Harrison's Reports (1939)

Entered as »eeond-class matter January 4, 1921, at the post ofBee at New York, Nw York, under the aet ©f Jferah », 16T9. son's Reports Yearly Subscription Rates: 1270 SIXTH AVENUE FoWshed Weekly by United States $15.00 1«19 Harrison's Report*, Inc., U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 ROOm lfl" Publisher Canada 16.50 New York, N. Y. P. S. HARRISON, Editor Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 . „, . _. . _ . _ . Great Britain 15.75 Motion P,cture Reviewing Service w,t-hil*^ T„!v 1 «iq Australia, New Zealand, Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Established July 1, 1919 India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 otr. ~ rv,™ Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Circle 7-4622 u0° a ^opy Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XXI SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 193Q No. 43 "PHONY"! In a recent issue of his paper, W. R. Wilkerson, the Hollywood sage, wrote a superficially dignified, seemingly sincere, laboriously impressive editorial the object of which appears to be to lead you into believing that the small-cost pictures make you more money than the pictures that cost the producers a million or more, his purpose evidently being to prepare you for the scrapping by the major companies of the high-cost pictures owed you for the remainder of the season without arousing your resentment. Says sage Wilkerson : "We had an opportunity the other day to go over the figures on releases for the past fourteen months on the product of one of the top majors. Those figures told a great story and one the war had nothing to do with, or would ever have anything to do with. Those figures focussed astonishing grosses on the better bread-and-butter product and disappointing returns on the big shows, running from $900,000 to $2,000,000. The figures analyzed proved that [that] great company would have been out of business COMPLETELY had it only released [released only] its big expensive product and, further, if the company had not had those big expensive productions, it would have made more millions than have ever been counted in this industry as a result of the success of its product that ran from $102,000 to $485,000. "After reviewing the figures with the studio exec, we inquired : 'Why in hell do you make those heavy negatives?' He replied: 'We had to make some to prestige our program.' Sounds silly because, for that company to run up such big grosses on its bread-and-butter shows, the'exhibitor had to run up substantial profits for his house, so why the prestige shows ? Does not such activity further confirm a production vanity that has virtually sunk this business on more than one occasion?" What Billy Wilkerson, under his barrage of verbiage and complicated sentence structure, means is this : Among the releases of the major company he refers to, the pictures that cost $900,000 or more, up to $2,000,000, have lost money for the company, and the pictures that cost anywhere from $102,000 to $4cS5,000 have made money, for the exhibitors as well as for the producer — so much money, in fact, that, were it not for the high-cost pictures, the company would have made many more millions of profit, whereas if it had prdouced nothing but high-cost pictures, it would have been out of business by this time — completely out! lie then asked this executive why in the name of common sense he should continue to produce high-cost pictures since the exhibitor makes good profits out of the low-cost pictures, the implication being that, if the exhibitor allowed the producer to drop the million dollar pictures and produce more low-cost pictures, the exhibito'r profits would be greater; and so would be the producer's. Wilkerson's whole argument is, in my opinion, "phony" — so "phony," in fact, that it should be apparent at once to any one who would stop to analyze the facts he presents. Just take one of these facts : He says that some of the pictures of this major company have cost $102,000. I don't know what major company he refers to, since he does not even intimate it, but that should not make much difference, for no major company can make, for that amount of money, pictures that are fit even for a double bill. The studio overhead of the biggest of the major companies ranges anywhere from $125,000 to $200,000 per picture, the amount depending on the company. How can a major, then, produce pictures for $102,000 when his overhead alone is more than that amount of money ? In order that even the newest exhibitor amongst you may understand what "studio overhead* means, allow me to say that this item represents studio maintenance, which includes the salaries of the executives and their bonuses, if any bonuses are paid them. It does not represent anything that goes into the actual production of the picture. If the overhead of a studio is $200,000 per picture, $200,000 is added to the cost of production before "shooting" of the picture begins — as soon as the decision to produce a particular picture is made. There is no other way by which studio maintenance: can be taken care of. At any rate, adding the proportional studio overhead to each picture has been the practice. One of his other specious arguments is this: he says that, had this producer made nothing but pictures that cost him anywhere from $900,000 to $2,000,000, he would have been "completely" out of business by now. Has any major ever sold you his pictures on the basis that they would cost him these sums? In other words, has any major ever sold you all "A" pictures, without any "B's" and "C's"? Does Mr. Wilkerson know that there isn't one major company but sells you its pictures in four, five, or six groups of different prices ? I doubt whether he knows it ! If he did, he would not have made such a statement. Notice particularly the following reasoning: he says that, since you make a substantial profit out of the "bread-and-butter pictures," that is, the pictures that cost anywhere from $102,000 to $485,000, you should not complain if the producer in question, whoever he is, should drop from his production schedule the high-cost pictures he has promised you in the beginning of the season, because they (Continued on last /><!</(•)