Hollywood Spectator (1938)

Hollywood Spectator Page Five the EDITORS EASY CTIfllR WHY SPECTATOR WAS BORN . . . HEN a dozen years ago I decided to start a publi¬ cation, I did not have in mind the uplift of screen art as an aid to screen business, or any other idea, altruistic or financial, in as far as the paper itself was concerned. I merely wanted to advertise myself into a good job in a studio. That end attained, I was going to scrap the publishing business and spend my working hours in a studio office and my leisure pad¬ dling about in a swimming pool. With such a highly desirable objective before me, I did not wish the winding-up of the business to be complicated by a paid-up list of subscribers, consequently I made no effort to secure any. But they came, and by the time the first job was offered, it was not sufficiently robust in a financial way to cover with promptness the ex¬ pense of making to subscribers the rebates called for by the unearned portions of their subscription list periods. By the time a bigger and better job was offered, the subscription list had advanced to the point of sustaining the ratio of rebate demands to the amount of the proffered pay. Deadline for Subscribers . . . Y THAT time also I was beginning to enjoy my¬ self in the combination role of editor and pub¬ lisher. The business was carrying itself and I was learning rapidly that I did not know a blessed thing about pictures as an art or as an industry. That made me want to know, and I decided to stick to the pub¬ lishing business until I really knew something about the picture business and ceased being astonished per¬ petually by the manner in which it was being con¬ ducted by those who controlled it. I am still in that phase of my campaign for a studio job, and feel that by the spring — or the fall, at the latest — of 1966 I will have emerged far enough from my state of be¬ wilderment to accept the then existing conditions as rational, and with a conscience rendered pliable by a half-century of pounding, can pledge anew my faith in picture practices every time I draw my week¬ ly studio pay check. I therefore wish to announce now that no advance payment will be accepted by the Spectator for a subscription extending beyond January 1, 1966. The interval between that date and my acceptance of a studio job will be required for winding up the paper business, interviewing pro¬ ducers, washing the car, and getting a haircut and a shoeshine. Entirely Agreeable Experience . . . ONT ACT with picture people has made the dozen years agreeable. As I remarked in the Spectator a short time ago, I am living where I want to live, doing what I want to do, making a living at it. The editorial policy of the paper from its inception has not been one to establish the making-a-living feature of it on a non-precarious basis. The Spectator is overburdened with a circulation. Purely as a manu¬ facturing business it cannot pay its way, as it costs more than five dollars a year — the subscription price — to serve each subscriber. The difference has to be made up by the sale of advertising. People who work in pictures are its only possible source of advertising revenue, and it does not like to ask them to provide it. There is a sense of obligation to an advertiser which disturbs the balance between critical considera¬ tion of his contribution to a picture and the contribu¬ tion to the same picture of one who has provided none of the advertising revenue. Being partial to a friend is a fundamental human impulse, and striving to avoid it is apt to lead one too far in an opposite direction, to make him lean backward too far in his effort to strike a righteous pose. Has Been True to Itself . . . NE claim I would like to make: In twelve years of picture reviewing I have not written a line which did not express my honest opinion. The neces¬ sity of doing the same thing has been impressed upon all the others who have written reviews for the Spec¬ tator. During the years my opinions have changed, but in all their phases they were my own. On the whole, I have found picture people a grand lot, and to those who have been appreciative of the sincerity of the Spectator’s editorial policy to the point of generosity in their financial support, I wish to express my thanks. My own view of the paper is a some¬ what detached one; I feel it belongs to the art of the screen, whose espousal is its only interest; that if I, the individual, were tempted to color an opinion in order to gain material support for the paper, the Spectator itself would close its pages and refuse to HOLLYWOOD SPECTATOR, published weekly at Los Angeles, California, by Hollywood Spectator Co., Welford Beaton, Editor; Howard Hill, Business Manager. Office, 6513 Hollywood Boulevard; telephone GLadstone 5213. Subscription price, five o'ollars the year; two years, eight dollars; foreign, six dollars. Single copies ten cents. Entered as Second Class Matter, September 7, 1937, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879.