Harrison's Reports (1931)

40 HARRISON’S REPORTS March 7, 1931 business, in that our patrons object to this sort of advertising and are staying away from our theatre, as the drop in our box office receipts has indicated. “It is our desire that our screen shall not be used for displaying such advertisements, and we hereby take this means ot notifying you, in case you have been displaying such advertisements on our screen through the films we have contracted for from you, that you refrain from doing so in the future. In case you would, contrary to our expressed desire, made known to you by this letter, display such advertisements or any kind of ‘sponsored’ advertisements, we hereby notify you that we shall hold you responsible for such an act, that we shall consider the contract existing between your company and ourselves as breached. In such an event, we shall take such steps as may be warranted by us to preserve our rights and to reimburse us for any damage we may sustain.” Copy this letter on your stationery and send it to each distributor you have a contract with, by registered mail. FILTHY ADVERTISING BEING CONTINUED IN ST. LOUIS The Ambassador and the Missouri theatres, owned jointly by Paramount-Publix and Warners, continue to pour out filthy advertising. In The St. Louis Star, of February 6, the Missouri had the following lines in its advertisement of “Today”: “TODAY — The modern woman scorns the fidelity of yesterday — the love that endured for better, for worSe — TODAY — Married women take all they can — trifle now and then — and give hubbie the air when things go bad — that is the woman of ‘TODAY’ ” — a blazing expose of new moralities — new conventions. Conrad Nagel greater than in ‘Free Love’ because of the frank theme. This picture is not recommended for children under 18.” The Ambassador had the following advertisement in The Daily Globe-Democrat of February 12: “SHE BEGGED HIM : Let’s Keep from Marriage as Long as We Can: I'm Afraid of It: Afraid of Its Intimacies . . . Its Pettiness ... Its Quarrels Will Kill Our Love! If I, the Woman, Do not Ask for Marriage, Why Should You, the Man? ‘Illicit’ — Warner Bros.’ story of a Modern girl in love ...” The producers who own theatres are desperate. Business is bad and they are bent upon staving off bankruptcy by any means they can, regardless of the consequences. I understand that a month ago Paramount-Publix shut down one hundred and ninety-two theatres which were losing money heavily, and that four hundred additional Paramount theatres were in the red (there must be more by this time, for conditions have not improved in the least). This is the reason for the filthy advertising; they are bent upon filling their theatres even if they have to violate every form of decency. As for you, there is just one remedy : take Will H. Hays’ Code of Ethics to your legislator and ask him to introduce it in the legislature of your state, making it part of the penal code. Certainly the producers can have no objection to seeing their own document being made into a law. At any rate they can appeal to no legislator in your state asking him to work against it ; they will not have the nerve to do it. Mr. Hays has worked hard to make the theatre owning producer-distributors, members of his organization, behave decently, but he has not succeeded in accomplishing it. Let us, then, have a law that will do it ! THE CAUSE OF THE ADMISSION TAX BILLS Bills taxing the receipts of motion picture theatres anywhere from five to ten per cent have been introduced in the legislatures of many states. Some of such bills have been defeated ; some are still pending, while some others may or may not be acted upon in the present sessions, but the danger will always be there, and success may crown the efforts of the sponsors of the bills in states where the opposition is strong and the organized exhibitors weak. What is the cause of these and of other bills, adverse to the motion picture industry? The numerous demoralizing sex and crook pictures that have flooded the market lately. Such pictures were produced in the past, but at no time in the history of the motion picture industry have they been as numerous as they have been in the last two years. The number of sex and crook plays that have been released since January 1 number at least thirty-eight, out of about seventy pictures released; or, about one half of the releases — too many. People who sincerely like to see an improvement in the quality of the story material have so despaired of inducing the producers to give up basing their pictures on stories of this kind that they are using their influence to have laws passed through the legislatures to bring about such a result. The fact that Mr. Hays has made many promises to church people and has failed to live up to them on account of the fact that the members of his organization do not heed his counsel has intensified the efforts of these people to have such laws passed, for they feel that if they cannot bring about the reform of the industry by counsel they might just as well crush it. The trouble with this attitude is the fact that these laws affect also you, the independent exhibitors, who have had nothing to do to bring about such a situation. Because of the block-booking and blind-booking system which the producers have installed and are unwilling to give up, you are compelled to show everything they deliver to you. Once in a while you pay for a picture and lay it on the shelf, but you cannot do it very often; it will crush you if you were to lay on the shelf all the sex and crook plays the producers deliver to you on your contracts. So you are between two fires. This evil can be corrected only by a law such as the Brookhart Bill, which makes the sale of unmade pictures, and in a block, unlawful. It is necessary, then, that you give Senator Brookhart all your support to enable him to make his bill a law. PARAMOUNT-PUBLIX AND DOUBLE FEATURES In their recent efforts to put a zoning system in every territory in force through the Hays organization, the producers made an effort to put an end to the practice of some exhibitors of showing two features on the same bill. These efforts were hardest on the Coast. But Judge Cosgrave declared them a violation of the Sherman Act. Paramount-Publix owns the Capitol Theatre, in Montreal, Canada. I have read an advertisement by this theatre in the Montreal Daily Star, which read as follows : “Two Features Tomorrow — Twice the Show — Entire Show of the Living Screen — and at Reduced Prices — New Reduced Prices: opening to 1 p.m., 25c; 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., 35c : 6 p.m. to closing 60c.” The two features were : : “The Laughing Lady,” with Ruth Chatterton, and “Tol’able David,” the Columbia picture with Richard Cromwell. The Capitol is not a low grade theatre ; it is one of the Paramount-Publix Grade A houses. And Montreal is not the only city where they have adopted such a policy ; Chicago is another, according to a news story in Zit’s, which says : “Balaban and Katz are doubling big features in the large neighborhoods in an effort to hold on to the business and the exhibitors who still have these pictures to play in their subsequent runs are burning like a fire in an oil refinery.” Next time the producer-distributors approach to talk to you about ethics in business, smile ! They have always found fault with the character and the business tactics of you. the independent exhibitors ; it took but a business depression, a little harder than other depressions, to show the tartar lurking underneath the theatre owning producer’s skin. CIRCUITS REDUCING PRICES According to Lee Ochs, a prominent exhibitor in this territory, former National President of the organized exhibitors, the Loew theatres in this city are cutting down their admission prices to increase patronage. This, of course, does not do the exhibitor competitors any good, who are complaining, with great justification. When they signed up their contracts, they figured the prices they paid for film in accordance with the admission prices they and their competitors were charging. With such prices reduced by their competitors, they are forced to carry a burden they did not foresee: if they do not lower their prices, they lose customers ; if they lower them, they pay too much for film, because of the reduced receipts. It is dirty competition. This paper suggests that, when you are ready to buy pictures next season, you take into consideration the tactics of the producer-distributor you are to deal with : if he has been unfair to you or to other exhibitors, pay him as little for his film as you possibly can.