Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

Facts and Figures Intimate Items About Pictures, Past, Present And Future By CAMPBELL MacCULLOCH AS a nation, we'll swallow any quantity or description of exaggeration or sensationalism, if the figures about it are big enough. There's "Hell's Angels," for example. The publicity has it that it cost $3,750,000, assertedly the highest picture cost ever, and that it bridged across three successive calendar years. But it isn't the most expensive picture, nor is it the only one that spanned three years. "Ben Hur" cost $4,500,000 and was in production in 1924, 1925, and 1926. FOUR years ago, the Western Electric Company tried to sell their talking picture mechanism to several large picture concerns, who merely sniffed. The then-unenvied Warners did not sniff, but they were not too eager. So they came out of the business conference with a contract that obligated them to use the talkie apparatus. In consideration for their efforts, they would participate in the royalties other producers might pay, to the tune of 15 per cent. Then the deluge, and after two years the contract was readjusted to an 8 per cent, participation. And the royalty, by the way, is $500 a reel for every picture filmed on Western Electric apparatus. MENTIONING "Hell's Angels" just above reminds me that Howard Hughes, its producer, did spend dollars stoically. At Oakland Airport, about eighteen months ago, I saw a fleet of forty planes and fifty pilots. "That's Hughes's air fleet for his picture," an official told me. "This is his fourth week here, and he has been able to get into the air just three days. For the other twentyfive he has stood around in the rain and watched $10,000 a day go in overhead. But he hasn't whined." YEARS ago (in 1908) somebody told Mayor McClellan of New York that the movies were inciting children to crime. So McClellan up and closed down all the picture houses in town the night before Christmas. Of course, they opened again, but the child-menace bug has persisted ever since; which is why we have censors. And also ever since, the producers have regarded the child business as their biggest and most important clientele. Like other accepted fallacies, it isn't. Children up to fourteen represent but 7,75 per cent, of the total audiences. Adolescents from fourteen to eighteen are but 11 per cent. more. I .'VER since the row over the authenticity of "Ingagi," y^i there has been a leaning toward proof by producers. One company has gone off to the Malay Peninsula to shoot 16 hunting stuff and has taken along a college professor guarantee — as an eye-witness — the truth of the stor It does not seem to have occurred to the sponsors of tli expedition that someone might decline to believe the pre fessor. In that event, who will guarantee him.'' Tha Maharajah of Bhurimpoor — or whatever his name is] THE rest of America loves to believe Hollywood a sink of iniquity. Well, just to confound them I dug these figures out of the Los Angeles police statistics : Hollywood is fourth in population among the sixteen police divisions, with 150,000 residents, so it is about 12 per cent, of the city's total. If the carpers are right, it should furnish about 50 per cent, of the municipal crime, and it doesn't. It turns out a weak and piffling 9.25 per cent., delivering but 1,558 violations of the penal code — made up of 416 burglaries, 59 robberies, 41 grand larcenies, 623 motor-car thefts, 12 holdups, 34 cases of fraud, 4 homicides and 399 traffic accidents. 1 ONE is tempted to wonder what the producers would do without the co-operation of the Federal Government. Old Uncle Samuel really is generous. He furnished an army motor-truck train for "The Big Parade" and rolled it for days across the Texas plains. Both the Army and Navy contributed to the making of "The Rough 1 Riders." Annapolis was helpful in making "The Midship ! man" and "Salute," while West Point put forth its resources for "West Point" and "Dress Parade." The j Marines were useful in the making of "Tell it to the I Marines" and a few more, while the Coast Guard has helped out in several pictures. Altogether, the list is too long to set down, but a rough calculation is that in ten years the Government has contributed about $5,000,000 in production values. RECENTLY, I ran across some figures of production under the old Triangle banner fourteen years ago, when Thomas H. Ince was active at Culver City. Then, a top-notch five-reeler cost about $50,000 and needed a production crew of 49. In 1928, the cost had risen to an average of $215,000 for the picture, and the production crew had gone up to 268. Both are averaging more now. Which gives us some faint idea of why the studios are planning to spend $125,000,000 this coming year. AND speaking of production costs, D. W. Griffith £\_ "Birth of a Nation," made in 1914, cost $\\ Yes, the whole twelve reels of it! On the present-day basis, (Continued on page 107)