thought uppermost — will the public pay its money for this article? Naturally, a number of esthetic considerations enter indirectly into our thinking. We know from experience that the public will not buy our article unless it is well made, styled in the current fashion and superficially attractive. It is perhaps somewhat easier to gauge these qualities in a static article such as a shoe than in a screen play, but after a certain amount of practice, a few basic rules emerge which are readily followed. The first of these is that, to the average American, thinking is the direct antithesis of entertainment. That which is difficult to grasp is, by its very nature, not amusing. The film, therefore, which in one week is to entertain a hundred thousand or so New Yorkers must be readily understood by the lowest as well as the highest intelligence in the audience. In the second place, although mass entertainment should not necessitate thought, it must cause emotional excitation of some kind. This is most readily attained through stimulation of the primary passions such as love, fear, hate and pity. Endless reiteration on the screen, unlike life, does not appear in any way to dull the potency of these sensations. Like a really comfortable shoe, a really first rate emotion seems to have an enduring appeal. Furthermore, it is essential that all this emotional content be set forth in the clearest kind of black and white. Those subtleties of character, those slightly foggy mixtures of good and bad prevalent in life and in art are not for popular entertainment — whether in best selling fiction, on the screen or in comic strips. Virtue must be well defined, in fact, unmistakable, and must move in a steadily ascending curve to its just rewards. In a parallel line, evil, painted in darkest pitch, must also descend in certain steps to inevitable defeat. Finally, we take up the question of quality. This is largely a competitive matter. Techniques of acting, direction, dialogue and even story have been steadily on the upgrade over the past decade, and we try to see that the films we show meet, as closely as possible, current standards. In this fashion we purchase the wares which our industry turns out at its producing centers, where, as I see it, conditions closely resemble those of any other industry, but have little, if anything, in common with conditions usually identified with the creation of art. — Howard S. Cullman. Finds English Studios Like Thos of Hollywood [ WENT to Elstree to compare an English studio with its Hollywood prototype. Found it just the same. If there be any difference between American and English pictures it lies in the actors, the scripts and the ingenuity of directors. From the factory standpoint I might as well have visited M-G-M or Warner Bros, or Paramount. Doorkeepers are instinctively snooty. Until they know exactly who you are and who, within the sacred precincts, is expecting you, they receive you as a burglar. But once they get instructions by telephone to admit you they do more bowing and scraping than their Hollywood brethren. The first thing you notice upon crossing the threshold is the tremendous number of doors leading to private offices and the stream of young men pouring in and out of these cubbyholes. These men all seem terribly busy. They rush out of one room and into another, reminding you of bees in a hive. I said to my guide, "For heaven's sake, what do all those chaps do here?" He replied, "Not a damn thing." I felt that I was in Hollywood. I was led through a maze of corridors filled with the paraphernalia of cinematography. Then we reached a set where they were "shooting." Dazzling lights and a lot of people in theatrical costumes. Many young men were running about. I was introduced to one of the rushing young men. Just before he dashed away I remembered that we had been introduced 15 minutes ago. Yes, these studios and their denizens are very Hollywoodish. I think those rushing young men should have pedometers on their legs and get paid according to the mileage they cover every day. Everybody here has a female secretary. Some of them are better-looking than the actresses. They also hold conferences here. A movie studio conference is a sanctuary where the participants are immune from telephone calls and visitors and come to conclusions which the higher-ups usually ignore. At 5 P. M. tea is served. I think a film studio is a great place for most of us to keep away from. Its output is a delightful contribution to human enjoyment. Its mechanism is necessarily prosaic and choppy and hashy. If you enjoy the ticking of a clock why take the works apart? The man who wanted to know why his goose laid golden eggs killed the goose. Let the actors and the runabout lads stew under the Kleig lights and you go and enjoy the finished picture. ■ — Bruno Lessing, in "N. Y. American." McCarey Says Lawyers Make Best Directors 'T'O be a successful director of comedy you have to be a line twister. You have to make words work for you just as a lawyer does in the courtroom. You have to be able to think soundly in terms of human emotion and get the most out of a situation in exactly the way that a clever lawyer does. You have to watch for loopholes. The lawyer adapt at finding them can win his case every time. And the director who has the same knack can always find an opening for an additional funny line or switch in the continuity that will gain a point. Any worthwhile screenplay requires months of preparation, and the man who has closeted himself and prepared a law case obviously has an advantage over the person who attempts to prepare material for the screen without any similar training. Audiences are like juries. They have to be shown. They have to be convinced. You have to plan your effects far in advance, after the manner of the most learned barristers. Every able lawyer is a potential director. [McCarey was associated with a San Francisco law firm before starting his screen career.] — Leo McCarey. Giveaways Defended As Showmanship 'pHE exhibition end of the motion picture industry has always been and will continue to be primarily dependent upon that well-worn but essential adjective — showmanship. Boxoffice naturals are still by reason of the eccentricities in production, few and far between. Gross receipts, the only barometer of production value, disclose that 3 per cent of all feature product amply takes care of so-called box-office naturals. Obviously, an exhibitor, therefore, contracts for a great majority of features that require exceptional showmanship and hard work in order to show profit. The preponderance of film footage demands extraordinary effort to hold up receipts. Why then, should the exhibitor be criticized for augmenting his film attractions with various "magnets" that draw attendance in the form of cash prizes or merchandise prizes, and make profit possible? It would be just as sensible to criticize stores because they draw patronage by advertising their 6 per cent cash discount campaign; or we might wonder why should Quaker Oats offer premiums in order! to stimulate the purchase of a food. Box-office stimulators are merely a vehicle for exploitation and advertising — available to the smallest and the largest theaters alike. Newspapers, radio, ahd billboards, as you know, cannot be utilized for the practical reason of wastage in the cost, but stimulator's appeal can be crystallized within the area of theater operation, and at a low cost per admissions gained. All live showmen grasp eagerly at opportunities afforded them to swell their gross receipts within the ethics, of course, of good showmanship. Certainly there is nothing degrading or sensational about offering money or merchandise prizes as additional incentive for greater patronage. As in anything else, good judgment on the part of the exhibitor is necessary in order to get the most lasting results from the various games in circulation. It is illogical to assume that any theater is wise' in over-doing cash or merchandise stimulators, but until a sufficient number of good pictures are available more or less regularly, one cannot blame theater operators for using this type of added attraction in order to increase their profits. — Ed. Eschmann