Harrison's Reports (1951)

Entered as second-class matter January 4, 1921, at the post office at New York, New York, under the act of March 3, 1879. Harrison’s Reports Yearly Subscription Rates: 1270 SIXTH AVENUE United States $15.00 U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 Canada 16.50 Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 Great Britain 17.50 Australia, New Zealand, India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 35c a Copy New York 20, N. Y. A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. Published Weekly by Harrison’s Reports, Inc., Publisher P. S. HARRISON, Editor Established July 1, 1919 Circle 7-4622 A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XXXIII SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1951 No. 15 TOA APPROVAL OF COMPO INDECISIVE At the conclusion of its three-day meeting in Washington last week, the board of directors of the Theatre Owners of America ratified the revised organizational setup of the Council of Motion Picture Organizations, thus becoming the tenth and final charter member of COMPO to approve the plan. Normally, this last of the required ratifications should have been cause for rejoicing in that it would have permitted COMPO to make immediate progress on its long delayed public relations program. The fact remains, however, that COMPO is just as stymied today as it has been ever since last July, when the TOA raised objections with regard to the part COMPO should play in the industry's war activities, and then followed up these objections several months later with demands for greater regional representation on the COMPO board. As explained by Mitchell Wolfson, TOA’s board chairman, last week’s ratification merely endorses the new COMPO setup “in principle" in that it meets the requires ments laid down by the TOA at its Houston convention. “It is now up to each TOA unit to determine for itself whether it wishes to join and pay dues,” stated Wolfson. “We cannot obligate any local unit; each has its own autonomy.” Thus far ten of the twenty-eight TOA regional units have agreed to go along with COMPO. An apt comment on the statement that the TOA’s ratification does not bind its individual units to support COMPO was made by Sherwin Kane, editor of Motion Picture Daily in the April 10 issue of that paper. Here is what Kane had to say, in part: “Had that point been emphasized as publicly last winter, COMPO might be much further along in its work for the betterment of industry public relations and the stimulation of theatre attendance than it is today. Instead of marking time while TOA made up its mind just how it would like to see COMPO reorganized, and then devoting the time and effort to carrying out the reorganization to suit TOA, COMPO might have gone about its business immediately, leaving the stragglers and the malcontents to board the bandwagon as they saw fit. “After all the fol-de-rol and delay, that is exactly where COMPO stands today. “The least the TOA directors might have done in Washington, as a courtesy to COMPO, would have been to count noses at the board meeting and advise COMPO just what the prospects are of favorable or unfavorable action by more than half of TOA's reluctant member units. “The men who head the local TOA units were present at the Washington meeting, for the most part. They know how they feel and how their units feel about COMPO. A dependable report could have been made on the spot and forwarded to COMPO as a basis for deciding without further delay whether the recalcitrants are worth waiting longer for or not. “Instead, the industry is reminded that TOA does not speak or act for its members and COMPO will have to continue waiting until the TOA member units, which already have taken more time for deliberation than any other components of COMPO, decide whether or not they like the reorganization that has been re-made to their specifics tions. . . Harrison’s Reports is in full agreement with the views expressed by Sherwin Kane, and it shares with many industryites the feeling that the TOA’s ratification of COMPO’s revised corporate structure is at best a half-hearted endorsement of a project for which it has no enthusiasm, and that its stamp of approval is merely a surface action designed to remove from TOA the onus of not only retarding COMPO but also bringing about its possible demise. As matters now stand, COMPO’s already weak position has been weakened further by the TOA leaders’ failure to rally their individual units to support the new COMPO setup which, as pointed out by Kane, was redesigned to meet their demands. This failure cannot help but serve to dampen whatever enthusiasm other exhibitor organizations and individual exhibitors might have felt for COMPO, for without the moral and financial support of the recalcitrant TOA units COMPO cannot be considered an effective all-industry organization. Consequently, those who held out hope for its future may now decline their support, for they will see no incentive in giving their time and money to an organization that will lack, not only full industry support, but also an adequate budget with which to carry on a large-scale public relations program such as was envisioned when the organization was conceived in Chicago more than twenty-one months ago. In emphasizing that the TOA board’s approval of the revised COMPO structure does not bind the individual TOA units, and that each unit will have to decide for itself whether or not it will support COMPO, it becomes apparent that Mitchell Wolfson is seeking to absolve the TOA high command of any blame in the event that COMPO falls by the wayside for lack of support. The fact remains, however, that the responsibility for such a happening will lie, not with the TOA rank-and-file membership, but with the TOA leaders, who demanded a change in the COMPO setup without the knowledge or approval of the TOA rank-and-filers, and who now claim that they can do nothing about making their ratification binding on the individual units. And the proof that the TOA leaders did not seek the views of its membership in demanding a change in COMPO’s organizational setup is contained in a report written by Red Kann, who had this to say, in part, in the November 9, 1950 issue of Motion Picture Daily, after his return from the TOA convention in Houston: “The fact, completely unvarnished, is that the TOA membership was never informed of the board’s action on COMPO. Since the board is made up of representatives from various TOA units, it might be said that the mandate of the membership was reflected and implemented although likewise might it be said that this is perhaps theoretical. But it was curious that a decision of this importance had to filter to the general membership from the directors themselves, or through lobby word-of-mouth or trade paper coverage. . . .” Elsewhere in his article. Red Kann pointed out that the TOA board's action on COMPO at the convention was only one of several other “pieces of official business which the TOA rank-and-filer was never officially told about,” and that the action itself was “largely a political approach, conditioned by ideas of self-importance mixed with vanity and a fear that individual identifications under existing alignments either will be devoured and emasculated if COMPO ever (Continued on back, page)