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1st Vice-President, Paramount-Publix
JESSE L. LASKY
Average good pictures in familiar moulds, once relied upon for good theater business, no longer attract. That is the lesson of 1931. The box-office taught it. The reasons are apparent. The public is weary and depression-ridden. They have a reduced income to spend on entertainment and they spend it warily. The bright feature of the situation for producers is the fact that the S.R.O. signs go up as in boom days when the public is given some smashing, outstanding attraction that they really want.
How can we furnish the surefire screen fare of today?
There are a few important star personalities at present who even in these exacting days are box-office draws in themselves. These we can protect and develop still further by fortifying them with the strongest possible modern stories and attractive casts.
But even more important is the necessity of bringing new ideas to the screen.
In every period when patronage fell off, the picture industry has been revivified by the injection of new ideas. A few years ago it was by the introduction of sound. Today, with its mechanical equipment highly perfected, the new ideas must come in stories and in the manner in which stories are produced.
The successful producer of 1932 must be daring. He must discard old formulae. He must go far afield for fresh, startling ideas, for unconventional production brains, for new types of players.
Ten strikingly different pictures of high quality released in the first quarter of 1932 would change the entire outlook of this business to one of ringing optimism and would start a new era of universal picture-going among the public.
NICHOLAS M. SCHENCK
There is nothing in this business which good pictures cannot cure.
President, Loew's and M-C-M
Counsel D. of A.
CHARLES C. PETTIJOHN
• A few suggestions for 1932 are: Fewer pictures with more time and care on each production instead of turning them out to fill release dates. Reduction of the cost of production in every way possible, but not any reduction that will show on the celluloid.
A little more time devoted by exhibitors to showmanship instead of "industry problems."
And last but not least the maintenance of something we already have, namely, a united front of the industry against unfair attacks from without and less attacks between each other within.
These things alone would spell success for everybody now engaged in the business.