Harrison's Reports (1939)

Entered m secend-elass matter January 4, 1921, at the post office at New York, New Y«rk, under the act of March 3, 1879. ON'S Yearly Subscription Rates: 1270 SIXTH AVENUE Published Weekly by United States $15.00 R™m 1 SI O Harrison's Reporte, Inc., U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 ROOm Publisher Canada 16.50 New York, N. Y •• P. S. HARRISON, Editor Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 . ,_ , . . _. . _ ' , . _ Great Britain 15.75 A Motion Picture Reviewing Servio* ^i,,,,,,, i„, , m Australia, New Zealand, Devoted Chiefly to tke In-terestss oi the ExhrWtors « ..Established July 1, 1919 India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 •>r„ n en™ Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Circle 7-4622 ojc a ^opy Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1939 No. 44 Vol. XXI THE ELIMINATION PROBLEM As I told you a few weeks ago, the elimination right given you by the producers needs clarification, for it is difficult for an exhibitor to know how many pictures he is entitled to eliminate from each group by reason of the fact that a group does not always consist of a full unit. There are also other complications, making it difficult for an exhibitor to know how many pictures he is entitled to cancel. Among those to whom I have written for information has beed Gradwell Sears, of Warner Bros. Grad was good enough to send me the following schedule of eliminations for those who are entitled to cancel twenty per cent of their pictures. Group 1 — Two Pictures: No elimination. Group 2 — Six Pictures: One elimination. Group 3 — Twelve Pictures: Two eliminations. Group 4 — Sixteen Pictures: Four eliminations. Group 5 — Twelve Pictures: Three eliminations. The total number of pictures is forty-eight, and the number of pictures that an exhibitor has the right to eliminate, in accordance with this schedule, is ten. This is slightly more than twenty per cent. If the exhibitor should not take advantage of his elimination right to cancel a picture from a given group, he will have no right to cancel it from the next following group; but he is given the right to cancel all uncancelled pictures from the last group. The schedule Mr. Sears has sent me does not cover the eliminations of those exhibitors who have the right to eliminate ten per cent of their pictures, but I presume the schedule that was in force during the NRA code will prevail — One picture, if the group should consist of anywhere from five to ten pictures; and none, if it should consist of only four pictures. If the group should consist of fifteen pictures, the exhibitor had the right to eliminate two. I am sure that such will be the practice in the Warner Bros, organization. Mr. Sears deserves congratulations for the clarity of his elimination schedule. I have not yet received a statement from Bill Rodgers, of MGM, as to the elimination schedule that he has adopted. I presume that his elimination offer needs a deeper study by reason of the fact that to some exhibitors MGM has given the right to eliminate fifteen per cent of the pictures. This requires the employment of a mathematician to figure it out. According to some trade papers, Twentieth CenturyFox, too, has granted to the exhibitors the right to cancel ten, fifteen and twenty per cent of their pictures, but no official announcement has yet been made; therefore, this paper is not in a position to state whether this information is accurate or not. I shall try to verify it. As a matter of fact, some exhibitors have written to this office in an effort to find out whether the report to the effect that Twentieth Century-Fox permits an exhibitor to cancel ten, fifteen or twenty per cent of the pictures, as the case may be, only from the last, or lowest, classification and not from each classification is true or not. If true, they feel that this company's provision for the elimination of pictures is of no value to them whatever. The same trade papers reported that Paramount, too, has granted to the exhibitors a ten, fifteen and twenty per cent elimination, but some exhibitors have informed this paper that the Paramount salesmen are circumventing this elimination right by offering to the exhibitors, not the entire product, but shortened by the number of pictures that the exhibitor would cancel were he sold the entire product, at the same time charging them the same price as last year, less an amount of money equalling the prices of these pictures in the last group. For instance, if they charged an exhibitor last season $5,500 for the 55 pictures they sold him, this season they are selling him only 44 pictures, out of the 55 planned for release, without any elimination, and are asking for them $5,280, or $220 less, this difference representing the price of eleven pictures of the lowest group, eleven being the number of pictures that the exhibitor would have been entitled to cancel under the 20% cancellation offer. In other words, instead of allowing the exhibitor to eliminate 20% of the pictures, Paramount is making the elimination for him, but from the lowest group. To exhibitors who are in the 10% elimination class, the Paramount salesmen are offering only 47 pictures, with no elimination. The producers are going to use the twenty per cent elimination "gag" in Washington in an effort to defeat the Neely Bill in the House of Representatives at the next session of the present Congress. For this reason, Allied States Association should begin at once to acquainted the members of the House with this matter. The producers should not be allowed to convince even the most innocent House member that the elimination offer will cure the ills from which the industry is suffernig. The House should be made to realize that it is necessary that block-booking and blind-selling be outlawed before the industry may recover from the disease from which it is suffering — poor pictures. Talking again about the trade reforms that some of the major companies have offered, let me say that there are other provisions besides elimination provision that need clarificatoin. For instance, since the distributors have now promised to refrain from forcing on the exhibtiors either shorts, newsreels, or trailers, will they accept the cancellation of contracts for such of these subjects as have already been signed, if an exhibitor should feel that he signed them only because he felt that he could not get the features in any other way? Remember that these provisions, according to the announcements;.are-" retroactive' with 'all contracts signed as far back as January 1, this year. MR. CAPRA'S DOUBLE BLUNDER In the editorial, "Frank Capra's Lack of Good Taste," which appeared f#*¥h&' 'October' 21' issue of Harrison's Reports, I stated that Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" cast an odious reflection upon the integrity of the United States Senate by presenting some Senators as being devoid of honor. There is another group of people whom the picture offends, grieviously — the newspaper people, for it presents some reporters as being devoid of fine principles, and as "booze hounds." Private information from Washington, sent to this office the day following the picture's preview, which almost every Senator and most members of the House of Representative attended, indicated that the legislators were deeply incensed over the insult to the Senate conveyed in the picture ; and so were the newspaper people, who sponsored the preview showing. That information has been corroborated by several newspaper items, particularly by the one that appeared in the October 22 issue of the Los Angeles Times. Under the heading, " 'Mr. Smith' in Washington Stirs Senators — and How !" an exclusive dispatch to that newspaper from Washington said : (Continued on last Pagt)