Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1933)

Tuesday, October 10, 1933 MOTION PICTURE DAILY Legal Snags on Salaries Are Seen Pay Control Is Believed Pushed Aside Cancellation Terms Held Liberal by Selling Heads (Continued from page 1) eventually emerge without any provisions of this nature. This may result in a return to the text of the article as originally presented, and again it may not. More probable are changes in the first text, and those changes may prove to be a middle-ground attitude between salary-fixing as such and a clause which may be construable as urging general limitation on excessive salaries on the ground that their continuance is inimical to the industry's good and that therefore every efTort should be made to control them. Another unexpected development in the code parleys came tonight when Lester Cowan, executive secretary of the Academy of M. P. Arts and Sciences, petitioned Deputy NRA Administrator Sol A. Rosenblatt for a public hearing on Article 10 in the event that the original text had been at all altered. His communication asked for the right to prepare arguments designed to demonstrate that such changes, if any, would not be incorporated in the code without their intent first having been aired. Whether this will make necessary an enforced visit from the coast of members of the Academy code committee was an eventuality which Cowan said tonight he could not answer, the text of the clause being the determining factor. Present in Washington is George Archinbaud, who is to make scenes for Radio's "Rodney" in the vicinity of the city. He is an Academy member. Expected is Albert Shelby LeVino, also a member of the Academy, and later in the week William Sistrom, supervisor of the picture, and, it so happens, a member of the Academy code committee is expected. What Will Rosenblatt Say? Speculative, too, is what Rosenblatt's answer will be. Since he has ruled that he will not reply to Questions outside of press interviews, there appeared little point in attempting to obtain a statement. An effort was made, despite this, but the deputy administrator could not be reached. A check of code developments in "Decidedly liberal," is the way major company sales managers here characterize the straight 10 per cent cancellation privilege on pictures which average $250 or less which was agreed upon for the industry code by company heads and Deputy NRA Administrator Sol A. Rosenblatt in Washington last week. Although unwilling to be quoted on individual opinions of the cancellation clause, a number of sales managers estimated that approximately 39 pictures from the annual output of eight companies would be subject to cancellation under provisions of the clause. The probable distribution revenue involved would approximate more than $6,000,000, several declared, if all theatre accounts eligible to do so took the maximum cancellation privilege in every instance. "The theatre accounts eligible for the cancellation privilege as defined," one sales manager stated, "are numerically large — they will run into the thousands and will include a substantial part of distribution revenue. Despite the fact that the clause would not apply to the large, key city houses, which belong to the selective picture contract group, it would cover virtually all of the small city and metropolitan subsequent run accounts. In this respect it is a decidedly liberal provision." Despite Rosenblatt's assertion Unat there were "no strings attached" to the cancellation clause, one sales manager declared that the clause "has many angles" and he did not care to express an opinion on it until he had studied it further. He said that the distribution revenue involved "depended solely upon the number of houses which availed themselves of the privilege it afiforded." Based on the 1933-34 product announcements of the large companies, 39 features, or 10 per cent of the total announced for the season, might be cancelled. They would be apportioned as follows : Warner-F. N., 6 ; Paramount, 6; Fox, 5; M-G-M, 5; Radio, 5 ; Columbia, 4 ; Universal, 4, and United Artists, 4. Rosenblatt's Latest Word Starts Buzz Kuykendall Sees 75% Of Theatres Helped Washington, Oct. 9. — Seventy-five per cent of all theatres in America will benefit by the 10 per cent cancellation clause, according to Ed Kuykendall, president of the M.P.T.O.A. Obviously, big theatres which average over the stipulated $250 rental per picture are not included, but thousands of others are, particularly where situations are not too competitive. In densely populated centers where competition is keen, the probability is the cancellation right won't mean much on the ground that all available product will be necessary to keep theatres supplied, he adds. It is understood Kuykendall played a pivotal part in obtaining this concession from distributors. It is reported he told Rosenblatt separately, and distributors later, that the M.P.T.O.A. delegates were not hot for the code as it stood and they had to take something back to their membership. The concession will apply only where an exhibitor buys and plays a distributor's total product and in addition there looms restrictions on method of cancellation. Probably the exhibitor will have to space out rejections over a period of time and, perhaps, a given number in each quarter of the season. Say Labor Snagged Supply Men's Code (Continued from pane 1) workers. Labor insists that the prevailing A. F. of L. scale must prevail. The supply dealers' initial code effort was rejected by the NRA at the public hearings here last week when it was charged that the code, drawn by National Theatre Supply and Independent Theatre Supply Dealers Ass'n, was not representative of the industry. The supply dealers were ordered to prepare a new draft more fully representative of the industry. other industries, however, brought to light no case quite like the Academy's. Rosenblatt may grant the request, if he likes, and he may not. The granting of public hearings to listen to one disputed proposal in an entire code was regarded as a remote possibility tonight. More likely seemed the prospect of a private conference on the issue, since Rosenblatt has declaret' that the code cannot assume its final form until Article 10, regardless of contents, is finally drafted and accepted. Moreover, since he has reiterated again and again his anticipation that the code will be ready by Wednesday, disposal of the Academy developments takes on an immediate import. On salary fixipg, the major producers tonight were reported to feel that such a plan could not be enforced even if it were embraced in the code. Elsewhere there was speculation whether important stars, provided they were regulated, would not strike out for themselves by producing their own pictures, and. as employers of labor thereby, insist that the NRA properly could not restrain them from doing so. This is the situation as it is reliably understood to prevail at midnight. The latter-day aspects of code delib erations have been subject to wild speculation, rumor, and considerable change, with the result that situations presumably agreed upon early today are being dropped or altered as new developments stalk the picture. Snags to Salary Curb There appears little reason to doubt that the Administration would prefer to see some sort of a halt called in skyrocketing salaries. It is the hitch legally and practically which makes any observance of it difficult and, in the opinion of some, impossible. Tonight unrest among remaining exhibitor delegates continued to mount. They want to get back to their businesses and, not so privately, several are inquiring why Rosenblatt is keeping them here. Reports bruited about in the last couple of days that Johnson proposed taking a hand in the code formulation are believed to be without foundation. The report seems well defined that the administrator made it clear to major producers on Saturday that neither the President nor Johnson himself contemplated interfering with Rosenblatt's handling of the situation unless pronounced inequities crept in. This, Johnson is said to have indicated, is not the case. Washington, Oct. 9.— Deputy Administrator Sol A. Rosenblatt's statement to newspapermen late this afternoon that the industry code is all finished except for Articles 9 and 10, governing agents' negotiations and star "raiding," precipitated a buzz of conversation tonight. The statement could be interpreted several ways. Some believed it indicated that Rosenblatt intended to push through the NRA code draft practically as he wrote it. Apparently contradicting this viewpoint is the M.P.T.O.A. declaration issued Sunday night and unchanged today that that organization is still moving for elimination of score charges, designated play dates and the tying in of shorts with feature sales. A second contradictory factor is the impending code analysis by the insurgent group of independents which has been promised for Wednesday, but which may not be completed on schedule. Several members of the exhibitor committee cannot understand Rosenblatt's statement, pointing out that certain angles of the operator labor provisions have not yet been clarified to their satisfaction. These exhibitors say they are also interested in learning through what method they are to carry the additional overhead imposed by the code as it stands. They insist that 95 per cent of the additional expense is theirs. Distributors, on the other hand, argue that the traffic will be passed on by the exhibitors to the public in the form of higher admissions, but important exhibitor opinion prevails that this will not prevail in as great a degree as distributors say. Some exhibitors insist they cannot raise admissions at this time. Chicago Theatres Start Code Wages (^Continued from page 1) there was no change in the principles agreed upon. This, Miller indicated, referred to wages for operators, stage hands, engineers and maintenance men. As the head of the Simansky & Miller circuit. Miller advised that his houses were immediately conforming to the Rosenblatt scale, and urged members of his organization to do likewise without waiting for the President's approval of the completed code. Miller's action is the first definite result of the code hearings, and locally means that there will be an increase for cashiers from 26 to 35 cents per hour; ushers, from 175^ cents to 25 cents, and watchmen from 20 to 35 cents. The B. & K. extra weekly outlay will be between $4,000 and $5,000, with an extra outlay for other circuit members making a weekly total of about $8,000.