Harrison's Reports (1951)

104 HARRISON’S REPORTS June 30, 1951 An interesting angle to this question, as reported recently by weekly 'Variety, is that the standard Screen Actors Guild contract, which applies to players receiving less than $20,000 per picture, gives the producer or studio the right to use the player’s name and likeness in connection with the advertising and exploitation of the picture itself. This contract, however, does not make mention of advertising or commercial endorsements, but where a producer or studio desires that a player have his likeness or endorsement used for commercial tieups on a particular picture, standard releases are secured from the individual player. Whether such a standard release gives a producer or studio the right to use a player’s name and likeness in conjunction with sponsored television advertising, which can hardly be considered commercial tieups in behalf of the picture, itself, is a question that wall no doubt be settled by the courts in due time. Moreover, there is a big question of whether or not the sale of old pictures to TV does not breach the rights of numerous bit players and extras. The developments in Rogers’ suit should be interesting. Undoubtedly, the legal questions he has raised will eventually go the the Supreme Court for a final determination. If he should win the case, it may very well result in relatively few pictures originally made for theatre exhibition being sold to television, either because many film personalities, big or small, will not consent to having their names and likenesses exhibited on TV sponsored shows, or because their demands for a share of the profits will not make the sale of their pictures to TV worthwhile for the producers. Such a happening will not, of course, disappoint the exhibitors. A CRITIC SPEAKS OUT Having devoted considerable space in these columns to articles criticizing newspaper and magazine motion picture critics whose unfair appraisal of pictures indicate that they have lost touch with what constitutes entertainment values for the vast majority of moviegoers, it is indeed a pleasure to bring to the attention of this paper’s readers the views of Miss Edith Lindeman, motion picture critic of the Richmond Times Dispatch, who, not only claims that she has seldom seen a picture that did not have something to offer some people, but also feels that an important part of a critic’s job is to write so that the proper audience gets to the proper picture. Miss Lindeman, who has been a critic for 1 8 years, says that in reviewing a film she looks for three things — entertainment, honesty and escape. She had this to say in part in a talk before last week’s convention of the Virginia Motion Picture Theatres Association, as reported by Boxoffice: “To me, a ’good’ motion picture is one that entertains, that offers a release, and that respects the intelligence of its audience, without going intellectual. It also should represent the honest efforts of a studio to do a good job. The picture I do not like is one that tries to put something over on the public, one that saddles a fine actor with a shoddy story, or puts a good story into the hands of an inept director, or wastes good talent on cheap and sensational material. “By honesty, I mean something quite different from the neo-realism that foreign studios do so well and Hollywood does so self-consciously. By honesty, I mean integrity, probably unpretentiousness. I will cheer louder for a minor picture that entertains, even if it is made on a low budget with a cast of comparative unknowns, than for a film that has been touted to the skies, has cost a couple of million dollars but comes out as a hodge-podge of fake emotions, hokum and bad acting. “By escape, I mean just exactly that — and escape can take on many facets. A good, well-paced honest documentary can offer an escape to the housewife who never had realized that a narcotic agent operates that way. A big musical can offer an escape to most anyone. A solid comedydrama that takes the audience out of the workaday world is a tonic, a delight and a shot in the arm. Even tragedy can offer an escape, if it leaves the audience with the feeling that ‘this sort of tiring couldn’t happen to me . . . How lucky I am.’ “The public is a capricious creature. It wants audience identification — but not too much. It wants realism, but not sordidness. It wants something different, but recognizable. “Suggestions? Yes, I have one or two for what they are worth and, remember, I am speaking not only as as critic, but as one of the public. I feel, for instance, that every picture deserves the proper showcase. Theatres which habitually cater to the western and action fans do themselves no good when they try to ram an art film or a woman’s picture down the throats of their regular patrons. You know as well as I do that the people have moviegoing habits. Folks who attend a theatre that usually shows comedies, family-type films, musicals, light drama and the like, are irritated when that house throws a horror film or a western into the agenda. They’ll stay away that week, and maybe they won’t come back next week. The habit is broken — and ole debbil television gets them. “I think, too, that continued care should be exerted in advertising. Great strides have been made in truthful publicity. ... It might be advantageous to slant publicity to the type of audience indicated by the content of the picture. For instance, if you have a family-type picture, I believe it is bad business to sex up the ads in an attempt to lure in the people who don’t like family-type films. The only thing accomplished is to get a fair opening day under false pretenses and send a lot of dissatisfied customers away to give bad word-of-mouth publicity. “If you have a hangup murder mystery, don’t pretend that it is a ‘turgid expose of the shameful life of those who ply their nefarious business while the city sleeps.’ You get a lot of sensation-seekers that way — but they wind up by being bored when they find nothing salacious on the screen, so they start smooching in the balcony, or slash up a few seats. “Legitimate exploitation, I love, chiefly because it gives me good, fresh copy. A theatre which has put intriguing exploitation behind a number of films gets the reputation for being more than just a movie house. It is a place where exciting things happen.’’ Producers and exhibitors alike should find much food for thought in the sound views expressed by Miss Lindeman.