Hollywood Spectator (1931)

August 1, 1931 5 been so disturbing. And those who know motion picture finances know that the whole financial structure of the industry rests upon the box-office. It is the only source of revenue. When talkies were in their novelty stage the box-office receipts climbed to dizzy heights. Those who controlled the industry, the same people who control it now, ignored the novelty value of talkies and credited two-thirds of the increased earnings to their own perspicacity and the other third to the entertainment value of their output. They proceeded on the theory that both the perspicacity and the entertainment value had become permanent assets of their companies. A few people who understand the fundamental principles of screen entertainment, contended from the first that talkies could not continue to attract audiences of sufficient proportions to maintain the prosperity of the industry. Being unfamiliar with screen fundamentals and therefore unable to see what was ahead, the producing organizations embarked upon a career of wild expenditure, building scores of new theatres, purchasing and leasing hundreds already in operation, and adding enormously to their assets, thus assuming obligations that could be met only if box-office receipts continued at the newly established high level. Obviously if the receipts fell off, the additional assets would become liabilities, even though continuing to appear on financial statements as assets. The receipts fell off to a level lower in proportion to capital investment and operating expense than in the days of silent pictures. From the dawn of the talkies until the present day there has been as great an improvement in the quality of the entertainment as it is possible for talkies to attain, yet as the quality mounted the earnings diminished far past the point for which the general business depression could be held responsible. ▼ ▼ We HAVE, then, in the hands of all the major film corporations vast holdings of motion picture properties representing investments that must derive their dividends from the box-offices of houses showing the pictures the corporations are making. In most instances the pictures show a profit over the production cost because of the producers’ policy of arbitrarily setting a selling price on their pictures that will provide such profit. But producers can not continue to be prosperous unless exhibitors also are prosperous. The big corporations are both producers and exhibitors, and as exhibitors are losing more money in showing their pictures than they are making in producing them; and as the quality of the entertainment they provide is not responsible for the loss, it becomes apparent that conditions can not be improved by any improvement in the quality. If we have a capitalization built when receipts were at their peak and depending for its dividend earnings upon the maintenance of the peak level; if receipts are away below the peak and can not be brought back to it by the class of entertainment that provides the company with all its revenue, how can we arrive at the conclusion, that Mr. Nash does, that the financial condition of Paramount is healthy? If the theatres owned or controlled by the major organizations have a right to appear as assets that make financial statements imposing, why are the companies getting rid of as many houses as they can persuade others to take off their hands? There are over seven thousand theatres closed throughout the country, yet it is safe to presume that each of them appears on some financial statement as an asset. An asset that earns nothing ceases to be an asset. Music DOWN FILM row the message thunders that musicals are coming back. I don’t think song writers are included in the prophecy. Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood seemingly have been parted forever, for which Allah be praised ! Before musicals went away to that mysterious Over There to which things must go before they can stage a comeback, Hollywood’s conception of musical pictures was a celluloid version of some sob-sing-and-hop thing that had been done on Broadway. And theme songs. Oh, yes, there had to be theme songs — I-loveyou-something-or-other — that bobbed up every now and theij during the course of the offering. A musical photograph of a stage show was presented as a picture, and after only a little while it was rejected by the public. To greet the return of the musical picture we have a reception committee composed of the same people who were responsible for its departure. It looks bad. While the musical was away did those who speeded its going learn anything about it? Is Hollywood prepared now to make a better job of it? The same fundamental principles that apply to the making of a talking picture apply to the making of a musical, and Hollywood is making an awful botch of talkies in as far as the box-office is concerned. As talkies, the films the public is getting now are the finest jobs Hollywood ever turned out, but they are not tempting the public past the box-offices. If producers do not know what ails their talkies, how can they hope to make musicals that will not suffer from the same ailments? ^ ▼ SCREEN ART is screen art whether it be silent, dialogue or musical. The only pure screen art, of course, is that which is silent, but if dialogue or music or both be used judiciously in composing a picture, there can result a hybrid that will do well at the box-office. The problem that confronts the producers is that of learning how to handle music judiciously. When the sound camera made its bow there was put into Hollywood’s hand an opportunity to embrace music as one of the essential elements of its screen creation, but it muffed its chance. It could have given us motion pictures that would have earned profits during the deepest depression, superb examples of filmic motion with musical interpretations that increased their emotional appeal. But, instead, it gave us music that served only to retard or stop the filmic motion, its product ceased to be motion picture and a public that looks for motion pictures ceased to patronize it. ▼ ▼ It IS NOT too late yet for Hollywood to sell music to the public. It is a commodity that the public always will buy, but it must come in a proper package. In the screen package must be a motion picture. That is what producers must realize if they expect to make musical films that will bring audiences back to picture houses. First, there must be a story that follows a straight and unbroken line from the fadein to the final fade-out. Nothing must be hung onto it that is heavy enough either to break the line or to make it sag. Music