Harrison's Reports (1932)

56 HARRISON’S REPORTS April 2, 1932 organizations and enlist their aid to help Senator Brookhart put his bill, and his Resolution, through. Leave nothing undone for your success, for failure of this bill will steep most pictures into sex. A condition such as this will not be healthful to your investment. Do not let anyone make you believe that this bill will work a hardship on you ; the producers again are putting out subtle propaganda in an effort to convince you that Government interference is bad for the future of the business. Remember that the Federal Trade Commission will act, not as a strangler, but as an arbitrator. PHILADELPHIA SUGGESTS ARREST OF “LOITERERS” George P. Aarons, Secretary of M. P. T. O. of Eastern Pa., So. N. J. and Del., has sent the following suggestion to the members of his organization : “Many reports of robbery have come to me, and exhibitors should be warned in order for them to properly protect their theatres. “If you see any persons who are strangers to you and apparently have no business with you hanging around your theatres, you should have them arrested immediately as suspicious persons, and the burden is then placed upon them to prove that they are loitering about your theatre lawfully. This may embarass a ‘dark checker’ of your house, but you will be acting within your legal rights if the circumstances warrant it.” You may guess the embarassing position a checker may find himself in if the exhibitor should happen to be playing a flat-rental picture at the time of the arrest I WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? A talk with persons who are in a position to know revealed to me the fact that five of the theatre owning film companies are losing, according to their estimate, one million dollars each week. This condition has existed for several months. The only weeks since last fall during which they made some profit, in fact, have been the two weeks between Christmas and New Year. You may figure out for yourself what their weekly losses will be during the three summer months. These losses, coming at a time when three of them are overloaded with debt, when one of them has been in great financial difficulties and is exerting strenuous efforts to extricate itself from them, wdth the chance of success or failure fifty-fifty, and when the fifth is sagging as a result of excessive production cost, make it necessary for you to do some serious thinking. I told the exhibitors at Detroit that the danger for shortage of product next season is great. And this time it will be a shortage that may compel many of j'ou to shut down for a certain length of time. The other serious condition is that, with lack of sufficient capital for production, the quality of the pictures will be worse than ever before. Already some of them are seeking refuge in sex stories, out of a feeling that in this lies financial safety. You must be prepared next season to see the wildest sex orgies committed on the screen out of sheer desperation on the part of the producers, — to save their sinking ships. When this condition becomes prevalent, as I feel sure it will become, you might just as well kiss your investment good-bye, for not only will most of the remaining picture patronage be driven away from the theatres, but there will arise such an outcry for restrictive measures that exhibition may virtually be crushed. You have the cure in your hands if you will only apply it — the enactment of the Brookhart Bill into a law. I am making an appeal not to your emotions but to your reason to fight for this bill as you have not fought before. It is my belief that the future of your investment in this business will depend entirely on your success of failure in having this bill become a law. Fight the way the New York State exhibitors fought against the New York State tax measure of ten per cent on the gross receipts. It is the only way that will bring success. THE DISCLOSURES OF THE MGM FLEXIBLE SALES TERMS The revelation of the fact that Metro-Goldwyn-klayer has sold its pictures in different territories on different terms, made in W'ashington and in the columns of this paper last week, created a sensation. This office has been flooded with angry letters, the writers pouring out their souls to me. It is natural that the exhibitors should feel that way in view of the fact that Felix Feist stated repeatedly that there will be one policy for all the exhibitors, thus inducing many of them to accept their harsher terms. They have a different policy for the different zones even as regards to shorts. In St. Louis, for example, some of the exhibitors refuse to book the shorts along with the features and MGM cannot force them to do otherwise. In one particular territory they are selling thirty pictures outright and their fourteen specials at 2^5-30%. In St. Louis, the exhibitors are paying 17J4% on doublefeature days and 25% on single feature days. Have you contracted for your MGM pictures on these terms or have you been soaked bigger prices? If you have not been given the easy terms, you should demand an adjustment. I have heard of rumors that MGM is not going to sell their pictures next season to troublesome exhibitors. The best thing this company could do would be to set their house in order; they are in no position to make faces at any one, now or for a long time in the future. Nor is any other producer-distributor. They need every dollar they can get hold of. It is about time they have changed their bellicose attitude. .'Ml they have to do is to remember Warner Bros. The Warner officials have recognized their mistake and they are now doing everything possible to recapture the exhibitor’s good will. The speech Ed. Schiller made at Washington did not make any friends for MGM. MGM had an opportunity to have ever>' exhibitor swearing by them instead of feeling otherwise towards them. But thcv have missed that opportunity. Their policy is a mistake. Though they are at the top of the ladder just now, we have seen so many giants crumble into a heap at the foot of the ladders they stood on that the MGM executives should not feel too sure about their position. If you are getting better terms than your fellow exhibitors, will you give me the information? Your name will in no way be mentioned, anywhere. I just want to tell the other exhibitors how much more reasonable prices MGM has accepted so that they, too, may demand relief from them. Remember one thing; what helps your fellow exhibitor eventually helps you. too. I heard sometime ago that MGM would put the policy of “guarantee with percentage” during the coming season if they should be successful with their present year’s policy. So anything you do to break down this unjust system will benefit also you. A SPOT WHERE ECONOMY MAY BE EFFECTED In most introductory titles the director, or whoever is responsible, tries to obtain novel background effects ; evidently he feels that an artistic background puts the spectator in a frame of mind to enjoy the picture better. It must be costing the producers tens of thousands of dollars a year in such effects. This money could just as well be saved, for an introductory title with the most attractive background means nothing if the picture is poor, and if it is entertaining no such effects are needed. The producers of pictures, instead of centering their energies upon the trimmings, should concentrate them upon the story. Find a good story and you will have a good picture, provided it is produced with horse sense ; choose a poor story and no amount of beauty and novelty in the trimmings can make a good picture out of it. FOX WILL PAY THE BONUS As a result of the article “TALKING ABOUT KEEPING PROMISES,” printed in last week’s Harrison’s Reports, one of the Home Office executives of the Fox Film Corporation has informed me that the Fox company owes its sales forces not two but one bonus, and that this will be paid very shortly : the other bonus is not due until November. “We had no intention of depriving our men of this money.” he said. Harrison’s Reports is glad indeed that the Fox men will receive what is due them ; and if it has contributed in their getting what they deserve it feels happy. It is always a pleasure for it to fight for the man who is abused, no matter whether he is an exhibitor or a salesman.