Harrison's Reports (1950)

84 HARRISON'S REPORTS May 27, 1950 and bring in new blood; young people with new ideas who can be consistent and who will earn and deserve to remain in the Motion Picture Business. Do we deserve to retain our investments? I wonder? Here s a clear example of inconsistency and sheer stupidity. We are wailing and complaining to the Congress of the United States to eliminate the 20% nuisance tax, and we promise to pass the saving on to the public. We promise the public that "Movies Are Better Than Ever." Now, how do we show our good faith? We play pictures such as RED DANUBE, CHICAGO DEADLINE, AMBUSH, GREAT GATSBY, MRS. MIKE, STROMBOLI, ROSEANNA McCOY, ALWAYS LEAVE THEM LAUGHING, INSPECTOR GENERAL and charge the regular admission prices (which are high) but we can't help it because our expenses are high, and of course, there is the 20% Federal Tax included in the price of the ticket. Finally, we come along with a good picture, SAMSON AND DELILAH. Here's a picture the public wants to see, we should make it possible for them to see, and exert every effort for pictures such as SAMSON AND DELILAH to win the public back to us. But, what do we do? We immediately raise the admission prices on this picture and expect our patrons to come right in to our theatres the following weeks to see THE OUTRIDERS, GOLDEN GLOVES STORY, CAPTAIN CAREY, THE OUTLAW, and a few more of this type. I know of one major neighborhood circuit theatre in the metropolitan area that received forty-six complaints during the showing of SAMSON AND DELILAH about the advanced admission prices. I know that the manager sent these complaints to the Home Office. Nothing will happen. The next good picture that comes along will probably find its way into the very same circuit at the very same advanced admission prices, if not higher. What do you suppose the public's reaction will be? They will sit at home and watch television. What will we exhibitors do? We will hold pep meetings, make speeches, and only mention television opposition in whispered tones. We will put out new slogans such as "Movies Are Better Than Ever" and "Let's Go Out to the Movies " buy a larger supply of crying towels, weep on each other's shoulders, and then wait for another good picture to come along so that we can again raise our admission prices. Oh Boy! What a lopsided Industry this is! Very sincerely yours, LANE ENTERPRISES (Signed) Israel Zatkin General Manager R. D. GOLDBERG ENTERPRISES State Theatre Building 1412 Farnam Street Omaha 2, Nebraska May 4, 1950 Mr. Pete Harrison Harrison's Reports 1270 Sixth Avenue New York, N. Y. Dear Mr. Harrison: I have been a reader of your reports for many years, and also of your editorials, and with the current series of articles running in the trade journals as to what is wrong with the theatre business, I feel I should write to put in my 2 cents worth as to what I consider one of the things needing the most attention in our industry. I refer to the practice that many theatre managers and executives have of telling the public that business is bad. I enclose, herewith, a clipping from a Milwaukee newspaper which speaks for itself. You will note that the newspaper has interviewed the leading motion picture exhibitors in Milwaukee, and they have told that the movie business is off 30 to 40 per cent below 1949. I recently had cause to know that an affiliated circuit manager in this city has been telling so many people that business is bad, that he caused the idea to spread in many groups of people who now think it is quite the thing to stay away from the movies. I have great respect for these men as being bigger theatre operators than myself, but they are certainly pursuing the wrong attitude. We were all raised in the show business where we held people in lines in front of the boxoffice, even when the house was not packed, because the impression of good business was a bigger ad than anything else we could get. It seems to me that if we do not muzzle some of these people within our own industry that are talking too much to the public, that they are going to do the industry an irreparable damage. Speaking about the ills of our industry, and because nobody asked me, I venture this opinion. There is nothing wrong whatever, with our business, that three things cannot cure. (1) Better manpower. If the same man who goldbricks all day and blabs all night that business is bad, will roll up his sleeves and go to work, he is going to have results. There is enough business in nearly every community except in the few spots where locations are impossible, if only the manpower in the show business will get the lead out and go after it. (2) Better pictures. Of course that is a problem for the producers. (3) Repeal of the admission tax. Before I close I might mention that the same man who exaggerates telling the public how bad business is, is also the one who exaggerates his business when he makes his boxoffice report to Variety. These exaggerated reports of business help only a few men's vanity, and causes the unions rightfully to make greater demands, while they do the industry no good at all. In this city, my competitor affiliated exhibitors are not satisfied unless Variety carries a report that they are doing from 50 to 100% more business than they are actually doing. As a matter of fact, I do not believe any figures should be published openly, as it is neither the business of the public, the union organizations or anyone else, to have access to the grosses of our business. Yours very truly, (Signed) Ralph D. Goldberg "David Harding, Counterspy" with Howard St. John, Willard Parker and Audrey Long (Columbia, no rel. date set; time, 71 min.) A good program spy melodrama. If the subsequent pictures of this new series maintain the quality of this initial production, they should find a ready market. In casting Howard St. John as head of the U. S. counter-spies, Columbia has made a happy selection; he is impressive and believable. The action manages to hold one's interest undiminished to the end. Willard Parker, as a Naval officer, lacks fire, but his part is weak. Audrey Long is fair — she is not given much to do, and what she does is not designed to win the audience's sympathy. The photography is good: — Howard St. John, head of the U. S. counter-spy division, sees to it that Alex Gerry, a radio commentator, gets a story to the effect that atomic information was stolen and delivered to alien hands. Gerry broadcasts the story and condemns the division for its laxity. St. John then informs Gerry that the story was false, but that it had been planted for the purpose of catching foreign spies. He then relates to him a case that occurred in 1943: The Government had learned that enemy agents were at work in a small town, where Navy torpedoes were manufactured. A Navy officer had been found dead in his bed, ostensibly from a fire started by his cigarette, but St. John had suspected murder and had detailed Willard Parker to take over the dead officer's job, hoping to learn the killer's identity. This had opened up an old entanglement for Parker, because Audrey Long, the dead man's wife, with whom he had been in love, had been assigned as his secretary. Parker had become suspicious of Raymond Greenleaf, a doctor at the factory, as aiding the spies, and he had come upon evidence indicating that Audrey had been in league with Greenleaf. His suspicions about Audrey had been correct, but he had been unaware of the fact that she, having fallen in love with him, had been trying to get out of her spy work. Meanwhile St. John had learned that Audrey had been sent to the U. S. as a spy long before Pearl Harbor, with instructions to marry a naval officer. When her husband had discovered this truth, he had been killed by the spy ring. St. John's men had finally closed in on Greenleaf's gang, but not before Greenleaf had shot and killed Audrey, who had tried to save Parker's life by warning him not to cross a street that had been mined. Greenleaf, before being shot down by U. S. agents, had been inveigled into sending misinformation to his chief. When St. John finishes telling Gerry the story, the radio commentator is satisfied for having been used as a cat's paw for the good of the country. Milton Feldman produced it and Ray Nazarro directed it, from a story and screen play by Clint Johnson and Tom Reed, who based it on the radio program, "Counterspy," created by Phillips H. Lord. Good for the entire family.