Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1934)

MOTION PICTURE DAILY Wednesday, December 26, 1934 MOTION PICTURE DAILY (Registered U. S. Patent Office) Vol. 36 December 26, 1934 No. 149 Martin Quigley Editor-in-Chief and Publishc MAURICE KANN mR Editor * 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, Vice-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 bnion Lite 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: Yiale Gorizia, Vittorio Malpassuti, Representative; Sydney Bureau: 102 Sussex Street, Clitt 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 Vrazhek, 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. Loew Returns with Sam Berger, Field Arthur Loew, head of the M-G-M foreign department ; Sam Berger, roving foreign representative ; and Arthur Field, in charge of foreign dubbing, arrived yesterday on the lie de France. The boat was delayed a day by bad weather. Loew was away for three months visiting a number of countries on his annual tour. Beery Double Arrested Mexico City, Dec. 25. — Jose Jesus Torres Diaz, Mexican actor who doubled for Wallace Beery in "Viva Villa," was jailed here over the weekend on a first degree murder charge as a result of a saloon brawl. When not working for film companies Diaz practices his regular profession, that of a butcher. MPTO Unit Hits Duals Washington, Dec. 25. — Resolutions opposing dual bills and commending major companies for refusing to sell product for double bills have been adopted by the M.P.T.O. unit of the District of Columbia. Re-Sign Kitty Carlisle Kitty Carlisle,, now on vacation, has been given a new long term contract by Paramount. When she returns to the coast she is scheduled to start work in "Wakiki Wedding." Insiders' Outlook LSEWHERE this morning J— ' and by way of a post-Christmas cold shower. Adolph Zukor has something to say. It's important, if not new. We let him talk a bit : "The most important matter facing the industry in 1935 is not that of increasing grosses, but rather of lowering negative costs. ... I view this rise in negative costs as one of the most serious matters ever faced by the industry. I believe that it is out of all proportions to the corresponding rise in commodity prices . . . unless . . . remedied at once I believe we shall find ourselves making pictures costing more than we can take in at our boxoffices." Herbert Vates, president of Consolidated, strikes the same warning note this morning. And a warning note it might properly be. What to do about negative costs, which is as hardy and as perennial bugaboo as this industry ever has had to face, has been furrowing many high and mighty brows of late. The variegated aspects of the issue have not changed as against last week, month, or year and, while the subject matter makes for interesting and occasionally bitter philippics in many de luxe film quarters, evidences are essentially lacking that action is being directed toward the region where it might do the most good. . . . T For, today and yesterday, the spectacle ridiculous continues of Hollywood-ites who should know better making pictures for themselves or for others — others, not in the ranks of theatres or the public, but others who, by their position, make or break the status of the film colony's Four Hundred. An old Hollywood custom, railed against, excoriated and editorialized about but flour ishing nevertheless and notwithstanding. In other words, a very cute idea, the cost of which has to be borne somewhere along the line and ultimately by Hollywood itself, although relatively few there comprehend it. . . . T It goes beyond. Coast tycoons are of two ilk, for better or for worse. There is the type of producer with a couple of successes, accidental or otherwise, under his belt who insists on making pictures regardless of budget. He will argue that it is the entertainment glow caught on celluloid which tells the story and, of course, he is correct. But when that glow is achieved through costs that might make the Bank of England, or a good, old American institution like Chase National, quiver, then what? There is the producer also who insists that a good picture is only a good picture when made at a price, said price almost guaranteeing or at least indicating that a profit is a reasonable outcome of his effort. . . . T All of this has a bearing on what happens after the cans are shipped out of Hollywood whether the ruling class of the gilt-edged coast town realizes it or not. Hollywood's mistakes or anyone else's for that matter have to be picked up. whitewashed and washed up somehow and somewhere. Ordinarily this means theatres have to play what Hollywood sends them even though the men in exhibition know they often get the wrong kind of merchandise. The procedure can't go on indefinitely. The answer is merely postponed by virtue of the occasional smash attraction which gets all branches of the business so excited that major ills, of which exorbitant negative costs Columbia Up Quarter on Big Board High Columbia Pictures, vtc 37^ Consolidated Film Industries 6 Consolidated Film Industries, ofd 20% Eastman Kodak 111% Eastman Kodak, pfd 140 Fox Film "A" 13 Loew's, Inc 34^ Paramount Publix 3^4 Pathe Exchange 1^4 Pathe Exchange "A" 14 Warner Bros 4}4 Warner Bros., pfd 2154 Lew 37 554 1954 11054 140 127,4 354 1 14 21 Close 37M 554 1954 111 140 1274 34 3*4 VA 14 Wi 2VA Net Change + 54 — a 54 + 54 + 'A + 54 Technicolor Gains Quarter on Curb Technicolor High . 13 Low 1254 Close 13 Net Change + 54 Bond Market Holds Steady High Low General Theatre Equipment 6s '40 9 854 General Theatre Equipment 6s '40, ctf 854 854 Loew's 6s '41. ww deb rights 10554 105 Paramount Broadway 554s '51 45 43?4 Paramount F. L. 6s '47 6134 6104 Paramount Fublix 554s '50 6254 6154 Warner Bros. 6s '39, wd 5854 5854 (Quotations as of Dec. 24) Close 9 8*4 10554 45 6154 6154 5854 Net Change + 54 + % Sales 300 1.500 900 1.500 3.000 900 2.900 300 900 400 1.400 2.000 Sales LOCO Sale +154 54 54 certainly are one, become temporarily forgotten. . . . T Moreover, there is little reason to suspect that the patient stockholder may be expected to continually take it at the wrong end simply because New York has such inordinate difficulty in making the bad boys of Hollywood give up the candy stick. However and as that may be, this is written in full flush of the Vuletide season and so no answer is here being volunteered. One reason for that is this column is not at all certain it knows. Secondly, nobody, not even the men whose business it more directly is, seem to be cracking minds and backs about it so why turn ponderous here when gayety and good cheer presumably are to prevail ? . . . ▼ Nick Schenck, an unexpected surprise these days. First he breaks his standing rule which rules off forecasts on pictures, to bespeak his praise on behalf of "David Copperfield." Now he flips the few remaining pages on 1934's calendar to say a thing or two about 1935 which everyone is hoping, as usual, will be a lusty infant. Hearken : "The business in 1935 should be good, even better than in 1934. which has been most satisfactory. I do not mean this for our company alone but for the industry in general. Having had an opportunity to see the coming product of most organizations and to discuss general plans with the executives in charge, I am convinced that the quality of the pictures themselves is steadily improving. Producers, directors and players are ambitious not only to succeed but to stamp their work as worthwhile. The industry each year grows more capable of intelligent activity. At one time it used to be said too often that motion pictures were in their infancy. To 1 day the movies are grown-up and they are acting grown-up. Therefore I am most optimistic." And here the hope is echoed. . . . K A N N First Division Men Hear Selling Talks Speeches by principal executives in First Division highlighted the one-day sales meeting of all branch managers at the Park Central Sunday. Among those who spoke were Harry H. Thomas, president ; John Curtis. Roy Rason, Charles Rosenzweig and Henry R. Luce. Instructions on sales were given to the men in addition to the initial screening of the first March of Time release. About 40 attended. Korda After Barrymore London, Dec. 25. — John Barrymore s negotiating with Alexander Korda to make a film, according to G. A. Atkinson in The New Era. This, the report continues, may be "Hamlet," although Barrymore has been telling newspapers in India he may make a picture there.