Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1934)

(MOTION PICTURE DAILY Friday, November 23, 1934 MOTION PICTURE DAILY (Registered U. S. Patent Office) Vol. 36 November 23, 1934 No. 123 Martin Quigley Editor-in-Chief and Publisher MAURICE KANN Editor VBH JAMES A. CRON Advertising Manager Published daily except Sunday and holidays by Motion Picture Daily, Inc., subsidiary of Quigley Publications, Inc., Martin Quigley, President; Colvin Brown, « ice-President and Treasurer. Publication Office: 1790 Broadway, New York. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." All contents copyrighted 1934 by Motion Picture Daily, Inc. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Other Quigley publications: MOTION PICTURE HERALD, BETTER THEATRES, THE MOTION PICTURE ALMANAC and THE CHICAGOAN. Hollywood Bureau: Postal Union Life Building, Vine and Yucca Streets, Victor M. Shapiro, Manager; Chicago Bureau: 407 South Dearborn Street, Edwin S. Clifford, Manager; London Bureau: Remo House, 310 Regent St., London, W. 1, Bruce Allan, Representative. Cable address: "Quigpubco, London"; Berlin Bureau: Berlin Tempelhof , Kaiserin Augustastrasse 28, Joachim K. Rutenberg, Representative; Paris Bureau: 19, Rue de la Cour-desNoues, Pierre Autre, Representative; Rome Bureau: Viale Gorizia, Vittorio Malpassuti, Representative; Sydney Bureau: 102 Sussex Street, Cliff Holt, Representative; Mexico City Bureau: Apartado 269, James Lockhart, Representative; Glasgow Bureau: 86 Dundrennan Road, G. Holmes, Representative; Budapest Bureau: 3, Kaplar-u, Budapest, II, Endre Hevesi, Representative; Moscow Bureau: Civtzev Yrazhek, N. 25, Apart. 146, Moscow, U. S. S. R., Bella Kashin, Representative. Cable address: "Samrod, Moscow." Entered as second class matter, January 4, 1926, at the Post Office at New York City, N. Y., under Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year: $6 in the Americas, except Canada $15 and foreign $12. Single copies: 10 cents. "White Parade" At $16,000 2nd Week "White Parade" at the Paramount for a second week tallied $16,000 and "The First World War" at the Rialto petered off to a $9,000 take on its second stanza. Both are Fox films. The Roxy gross on "Evensong" was fair with $25,000. "Evelyn Prentice" at the Capitol garnered $28,900, which is good for a second week. "Imita tion of Life" opens today at the Roxy for a two-week run. Hamrick, Shearer Leave John Hamrick and B. F: Shearer, Seattle circuit owner and theatre equip ment dealer, respectively, left for home yesterday after two weeks here. They are accompanied by their wives. Before leaving yesterday Hamrick stated he had a nice time and would not return until next spring. Junior Laemmle III Carl Laemmle, Jr., may be com pelled to postpone his trip abroad, due to an attack of the flu which has confined him to his rooms at the Pierre Earliest emergence date is set for Monday. "Death" for Criterion Topical Films has booked "Dealers of Death" into the Criterion for an extended run starting Dec. 5. Insiders' Outlook C ALES managers around the ^ town are studying the statistical fabric woven into a nicety for them by the Census Bureau on where and what theatre grosses of 1933 were. It was common knowledge, of course, that New York State nurtured the largest percentage of all the states, but a surprise to many at that to learn the bracket was nearly 25 per cent. Throughout the state, 820 houses grossed $85,150,000 and 29 picture and vaudeville houses, $4,850,000. Since the picture, not the show's the thing, the combined total, or the correct total for practical calculation becomes $90,000,000. The bureau also stresses that 424 of the 820 picture houses are in New York City; that 382 ran straight films and grossed $63,882,000 and 13 "combo" houses bulked $2,578,000, or a total in the metropolitan area of $66,460,000. . . . Diligent search into the boxoffice records maintained by Motion Picture Daily went a bit further yesterday and discovered $11,201,123, or slightly more than one-fifth of the New York City total, sprang from seven Broadway houses. The Music Hall, naturally, led the field with $3,973,661. The Capitol, a poor runner-up but ahead of the occupant in third place, ended at $2,130,901. The Paramount filled third niche with $1,880,435; the Roxy, fourth with $1,108,188; the Strand, fifth with $1,081,341 ; the Rialto, closed five weeks as it was in the winter of '33, sixth with $545,200, and the May fair, seventh with $481,396. Because this business has been notoriously lax in reducing fancy to figures, the government figures take on the air of authoritative value. But don't let them fool you. They tip the grosses, not the losses. . . . T Intrigued by his supervision of the dramatically exciting, if not the box-office exciting "Gabriel Over the White House" of another day, Walter Wanger's second foray into more or less the same field makes swell, melodramatic entertainment. What this publication thought about "The President Vanishes" was covered by wire some days back from the coast. Yesterday, this forum had a chance to see it with some of the higher uppers of the Hays office and Paramount, interspersed with a sprinkling of press association reporters, and found itself mightily entertained for 85 minutes. . . . T In his latest, which happens to be his first independently-made attraction for Paramount, Wanger takes a direct crack at brown, black and other kinds of shirts and a lusty slap at munitions makers, and patriots who stay that way as long as it makes their bank balances sweeter. He also includes social and economic implications which tinge his picture with vitality and a generous smattering of guts. In other words, "The President Vanishes" has considerably more real substance than the average Hollywood conception, all tied together with a fantastic, but always interesting, story of the White House and a scenario writer's idea of that which may happen inside those portals some day. . . . ▼ How coast agents work and producers continue to snarl themselves is evidenced, complete unto itself, by a new Paramount Eastman Still Climbs on Big Board Columbia Pictures, vtc. Consolidated Film Indus Consolidated Film Indu Fox Film "A"... Loew's, Inc Paramount Publi Pathe Exchange Pathe Exchange 'A" Warner Bros. Net High Low Close Change Sales 40 39VA + Va, 3,800 m 3Vs 3Vs 300 17K 17 900 nm 114M +3 1.800 13A i3}4 13*S A 500 34 33Vz 34 + A 4,200 . 3/2 3Va + A Vi 11.200 VA VA 1,200 ■ 15/s 1454 WA — V* 400 2 m m 3,600 4H m. *Vi — v» 1.000 Technicolor Drops Eighth on Curb Technicolor Net High Low Close Change . 125i 12Ys 12Vs — Vi G. T. E. Bond Issues Show Gains High Low Close General Theatre Equipment 6s '40 9A &A 9Vi General Theatre Equipment 6s '40, ctf 9 7Vz 8% Keith B. F. 6s '46 64 64 64 Loew's 6s '41, ww deb rights 104 W3Vs W3V» Paramount Broadway 5V2s '51 43 42A 42A Paramount F. L. 6s '47 60Vi 60 60 Paramount Publix S^s '50 60 59Va 60 Pathe 7s '37, ww 99V& 9956 99H Warner Bros. 6s '39, wd 59 58J4 59 Net Change + Vi + Vi u + A + Vi + A Sales 200 Sales 32 50 4 12 13 31 125 5 6 contract handed out to Claudette Colbert. That handsome young woman of the beautiful and shapely stems has signed for six pictures over a period of two years with a return to her of approximately $450,000. Less than a year ago, when Hollywood, or parts of it, went screwier than ever, Miss Colbert's per-picture stipend was $60,000, whereupon some hopefuls had an idea the end of the tether had been reached. For confirmed Gold Coast natives, the)' entirely overlooked the truth that Hollywood knows no limits. . . . T Joe Bernhard enters the record with the statement that the Warner film classification plan, now in vogue in Philadelphia, has been a great success. Yet, hesitancy still marks the circuit's decision about extending the identical idea into other territories where it operates houses. The logical question, of course, is : Why in Philadelphia, but not in Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Memphis and some points in between? The answer is: Because designation of pictures suitable for families, it is feared, may keep away adults, those grownups figuring family pictures are namby-pamby pictures and not worth their time. . . . Ed Kuykendall's earlier blast at Campi for ditty dallying on clearance and zoning was his first uttered publicly. Off the record, however, long has he been complaining to friends and exhibitors. Moreover, he is not the only member of Campi who holds the same point of view. Any fairly close check-up of the C.A. personnel will supply the additional names. The difference between them and Kuykendall has been the sotto voce method of the others in making that point of view clear. . . . His proverbial luck serves Carl Laemmle in good stead. "Imitation of Life," real box-office, comes along when Universal needs it and needs it plenty. . . . T Peculiar that the Allied directors, meeting in Baltimore the other day should assert Paramount is relenting on its national sales policy on percentages and particularly as that policy has to do with weekly payments for shorts, used or not. There is no indication of any such change in front in Greater New York, at least. Sidney Samuelson, Allied's president, can testify to that. He holds a contract with the distributor for shorts on that very basis. . . . Pete Harrison, in Hollywood by this time, expressed 13 trunks of clothes west, haberdashery circles report. Which would indicate it is not the lowdown on pictures alone that Pete is after. . . . KANN