Harrison's Reports (1951)

160 HARRISON’S REPORTS October 6, 1951 things. We haven't done those things a trade organ' Ration is supposed to do. In reality, we aren’t a trade organisation. I am jealous of Allied when I read they talk film costs in their clinics. Why can’t TOA use its great power to hold film costs in line? . . . The convention has failed because we have kept on emphasizing by-products. I have heard a great deal about soft drinks and pop corn and practically nothing about films ... We have the right to hold a forum on film rentals and to express our views without fear of reprisal. I urge the Skourases, the Wolfsons and the Pinanskis to look at the facts of life and quit kidding us.” Max Connett, of Mississippi: “It’s pretty tough when 6,000 to 8,000 exhibitors can’t get the distributors to sit around a table and discuss arbitration. Perhaps a few more law suits would be desirable at that. They might command respect and some attention.” Henry Reeve, of Texas: “Some exhibitors have been asking me why some part of TOA cannot be devoted to the many problems of the small exhibitors, why they can’t have a desk in a corner of national headquarters.” J^at "Willimas of Georgia ( commenting on the faliure of Reade to name offending distributors in his commitee report): “My grandfather, Cicero Williams, once told me, 'Son, never call a man an S. O. B. by proxy. Tell it to him to his face.’” Glen Thompson, of Oklahoma City: “We little fellows have no illusions about TOA being able to get along without us. But we feel that TOA is stronger with us than it will be without us. We are leaving this convention with disappointment and hope.” The howl raised by the smaller TOA exhibitors for a more militant stand against abusive distributor practices has already borne fruit, for immediately following the close of the convention the TOA’s new administration, headed by Mitchell Wolfson, president, and Charles P. Skouras, chairman of the board, announced the establishment of a plan whereby Wolfson and Skouras, together with Herman Levy and Gael Sullivan, TOA’s executive director, will sit as a sort of advisory council or grievance panel in six cities at sixty-day intervals to give each TOA member a full opportunity to relate complaints about trade practies in his area. The bi-monthly meetings will be held in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver and Los Angeles, and the grass roots exhibitors in the territory surrounding those six cities will be invited to attend those meetings to air their complaints. Under the plan, complaints of merit will be taken up, either in the local area to see if they can be resolved there, or at the home offices of the distributors. In setting up this panel, the TOA leaders wisely excluded Reade, whose mis-management of the exhibitor-distributor relations committee sessions, coupled with his obvious efforts to protect the distributors from unfavorable publicity, touched off the uprising of the smaller exhibitors. This is as it should be, for one whose sentiments lie with the distributors is not qualified to sit on a panel hearing exhibitor complaints against unfair sales policies. The revolt of the “little fellow” in TOA was inevitable, for no small -town exhibitor, whose income is limited, can long afford to help support an organization that up to now has paid no more than lip service to trade practices, particularly with respect to film rentals, with which the small exhibitors are vitally concerned. In view of the ' little fellow’s” demand for a new deal the new TOA administration is to be commended for the promptness with which it acted in setting up a plan that will give the grass roots exhibitors ample opporunity to be heard. But merely listening to their complaints and problems will not assuage them; they have made up their minds that they want positive action toward a solution of their problems, and unless such action is forthcoming many of them are determined to leave the TOA fold. “The Clouded Yellow” with Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard (Columbia, no real, date set; time, 87 min.) A fairly good British-made murder mystery melodrama^ It should satisfy as a supporting feature in most double-billing situations. The title, however which is the name of a butterfly, is a handicap, for it will mean nothing to the picture-goers. The first few reels are rather slow-moving, and the plot itself is peppered with improbabilities and leaves a number of loose ends, but it manages to hold one’s attention well by virtue of the good acting and the interesting actual English backgrounds, against which an exciting manhunt takes place. The closing scenes, where a homicidal maniac pursues the heroine through a warehouse and over roof-tops before he plunges to his death in front of a moving train, are loaded with suspense and thrills: — Relieved of his post when he falls down on an assignment, Trevor Howard, a British secret service agent, finds employment at the country home of Harry Jones, helping to catalogue Jones’ collection of butterflies. There he meets Sonia Dresdel, Jones’ wife, who kept a close watch on Jean Simmons, her neice, a strange young girl whose mind, according to her guardians, had been affected years previously after she discovered the bodies of her parents, whose deaths had been attributed to suicide. Howard soon notices that Sonia was having an affair with Maxwell Reed, a local handyman, who had tried unsuccessfully to force his attentions on Jean. Trouble looms when Reed is found stabbed to death with a knife owned by Jean. The police look upon Jean as the obvious suspect, but Howard, by this time in love with her, believes in her innocence. He decides to get her out of the country, and she runs off with him. They go to London, where he contacts a number of old friends and makes arrangements for money and for fake passports. But before they can get very far the police pick up their trail. They manage to elude capture and flee to the countryside, but the police follow in close pursuit and, after a chase that ranges over a wide area of the north of England, Howard permits himself to be captured so that Jean might escape to a Liverpool hideout. Meanwhile her mind had cleared and certain facts surrounding the deaths of her parents indicate that Jones, her uncle, had killed them. She is traced to the hideout by Jones who, after confessing her parents’ murder as well as that of Reed, prepares to kill her. She escapes his clutches and leads him on a wild chase through a warehouse and over roof-tops, while Howard and the police rush to her aid. She is spared when Jones plunges from the roof to his death. It was produced by Betty E. Box, and directed by Ralph Thomas, from an original story and screenplay by Janet Green. Adult fare.