Harrison's Reports (1945)

Entered as second-class matter January 4, 1921, at the post office at New York, New York, under the act of March 3, 1879. Harrison's Reports Yearly Subscription Rates: 1270 SIXTH AVENUE Published Weekly by United States $15.00 R™ml«19 Harrison's Reports, Inc., U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 auoih ioi« Publisher Canada 16.50 New York 20, N. Y. P. S. HARRISON, Editor Mexico Cuba, Spain 16.50 A Mot-on picture Reviewing Servlce orea.ntam ............ ■L0-'° Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Established July 1, 1919 Australia, New Zealand, India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 Jtg Editorial Policy. No problem Too Big for Its Editorial Circle 7-4622 35c a Copy Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Vol. XXVII SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1945 No. 4 A CALL TO ACTION In his annual report to the Board of Directors of Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors, at its meet' ing in Columbus, Ohio, this week, Mr. Abram F. Myers, Chairman of the Board and General Counsel, made these significant remarks in regard to the recent cut in raw stock allocated to the industry by the WPB: "There is no telling how much, if at all, the order of the War Production Board . . . will in itself affect the supply of feature pictures available to exhibitors. The trend towards curtailment of feature pictures has been in full swing for five years. Last season the Big Eight released a total of only 259 and it has been predicted that even fewer would be released this season. The main vice of the W.P.B. order is that it affords justification for and lends respectability to a policy of the major companies that is proving disastrous to subsequent-run exhibitors. The producers, if they wished to be fair, could absorb all or a large part of the loss in footage by eliminating waste at the studios, by reducing senseless screen credits, and especially by reducing the length of the now over-long feature pictures. But they probably will prefer simply to reduce the number of pictures released and thereby tighten their control of the film market." Stating that abnormal conditions have enabled the producer-distributors "year after year to increase their net profits while at the same time reducing the volume of their output," Mr. Myers points out that they can now attribute their curtailment of output to the Government's reduction in raw stock allotments and, for the time being, silence criticism. Mr. Myers then urges the exhibitors to oppose in every possible way, through their organizations, the efforts of the producer-distributors to take advantage of the situation. He stresses the need for a greater degree of teamwork among the exhibitors than has heretofore prevailed and, in particular, cautions against the rejection without investigation or consideration of the ideas submitted by exhibitors in different territories as to how best to meet the menace of increasing film rentals. "The danger to the independent exhibitors has become so great," says Mr. Myers, "that the exhibitors — and especially the leaders of exhibitors — should welcome all means of resisting it." "As a matter of self preservation," adds Mr. Myers, "independent exhibitors everywhere must intensify their efforts to hold down film rentals." In stating that "the main vice of the W.P.B. order is that it affords justification for and lends respectability to a policy of the major companies that is proving disastrous to subsequent-run exhibitors," Mr. Myers has indeed aptly described an existing condition that is deplorable. And his suggestions of what the producer-distributors should do to cut down the loss in footage, and his assumption that they will prefer to reduce the number of pictures released so as to tighten their control of the market, are sound, as is his recommendation that the exhibitors combat the distributors by intensifying their efforts to hold down film rentals. This last recommendation is a most important one, for the exhibitors' efforts along these lines can never be too great. There is, however, still another way to combat this deplorable condition, and that is to attack and destroy the foundation on which it is built. And that foundation is the method employed by the War Production Board in allocating raw film stock to the industry. As this paper pointed out in last week's editorial, the raw stock allocated to the industry by the WPB is given directly to the producer-distributors, who are not bound by any rules or regulations as to its disposition. Since the WPB does not concern itself with the manner in which the producer-distributors dispose of the stock, to them is left the working out of how much footage shall be used for positive prints of new features, how much for production work at the studios, how much to fill their needs in foreign markets, and how much for new prints of old pictures that are reissued. Under such a system of raw film stock disposition, the producer-distributors, unhampered by regulatory restrictions, have been and still are disposing of their stock quotas in a manner designed to perpetuate what is known as a "sellers' market." One example of how this system affects the interests of the exhibitors is the situation the distributors are up against in Mexico. That country's motion picture producers, upon being notified that there will be a reduction in the quantity of raw stock available to them from this country for the first two quarters of 1945, became alarmed lest the reduction interfere with their elaborate plans to boost production this year. To alleviate the condition for local producers, Mexican officials have ordered that no raw stock allocated to Mexico shall be used for the dubbing into Spanish of pictures produced in foreign countries. This order, of course, affects the American distributors mainly, and it will now be necessary for them to send their own stock to Mexico whenever dubbing is to be done there. Ordinarily, this situation would be of no concern to American exhibitors. However, under the present method of raw stock allocation — a method that permits the producerdistributors to draw from their regular quarterly allotments whatever footage they need to protect and to further their interests, not only in Mexico but also in other foreign lands, the situation becomes one of primary concern to the American exhibitors, for every foot of raw stock that is withdrawn from the already tight film market in this country serves only to aggravate the existing handicaps under which they are operating. The distributors' use of raw stock for foreign markets is, however, only one example of how the present system of stock allocation can be used to their advantage at the expense of the home exhibitors. Among other advantages, the system affords them an opportunity to control the number of release prints in circulation and, as Mr. Myers pointed out, enables them to tighten their control of the film market. By merely maintaining a shortage of prints of new features, they (Continued on last page)