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: 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 1270 SIXTH AVENUE New York 20, N. Y. Published Weekly by Harrison’s Reports, Inc., Publisher A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors P. S. HARRISON, Editor Established July 1, 1919 Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. Circle 7-4622 A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XXXIII SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1951 No. 17 CONFIDENCE? At a sales meeting held last July at the Warner Bros. Burbank studio, Harry M. Warner, president, and Major Albert Warner, vice' president, issued a joint statement in which they expresed confidence in the future of their company, despite national and international conditions, and in which they chided those who are “obsessed with fears and worries” over television “or any other medium.” “As brothers,” both said in the joint statement, “we remember the advantages which this country gave three young men in the earliest days of the motion picture business. We recall the tremendous optimism with which we looked to the future and our faith in people and in faith itself. And the three of us are as optimistic today as we were in the earliest days of our youth about the future of motion pictures. . , . “So many people today are obsessed with worries and fears. We at Warner have no obsession except that of making and marketing the best pictures we know how. . . From the large scale retrenchment compaign that has been going on at Warners during the past several weeks, one gets the impression that the Warner broth' ers, despite their expressions of confidence and op' timism, are now making a fast retreat. Permanent dismissals in all departments of the company, mclud' ing the studio, home office and exchanges, have been heavy. According to one report, the number of employees dismissed will total about three hundred. It may be that the economies effected by Warners through these dismissals are in keeping with good management practices in that overhead costs must be kept in line with current grosses. But the one disturbing phase of these dismissals is a cut of about forty per cent in the personnel of the studio publicity department. Whether publicity people at the home office and in the field have been or will be affected by the retrenchment campaign is not known to this paper. At a time when the industry must make use of all its experienced publicity manpower to publicize and exploit motion pictures to the hilt to combat the current box-office slump, it hardly seems beneficial, not only to Warners, but also to the exhibitors, to effect economies in the publicity department. If anything, the industry is in need of expanded publicity and exploitation departments, for it is only through wider promotion of motion picture entertainment that we can hope to offset the inroads made by television and by all the other forms of competitive entertainment. A LOW BLOW The motion picture industry has been given good cause for consternation as a result of the unfair attack made against it Sunday night on the “Philco Playhouse” television program, which dramatized the life of D. W. Griffith in a special presentation titled, “The Birth of the Movies.” The story, based on the memoirs of Lillian Gish, who appeared on the program, brought out the fact that Griffith was one of the great pioneers of the motion picture industry; that he introduced many of the production techniques now in use; and that he ended up as a disillusioned man, more or less forgotten by the industry. These are facts that no one can deny, and there are many persons within the industry who feel that Griffith did not receive proper recognition from the business in view of the contributions he had made towards its progress. The disparaging thing about the presentation, however, is that in depicting these facts Griffith was placed on a high pedestal while the Hollywood producers who followed in his footsteps were made out as money-mad individuals, void of creative ideals and interested only in personal power. A typical example of the below-the-belt punches taken at the industry may be gleaned from one of the closing scenes in which Miss Gish visited an unidentified studio executive to sell him the idea of producing Griffith’s life story. This executive was depicted as not only unenthusiastic, but also rude and calloused in that, during her visit, he was mainly concerned with phone calls having to do with his golf game and with his putting over a shady deal to secure without delay an expensive convertible automobile. As a result of many complaints sent to his office by irate industryites, Arthur L. Mayer, executive vicepresident of COMPO, sent a sharp protest to James Carmine, president of the Philco Corporation. His letter, a copy of which was sent to Joseph H. McConnell, president of NBC, follows: “This organization, representing all branches of the motion picture industry, protests against the unfair and gratuitous criticism of our business which was made in your television program, ‘The Birth of the Movies,’ Sunday night. “Since your telecast was an advertisement for your product, your disparagement of the picture business was a violation of that cardinal principal of advertising ethics which forbids any attack on another ( Continued on bac\ page)