Harrison's Reports (1948)

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 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS Published Weekly by United States ?15.00 (Formerly Sixth Avenue) Harrison's Reports, Inc.. U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 v v 1, *>n w v Publisher Canada 16.50 new 1 orK 1 • P. S. HARRISON, Editor Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Great Britain 15.75 Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Established July 1, 1919 Australia, New Zealand, India, Europe, Asia .... 17.50 Jtg jyj^, PoUcy: 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. XXX SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1948 No. 41 LET US AVOID ANOTHER PIPE DREAM! Paul MacNamara, director of advertising and publicity for David Selznick, addressed the delegates at the TOA convention two weeks ago and advocated the formation of an organization to be known as the "Institute of Motion Picture Information and Advertising," the purpose of which will be to set up a public relations program to gain the good will of the American public for the motion picture industry. Mr. MacNamara suggested that the organization be operated on an annual budget of $2,000,000, this money to be contributed by producers, distributors and exhibitors on the basis of two and one-half per cent of their yearly advertising expenditures, which is estimated to be anywhere between $80,000,000 and $90,000,000. A similar attempt to have all branches of the industry contribute to a common fund for public relations work was made before, but few exhibitors contributed and, as a result, the scheme failed miserably. That few exhibitors will want to contribute to such a fund at this time or in the future is not difficult to understand, for most of them feel, and rightly so, that the "smell" comes from Hollywood and, consequently, it is up to the producers to contribute the money required for the upkeep of an organization such as the one advocated by Mr. MacNamara. But that does not mean that the exhibitors will not help, for most of them are more than willing to do their share by lending their screens to any scheme that will benefit the industry as a whole. But even if the producers, and of course the distributors, agreed to finance such an organization, any public relations program that it sets up would prove to be a "bust" if each of them persists, as they have in the past, in working into the program a plug for their pictures, good and bad alike. Nothing will alienate the public's good will faster than poor pictures. Any attempt to boost bad pictures on the same level with good pictures would arouse the public's ire. An attempt was made recently by the advertising-publicity committee of the producers' association to acquaint the public with the fact that more good pictures than ever before were in store for them, this being one phase of a new public relations plan to offset the public's unfavorable attitude towards Hollywood and its product, but the whole plan flopped because every producer-distributor member saw to it that the list included his atrocious pictures along with the good ones. For many years Harrison's Reports has advocated the use of institutional advertising as a means of acquainting the public with the industry's accomplishments and thus gaining its good will. Motion pictures have done so much good to the nation, in war-time as well as peace-time, that those put in charge of a public relations program should not experience any difficulty in choosing the needed subjects upon which to build the industry's story. But no matter how vast a public relations program is worked out, no matter how many millions of dollars may be spent on it, such a program will be worthless if it is not kept free from industry politics. And the only way to keep it free from industry politics is to place it in the hands of someone who will have enough authority and courage to reject any ideas that will tend to benefit a particular producer at the risk of weakening the public relations program as a whole. The one person who would seem to be qualified to head and manage an intelligent public relations program is Max E. Youngstein, Eagle-Lion's wide-awake publicity chief, who is also president of the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers, whose membership is made up of men and women employed in the advertising and publicity departments of the different film companies. Youngstein, it will be recalled by readers of this paper, recently labeled the industry's present public relations effort as "one of the worst butchered jobs in history" and, though he was not prepared to offer a definite program of his own, he pledged himself and the manpower of his organization to full cooperation with any industry group that would come forth with a constructive plan. Last week, at an AMPA luncheon meeting, Mr. Youngstein again took up the matter of public relations. This is what he had to say in part: "During the past three months I have covered approximately 20,000 miles visiting almost every state in the union. I have spoken to hundreds of newspapermen and other persons connected with the various outlets of communication. Let me give you my summary of what these people throughout the country think about the motion picture industry: "(a) They believe that the motion picture industry is to' day going through one of the worst financial crises in history. This impression they gather from the stories coming out of both Hollywood and New York for the past two years, of drastic economies culminating in the recent barrage of firings. This impression in no way coincides with the true financial facts of our industry as disclosed by the companies' own financial reports. "(b) People around the country feel that the motion picture industry is a hot-bed of anti-American activity. This conclusion is based upon the Government's investigation and procedure against 10 individuals out of an industry consisting of approximately 250,000 individuals. It is difficult for them to understand when they are asked point blank, why the story of the 250,000 individuals has never been told to the American public and why the welfare of these quarter-of-a-million persons should be stigmatized by charges against ten, especially when such charges have never been proven in a law court to be contrary to law. "(c) People around the country believe that our industry has been rightly branded as morally subversive by churches of all denominations. The amount of material which they have received and are receiving daily regarding the lurid actions of a handful of people, far outweighs by a hundred fold, information they are receiving about the good that this industry does on a day to day basis. "It is not our intention as an organization to claim that everything the motion picture industry does is right and good. We merely claim that our percentage of right doing is as high as any other industry but that the story has never been properly told either to the public or to the various outlets of communications which reach the public. "(d) People around the country feel that we have, as an industry, permitted ourselves to be made ridiculous and censored by every type of organization ranging from honest well-intentioned groups who could properly serve a useful purpose under the right conditions, to local police chiefs and political hacks whose sole basis for censorship and control is graft. They cannot understand why an industry as important as ours should permit this to happen. "(e) Women's groups around the country believe that we are correctly villified as being responsible for the violation of every one of the Ten Commandments with a complete disregard for the fact that crime, juvenile delinquency, and even sex had existed prior to the invention of the motion picture. I could go on at much greater length believe me, when I tell you that this is substantially what a large segment of the population around the country thinks about our incontinued on last page)