Motion Picture News (Apr - Jun 1927)

Volume XXXV IVEW YORK CITY, JUNE 10, 1927 No. 23 The New Boss THE AMERICAN MERCURY has discovered "an amusement octopus." In an article under that title the motion picture people are said to have throttled, deliberately and maliciously, all other forms of public entertainment, from the legitimate stage down to carnixals. This is considerably at variance with our conception of the situation. The article in this, its leading theme, strikes us as not hitting on all cylinders, if indeed any at all. * * * * In one of the few, but always interesting interviews I have had with Adolph Zukor, he said that motion pictures got a wide open opportunity in the entertainment business because the stage business all over the country had gone to pot. Cheap road shows were put out and the public, objecting to the price and quality of the entertainment offered, was acutely ready for the diversion in both respects held forth by the dramatic motion picture. It has been my own impression, also, that this decline in the stage business was due largely to the fact that the legitimate theatres were tied up in a booking circuit and therefore had to depend too much upon too little competition in production. At any rate it is apparent enough that the stage business throttled itself; and some able producers are outspoken in the belief that it throttled itself by throttling production competition at the fountain head. * * * * The title of the article gfave me hope at first that it mi.C^ht (leal with the situation, present and futnr(\ within the picture business. With the rapid chaining up of theatres into a fe\v big sfroups we seem, on the surface, to be following; at present the experience of the stag-e business. And that leads to some very pertinent speculation over the future of motion picture entertainment. The recent conventions held all over the country — at an expense I am told of about a thousand dollars a man — would indicate that there is plenty of competition among picture distributors. Certainly this huge effort to pep up sales forces gives a flat denial to those who gravely tell us that, so great are the theatre chains today, the selling of pictures to theatres is done across a desk in New York City. And I don't see any great decline in production competition. There are fewer independent producers today, but such as these are, they are offering sizable programs and they are able, so far as I can see, to turn out just as good an average picture, if not better, than those big producers who are now so set upon the production of road shows. There seems little doubt that the big theatre chains today dominate the industry. First the distributor dominated, then the producer gobbled up distribution and ran it to suit himself; now the theatre chains are in the driving seat. And — it strikes me — theirs is a vast responsibility. ^F ^r ^r ^r The big producer today is out for the ownership of a thousand theatres, more or less, and makes no bones about it. With such an outlet he is guaranteed his negative and distributing cost. But that doesn't end him of his worries by a long shot. In fact, it would seem to increase them — for — Those theatres have got to pay. They have got to pay above every other consideration. For the investment in them beats the investment in production and distribution. The stage theatre circuits were only booking circuits. The picture producer, through his ownership of theatres, nowadays, goes direct to the public with his wares. And those wares have got to be acceptable to the public. So that, apparently, theatre chains or no chains at all, the producer today is under heavier than ever obligations to turn out good pictures. Unless my brief argument here is full of holes it would seem as if Hollywood today needs the,brightest show brains the industry affords, even ^t t' „ expense of other branches. And that, since theatre success while primarily a matter of picture? is also one of management and advertising, in both these lines we need man power and facilities as never before. ^i^cn^<f^u^ / <^ I