Harrison's Reports (1951)

Entered as second-class matter January 4, 1S21, at the post office at New York, New York, under the act ot March 3, 1878. Harrison’s Reports Yearly Subscription Rates: United States $16.00 U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 Canada 16.50 Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 Great Britain 17.60 Australia, New Zealand, India, Europe, Asia .... 17.60 35c a Copy 1270 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS (Formerly Sixth Avenue) Ntrw York 20, N. Y. A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Published Weekly by Harrison’s Reports, Inc., Publisher P. S. HARRISON, Editor Established July 1, 1819 Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Circle 7-4622 Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XXXIII SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1951 No. 9 HOW OTHER INDUSTRIES PROMOTE PUBLIC GOOD WILL Recent issues of different national magazines carried an advertisement captioned, "The Search for Oil Takes to the Air,” in which the readers are told how the oil industry goes about finding new oil deposits with specially equipped planes. The advertisement, which makes highly interesting reading, boosts no particular oil company, and was inserted by the American Petroleum Institute for the purpose of informing the public of the efforts made by the oil industry to provide them with the finest oil products at the lowest possible prices. The oil industry knows, I am sure, that this advertisement will not sell one gallon of oil more than it is selling now, but its leaders no doubt felt that the benefit in terms of public good will warrants the expense. Other industries are resorting to similar methods. The Steel industry, for example, uses radio and television, in addition to newspapers and magazines, to tell the public what it is doing to help the economy of the nation and to serve its war efforts. What is the motion picture industry doing? Nothing! I asked a top industry executive why the industry is not doing anything, and he replied, with a smile : “It’s too costly.” The television industry does not think that it is too costly to publicize its virtues; it spends millions each year. Yet we allow television to knock the props from underneath us while we lament the loss of patronage. Exhibitors as well as producers seem to have become fatalists and are doing nothing to counteract the propaganda against the picture industry. This paper has been battling editorially for years to awaken the industry leaders as to the need for institutional advertising, but to no avail. The expenditure of a few million dollars a year for institutional advertising is not too costly when one bears in mind that the cost will be divided among the different companies. But the trouble with our industry leaders is their inability to agree on a policy. Each company seeks to put over its own product instead of thinking of the common good. Thus mil< lions of dollars are lost to exhibition each year by their inability to get together. And since all the big pictures are sold on percentage, the loss to the producer-distributors is far greater than the cost of institutional advertising. Perhaps Spyros Skouras, who advocated an institutional advertising program last week at a luncheon meeting of some fifty leading distribution and exhibition executives, will be able to bring the “warring” elements together. ABRAM F. MYERS’ ANNUAL REPORT (Continued from last week) “(e) Better still, it now seems probable that the entire industry may at long last unite through the Council of Motion Picture Organizations ((COMPO) to improve public relations and for promotional activities. This Board will be called upon to consider the latest proposal by reorganizing COMPO and I will not anticipate that discussion by dealing with it in this report. However, the Board has twice approved the objects and purposes of this movement and I personally hope that COMPO will be a strong factor in the industry. I am not specially interested in COMPO as an agency for explaining away or apologizing for whatever faults the industry may have. That technique has been tried and has failed for too many years. The proper method is first to ascertain public attitudes toward the industry and then to conform to them as far as possible. The industry in time will come to realize that a public relations program to be successful sometimes calls for internal reform as well as outward defense. “COMPO’s great opportunity it seems to me is to weld the whole industry into an effective fighting force to attack and bring to early close the current boxoffice recession. Many proposals to that end have been made and some have been approved and the great campaign to promote theatre attendance — to bring the industry to the people and the people into the theatres — awaits only the completion of COMPO’s organization and the accumulation of funds under the plan for the payment of dues based on 1/1 0th of 1% of all feature film rentals, the amounts so paid by the exhibitors to be matched by the distributors. If the industry can hold together on such a mighty undertaking, and the choice of projects and details of the operation can be left to the calm judgment of experts, the industry will have given visible evidence of its maturity and a great milestone will have been passed. “(f) One of the contributing causes to our present distress is the over-expansion which has occurred in the exhibition branch since World War II. Indoor theatres alone increased from 15,117 in 1939 to 17,689 in 1948, an increase of 17%. But the data for outdoor theatres, which have sprouted like mushrooms are not included in these figures. Hundreds of cities and towns are badly overseated. The available patronage has been spread thinly over too many seats. This feverish construction explains in part why producer-distributors have been able to increase their net profits while the receipts of individual theatres have sagged. Until National Production Authority Order M-4 was issued, it seemed that this building splurge, especially as regards drive-ins, would continue indefinitely. Now, except for a few 'hardship' cases theatre construction has been halted and it seems likely that the ban will remain in effect for several years during which time we hay hope that increased patronage will make full use of the available facilities. “In view of the foregoing and other considerations which time will not permit me to dwell upon, it is difficult to see how any loyal industry member can succumb to his own pessimism, no matter how hard his present position may be. In times of adversity men are prone to forget these blessings which they still retain. It is time that some exhibitors — including a few leaders — tried to get things in better perspective. Despite recent set-backs the theatre business still is one of the cleanest and most profitable of retail enterprises. If you do not believe this, just compare notes with your grocer, your druggist, your drygoods merchant and hardware dealer. The exhibitor sells nothing that is tangible. He has no inventory problems — once he plays a picture he is through with it and he has had a 100% turnover. He has no packaging and delivery costs and no losses from spoilage, breaking or style changes. He has an executive's salary in addition to the dividends from the corporation which is his other self. It is doubtful if he could sell out and invest in any other business where the returns on his investment would be as great. “Of course, I am generalizing and am not prepared to debate with any exhibitor the facts of his individual situation. What I am seeking to do is to reverse a trend which is apparent in some quarters and to restore the vision and courage of near-sighted and timid men who profess to believe that there is no future for the motion picture business. In this effort I am ably abetted by our National President Trueman T. Rembusch. I rejoiced in the expression he used in concluding a recent article on the outlook for the movies. He said: ‘My theatres are not for sale.’ “4. Progress toward a free industry. On February 8, 1950, on the eve of our last annual board meeting, the statutory court in New York entered a final decree against the hold-out defendants — Loew's, Twentieth Century and Warner Bros. — requiring that those companies shall be ( Continued on back pttge)