The Hollywood Reporter (Jan-Jun 1933)

Vol. XII. No. 36. Price 10c. TODAYS FILM NEWS TODAY Tuesday, January 3, 1933 DIETRICIi SLED Cy PAR4. Asks $185,000 For Breach of Contract And Court Order to Stop Her Working Elsewhere ., Z'7,7iZm:<^il')7:?' •WHAT about the new year? What has the old year taught producers, exhibitors and distributors? Is the motion picture industry going *o adjust itself for the coming year — t icing a situation that is now most evident to any trained mind. With our only judgment that of an observer, if is our thought that the coming year, so far as business is concerned, will be little better than the year just ended. And that thought has very little to do with t*ie present finnancial condition of the country. It would be the same even in the peak periods of '28 and '29. Business will not improve to any great extent until at least half of the big theatres (those built during '28, '29 and '30) have been closed. The whole country, so far as the first run situation is concerned, is 100 per cent overs.?ated. Even in the top money era there would not have been enough people to pay admissions to keep all those houses going. As a consequence, almost every first run situation in the country is losing money, enough to sink the industry. Because those big key center houses are operated by the producing and releasing companies and any shots taken at their exchequers are filling the whole industry full of holes. • Giving some thought to the depression, it is our judgment that present and future business in the theatres would show a greater net improvement should the ticket prices be scaled down at least 25 per cent. Nothing hurts business more than bad business. An empty theatre is the greatest black eye any theatre operation can have. To have patrons walk into an empty theatre is throwing a cold blanket over the entire entertainment that is being offered for their approval. Houses packed, or at least 75 per cent filled, look like prosperity, and nothing succeeds like success. A slice in the admission prices, sticking to the picture for their best pull, doing a stage show if the audience demands it. but an elimination of the $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 a week headliner, will do a lot to help the situation. • The whole industry at present is fighting the inevitable. Everyone knows it can not continue to pay out more each week than is coming in 'Continued on Page 2) Prosperity Note A local manicurist dropped into the Fox Balboa Theatre Friday night. She saw "Trouble In Paradise," "Six Hours To Live" and two shorts, and won a pair of shoes and a $1 laundry ticket in the give-away contest. All for two bits. Mervyn LeRoy Signs New Warner Deal In celebration of the passing of the old year. Jack Warner on Saturday handed Mervyn LeRoy a new contract for one year. His first picture under the new deal will be "Elmer the Great," starring Joe E. Brown, which goes into production today. It is understood that the new contract permits LeRoy to direct one picture for another company during the year. LeRoy has recently made two of the outstanding Warner hits. "I'm a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and the latest Cagney picture, "Hard to Handle." Howard Rogers To Do *Mike' Romanoff Yarn MCM has assigned Howard Emmett Rogers to develop the story based on the career of 'Mike" Romanoff, titled "The Bogus Prince." Radio Frees Ornitz Radio has decided to let the option on the services of Saumel Ornitz lapse and the writer is due to leave the writing staff January 11. Paramount blew the lid off the Marlene Dietrich dispute yesterday when it filed suit in the U. S. District Court for damages for breach of contract, amounting to $1 82,850, and also asked a restraining order to prevent Miss Dietrich from working for any other picture company. Paramount also states that it fears Miss Dietrich is planning to follow Josef Von Sternberg to Europe and asserts that, to do this, it would be necessary for her to break her contract. Miss Dietrich, according to Emanuel Cohen, has refused to appear in "The Song of Songs" under Rouben Mamoulian's direction, as she had previously agreed to do, and has also refused to permit the case to be arbitrated through the Academy. Josef von Sternberg enters into this phase of the case only incidentally, the Cohen statement declaring that Von Sternberg had declined to direct another Dietrich picture. The inception of this trouble was about six months ago when Von (Continued on Page 8) B. P. Schulberg Wants Bill Harrigan For Two New York,^-B. P. Schulberg is closing negotiations with William Harrigan. who is playing an important part in "Criminal At Large." to go to Hollywood for two pictures, "Pick Up" and "Police Surgeon," both of which go under the Paramount banner. MAJORS LOAIV PLAYERS TO liXDlES TO GET RETTER PIX Katharine Hepburn For 'Little Women' In an effort to get a grade of product from independent producers that can be used in the big first run houses, the major producing companies are making a number of their contract players available to the smaller producers. The more reputable and better-financed independents have been notified of this willingness to loan players and some of them are alr-;ady taking advantage of the offer. Some of the majors have so far failed to release a sufficient number of pictures and the independent product that has been avail(Continued on Page 21 Jane Murfin will adapt "Little Women" to the screen for Radio, which George Cukor will direct with Katharine Hepburn starring. Production is scheduled to start within the next six weeks. New Team For Lasky New York. — Marion Dix and E. E. Paramore will do the screen treatment and continuity for Jesse L. Lasky' s "Peking Picnic" instead of Irene Kuhn and Harry Chandlee Carnett Abroad To Finish 'Iceberg' i Tay Carnett and his assistant. Bob 1 Fellowes, left Sunday for New York, where the pair hop off for Berlin for Universal. The director has been handed the assignment to take charge of the assembling and cutting of "S.O.S. Iceberg," which was made In Greenland last summer for Universal by Dr. Arnold Fanck. It is understood Carnett will go through about 200,000 feet of negative and, after getting the exteterior sequences in shape, he will direct the interiors in a Berlin studio. Carnett and Fellowes will be gone at least three months. 'Cabby joe' For Tracy j After Clear All Wiresl "Cabby Joe," the next Lee Tracyj yarn for MCM, is an original story I about an ambulance chaser and ha J just been completed by Samuel Spewack, Howard Emmett Rogers arxi Chandler Sprague. The picture is slated to go Into production soon after Tracy completes "Clear All Wires." Combination For Palace New York. — After the eight-weeks run of "The Kid from Spain," the Palace Theatre will resume a policy of pictures and vaudeville, with "Rockabye" as the feature film and six acts. MCM Flu Victims I Helen Hayes and Buster Keaton are the latest flu victims at MCM. Both "The White Sister" and the KeatonDurante film will continue work, as i the studio will shoot around the victims. 'Sign Of Cross' Moving New York. — "The Sign of the Cross," now playing the Rialto, will move to the Criterion on January ] 1 . 3 L MAE WEST /▼VY\ In PARAMOUNT'S "SHE DONE HIM WRONG" Now Shooting /vw\ MANAGEMENT Wm. Morris Agency