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 Tts 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 26, 1951 No. 21 HOW THE PICTURE BUSINESS CAN IMPROVE On five evenings a week, the Association of Amencan Railroads dins into the ears of the American people what the railroads are doing for the country. Hauling freight and taking passengers to their destination are not, of course, subjects that possess human appeal, so that they might form an entry to the hearts of the American people, but because the program is conceived brilliantly the railroad people have succeeded in endowing it with human qualities. They use excellent music to attain such an effect, and between the musical numbers they tell their story to the American people. We, in the motion picture industry, are handling a product that is “a natural” for use in reaching the hearts of the American people, if we were to use the method of the American Telephone Company, as discussed in a recent issue of this paper. As you well remember, the Telephone Company employed the incident of the saving of a boy’s life by its employees to gain the public’s good will, and I am sure that it was successful. We can point to many worthy services that the motion picture industry renders to the country to win the hearts of the American people. For instance, the selling of bonds, as we sold them in the last war, and as we sell them now when called upon by the Government. We can tell the American people that the motion picture theatre is the center of their community, ready at all times to offer itself for local and civic purposes and for a hundred other worthy purposes. With telling effect, we can point to the fact that we take to their loved ones, fighting in Korea or serving with the armed forces in other parts of the world, a bit of home to cheer them and thus dispel the homesickness that is natural to a young man away from home for the first time. We can tell the American people that their sons flock to improvised theatres to see motion pictures from home, and that it is one of the best gifts that a GI can be given in his circumstances. I have discussed this subject of institutional advertising so often in these columns that another discussion of it should have been superfluous. But it cannot be repeated too often when the fact remains that, with our public relations at its lowest ebb, and with box-office receipts declining steadily, the top men in our industry have yet to take action on this allimportant matter. Why haven’t they? The excuse is that the industry lacks unity when it comes to spending millions of dollars a year. This is what a top executive told me once. This executive is, to a large extent, right — five or six companies may agree to put up their share of the cost for institutional advertising, but the others refuse to commit themselves even though they will benefit as much in proportion as the companies that will share the cost. But, by refusing to adopt such a method of increasing the business of the theatres, the big companies themselves suffer. There is no use for us to act like an ostrich who hides his head in the sand in the presence of danger; we know that business is poor just now, whatever the cause. But instead of taking wise steps to augment the intake, the distributors are demanding of the exhibitors a larger percentage of such intake, with the result that they make the exhibitor unhappy to the point of despising the distributor. Our distributors, at least many of them, do not seem to understand that impoverishing their customers is not healthful for either the customers or themselves. And impoverishing them is what happens when they demand a greater percentage of the intake to either make up their losses or maintain their profits, whereas if they should bring to the customer more business, they would derive greater profits. The augmented profits, however, would come to them without the necessity of increasing their share of the box-office receipts. One of the causes of the drop in the box-office receipts has been the unpleasant themes employed in picture stories in recent years. Here are a few such pictures : “Rope” (Warners), dealing with a thrill murder committed by two intellectual undergraduates who serve refreshments to the victim’s father and friends from the top of a chest containing his body; “We Were Strangers” (Columbia), in which much of the action depicts the detailed digging of a secret tunnel underneath a vast cemetery, with the participants unearthing numerous dead bodies; “Mrs. Mike” (United Artists), which details the amputation of a 12 -year-old boy’s arm after he is mangled by a wild animal, the excruciating childbirth pains undergone by a woman, and the suffering and deaths caused by a diphtheria epidemic; “Never Fear” (Eagle Lion), the story of a pretty young dancer stricken with polio; “Shadow on the Wall” (MGM), which deals with a six-year-old child whose mind is temporarily affected by the shock of seeing her stepmother murdered; “No Sad Songs for Me” (Columbia), details the tragic life of a woman afflicted with cancer; “The Men” (United Artitsts), a story about paraplegics — veterans paralyzed from the waist down; “Panic in the Streets” (20th-Fox), a chase story revolving around a police hunt for several murderers contaminated with bubonic plague; “Outrage” (RKO), dealing with the criminal rape of a young girl; “The Killer Who Stalked New York” (Columbia), about a woman who unknowingly spreads smallpox among children and adults in the big city; “Sound of Fury” (United Artists) and “Storm Warning” (Warners), both deal ( Continued on bac\ page)