The Film Daily (1919)

>AIL.V Sunday, January 5, 1919 HERE'S WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR An Aggressive Exhibitor Opens His Heart and Speaks Up on Producer, Distributor, Exhibitor Problem. Read This Carefully and Think It Over. I have started several times to write my impressions of the situation being discussed by Messrs. Zukor, Williams, Hodkinson and others, but kept postponing entering the discussion in the hope that some exhibitor would cut loose and prove that the exhibitors know a great deal more about these basic problems than the New Vork mahogany chair warmers believe. Herman Brown has said some very pointed pertinent things in this letter and I want you all to read it. I want to particularly invite Mr. Williams and Mr. Zukor to make a reply to this letter if they see fit. The exhibitors of the country like to know which way they are headed and the surest way to win their confidence is to make a frank statement as to policy and intentions. Now let's sit back and listen to Mr. Brown. It's quite worth while. W id Gunning Dec. 16, 1918. Friend Wid : I note that you are having trouble in getting many representative exhibitors to come out of their holes on the ZukorAVilliams-Hodkinson matter. T believe some exhibitor should voice the exhibitors feelings so I offer this for what it is worth, on the principle that any expression from exhibitors is better than none. I for one do not fear the future either as an individual or for exhibitors as a class. Neither do I fear that the producers that have the real goods and sell them honestly and with fair methods need worry. Their worst days lie in the two years that will end next summer. That is if they are wise, resourceful and self-reliant. There is a whole lot of comedy in the situation. The funniest thing I ever saw since I was born was the attempt of the poor halfwitted dupes of the trust (the nontrust producers) to call together the First National stockholders to warn them against themselves. Lewis Selznick described it exactly as "a bunch of damn fools making an exhibition of themselves." The fact that the other producers could be used as catspaws by the trust in this manner is comical. The fact that the agency that threatened the trust was an exhibitor agency, speaks volumes for the lack of enterprise and brains on the part of the trust's would-be competitors. By the way, how long is Selznick going to pack a banner in another man's parade? He has too much brains and wit to play second fiddle much longer. The field was never so ripe for men like him. What Might Have Been. . The nontrust producers are offered this thought— If they had been real men, with real guts, at the time of the break-up of the old Triangle company, they would have prevented the star combination of the trust in which its strength has lain for eighteen months and the breaking up of which breaks the backbone of the monopoly. They would have seen that they were being systematically shut out of booking days to the extent that First National can never shut them out. They would have offered real competition to the trust. They would have fought shy of having one of their number rap the table with his knuckles and tell the organized exhibitor where he headed in, that there was no discussion coming, that the Kings had spoken to the slaves. (Mind you I do not say the reel tax matter to which I refer, was wrong, I merely say that if T had been there I would have refrained from bringing the Affiliated Distributors — for one — into existence by rapping with MY knuckles, had I been a distributor). This producer is now touring out here in the west asking exhibitor-co-operation (ain't it funny, a year ago he didn't have time to talk to the representatives of thousands of us when we went to him : today he spends time and monev to talk to us). The thing that ails him is the trust. We bear him no malice. He makes good films, better on the average than the trust, but if he wants data I can show him where he is shut out ^\ thousands of booking days by trust junk. Finally he will be saved by the exhibitor. His wforst days are over. Keep on making better and still better films Mr. Goldfish, and no trust on earth can stop you. Well, to go back, the non trust producers played the trust game for a year and then assem'bled to protest against the ex hibitor doing what they had failed to do, doin» the only thing that could be done to free the game, including Mr. Goldfish. Exhibitor Forced. Mr. Zukor is wrong. The exhibitor is nol going into production or distribution, he has been FORCED into both. Most intelligent exhibitors in America have been waiting two years for Mr. Zukor to make the statement he has. viz.: that he is going to be an exhibitor as well