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, MAY 5, 1951 No. 18 A JUST EXHIBITOR GRIEVANCE A small-town exhibitor writes me: “When an exhibitor like me — and there are plenty others — buys a percentage picture for a Sunday and plays it four days, how come we must buy shorts, news, etc., to make up a two-hour program? We can't show just the picture, for many of them are too short for a full program. Yet we have to pay a big percentage on just the picture alone. “We have to pay big prices for the shorts. Why can’t we deduct this expense item from the producer’s share? After all we do need a complete program. What do you think?” This matter has been treated editorially in these columns so often that every exhibitor should know by this time just how Harrison’s Reports feels about it. If justice and fair play were to guide the parties to a percentage deal, either the exhibitor should be permitted to deduct from the distributor’s share the cost of the shorts, or it should become the responsibility of the distributor to furnish along with his feature all the shorts needed to make up a complete program in conformity with the exhibitor’s running time for a full show. But justice and fair play do not seem to prevail at present in percentage deals, under which the distributor demands for his feature a certain percentage of every dollar taken in at the box-office, in spite of the fact that the feature he provides cannot be shown alone. Throughout the history of this business the exhibitors have gained nothing except by fighting. As a matter of fact, no reform has ever been gained unless those oppressed fought for it. Consequently, Harrison's Reports advises every one of you to fight for such a reform. You should insist at every convention that your leaders open up a debate on the subject, and that the views of your association be made known to every distributor who sells pictures on percentage, either by resolution or by letter. You should also write to the trade papers to support you in this just demand. A TOUCHING ADVERTISEMENT In a recent issue of Life magazine, I read a Bell Telephone System advertisement that was touching; it was, in fact, so touching, that I decided to reproduce it here in its entirety with the hope that our industry’s leaders may derive a lesson as to how other industries reach the hearts of the American people. Under the heading, “HE WENT UNDER THE ICE TO SAVE A BOY’S LIFE,” the advertisement said: “It was a cold winter afternoon and a telephone construction crew was working along South Road in Bedford, Massachusetts. “Suddenly, they heard a boy’s voice from a nearby creek. “ 'Help! . . . over here . . . help!’ “Robert B. Foley was the first telephone man to reach the bank. A frantic boy told him that his buddy, Donald King, had fallen into a hole and was under the ice. “Foley crawled over the surface flat on his stomach to distribute his weight and keep the ice from breaking. He got to the hole and without hesitating let himself down in the water, clear out of sight. “He went down twice without finding Donald. Then the boy on the bank yelled . . . “ ‘No, not that hole. The one over there.' “Down went Foley for the third time, pushing himself along under the ice toward a smaller hole, five or six feet away. “The next few seconds seemed like years, for he was out of sight. Then suddenly there was a splashing in the open water. It was Foley, and he had the boy in his arms. “Immediately John J. Fitzgerald, the foreman of the construction crew — trained for first aid in emergencies — started to resuscitate the boy and had him breathing by the time the police and fireman arrived with an inhalator. . . ." The advertisement has the following postscript: “HELPING HANDS — This is just one of the many stories of the skill, courage and resourcefulness of telephone men and women in times of emergency. . . . Not all of them tell of the saving of a life. But there is scarcely a minute that someone in trouble or urgent need does not turn to the telephone for help. “No matter who it may be or what the hour of the day or night, you know that telephone people will do everything they can to be of service. And do it willingly and courteously, with all possible speed. . . .” The motion picture industry has cases that could be used in an institutional advertisement with the same telling effect, but our leaders do nothing to take advantage of them, for they are unable to agree on a policy that will try to capture the hearts and minds of the American people for the entire industry instead of for the pictures of each individual producer. Do the television people allow personal interests to overshadow the interests of their industry as a whole? Not at all! They are buying radio time and vast newspaper space to sell their shows, most of which are putrid, and to keep the people at home. We cannot get away from the fact that, even though most of the television shows are poor, they are free and convenient. But no television receiving set, not even the ones that have the biggest screens, can give the entertainment seekers the enjoyment and emotional impact that comes from a film shown on the screen of a comfortable motion picture theatre. The industry could make the most of the motion picture screen’s advantage over television, but it has not, because their leaders cannot agree on a program that will help everyone instead of their individual companies. It appears as if the individual exhibitor himself has to take up the institutional advertising fight if he wants the industry to offset, in some measure, the havoc that television and other forms of entertainment have caused in the ranks of the habitual motion picture patrons. Along these lines, Col. H. A. Cole, the exhibitor leader of Allied Theatres of Texas, has suggested what he calls a “revolutionary" adver (Continued on bac\ page)