Harrison's Reports (1955)

December 31, 1955 HARRISON'S REPORTS 211 scorns the proposition. Learning that his nephew had talked to Ladd, Robinson orders Stewart to kill him. While Stewart reluctantly attends to that chore, Robinson makes an unsuccessful pass at Fay Wray, Stewart's girl-friend, and pushes her around for rejecting his advances. Stewart, fed up with being browbeaten, demands that Robinson make him his full partner lest he reveal his part in the nephew's murder. Robinson pretends to agree and immediately arranges with Hanson, his hireling, to kill Stewart while resisting arrest. Fay, learning of this scheme, goes to Ladd for help, offering in turn to give sworn testimony that would establish his innocence and prove Robinson's guilt. Aware that his crimes had caught up with him, Robinson prepares to make a getaway in his motor speedboat. Stewart tries to stop him, only to be shot dead by the fleeing gangster. Ladd manages to board the boat just as it speeds away and engages Robinson in a fierce battle while the boat careens wildly about San Francisco Bay. He finally subdues Robinson and turns him over to the police. It all ends with Ladd and Joanne reconciling so that they may begin a new life together. It is a Jaguar production, directed by Frank Tuttle from a screen play by Sydney Boehm and Martin Rakin, based on the novel by William P. McGivern, as serialised in Collier's magazine. Adult fare. SOME COMMON SENSE ABOUT THE PRODUCT SHORTAGE A current issue of "Theatre Facts," the service bulletin of the Allied Theatre Owners of Indiana, had this to say under the above heading: "All the recent trade papers published a letter from Myron Blank, president of TO A, expressing his views on several industry problems. His first concern is the shortage of product and with very little reasoning to substantiate it, he blames the condition on the Consent Decree. "Prior to the decrees, the large producing companies also owned theatres and they would not allow the market to become so short." Perhaps some exhibitors seriously believe that divorcement is a contributing cause to the shortage, but we are sure that most statements such as Mr. Blanks have a purely propaganda purpose to put the onus of the shortage on Allied for the negotiation of the decrees. Repeated over and over again it is hoped that exhibitors will accept without reasoning that it is a selfevident truth that Allied is responsible for the shortage. "An unbiased questioning for the reason of the product shortage should lead to the answer that it is the result of the great change in the entertainment market brought about by TV. Like any other manufacturer, the film maker cannot grind out product in complete disregard of what the ultimate consumer will buy. Since television, the public just will not buy a lot of the kind of merchandise that formerly constituted a product supply in quantity. The proof is in the pattern of your own boxoffice. At one time you could expect 40% of your audience to be regulars but now if you are lucky, half that number are steady customers. Then your day to day and week to week did not vary so far from a norm. Now you may experience some peak grosses but at the same time you have deeper valleys than ever in your business graph. Who, and for what good reason, will continue to make product that is likely to be represented by one of those valleys — even though a few years ago the same kind of picture would have been marketable and profitable. Secondly, is it reasonable to believe that the few hundred theatres owned by producers, important though they might be, controlled the supply for the world market of over 75,000 theatres? As long as it was saleable, wouldn't you continue to produce merchandise for 75,000 outlets even though you had lost 86 (RKO) of your own 'stores.' Third, why are Republic, Allied Artists, Columbia and Universal producing about 33 fewer pictures than a few years back? These companies never owned any theatres from which they are now divorced. Fourth, to what extent are the former affiliates really divorced? Look over the names of the heads of these circuits — the same men and their kin who were top executives in the original company. Do they seem like men who no longer have 'a voice in seeing that there were adequate pictures on the market' and whom Mr. Blank says were once heard? Last, the picture that by intent or misfortune becomes a program' picture is harder to sell today than ever. "To say like Mr. Blank that 'the shortage of pictures . . . without question has come about because of the consent decree' may be a less disturbing answer and one that does not place a demand on an exhibitor to seek solutions. But we think that the exhibitor who recognizes that the shortage is one phase of an entirely new set of market conditions will be the one more likely to adjust his operation for a prosperous future." A SOUND WARNING Taking his cue from the current inspections carried on by the New York City Fire Department, Bob Wile, alert executive secretary of the Independent Theatre Owners of Ohio, had these words of caution for his members in his latest bulletin : "While it bears no immediate application to theatres in this state, the drive by the Fire Marshal of New York to clean up regulations of the fire regulation code, prompts us to call your attention to the necessity of observing the regulations in your own community. Fire Marshals, like theatre owners, have conventions and exchange information and what has been done in New York might spread to other states and cities. "In New York, 17 theatres, in one small area, including some operated by large circuits, were found to have violations. For your information, here are some of them: oil cans in film storage room; fire extinguishers not refilled periodically, washed and tagged; cans and cartons in hall outside booth; loose flammable materials backstage; pressure gauge on fire pump not properly adjusted; empty paint cans in storage room; paints or varnishes not placed on metal shelves; Christmas decorations in lobby deemed fire hazard; metal required for storage of kapok; sprinkler heads corroded; rubbish in an alley used as emergency exit; rags in a paint locker; open oil cans in boiler room; combustible seats backstage and beneath stage; good housekeeping required in cellar. "At the year's end is a good time to check up on all these items and others which might attract attention. No publicity could be quite as bad as that from having been cited by the fire marshal as an unsafe place."