Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1935)

Saturday, November 9, 1935 MOTION PICTURE DAILY 3 Summations in Trust Action Are Finished (Continued from page 1) RKO anticipate a favorable decision within an hour after the 12 jurors leave the box. Reed was the most effective talker of the day. He spoke for almost two hours, several times stamping his feet, waving contracts before the jury, pointing his finger and removing his horn-rimmed glasses at intervals. Leisure was calm, never raising his voice, while Lashly at different intervals pitched his voice as high as he could and bent his knees almost to the floor to emphasize certain points. Hardy talked in low tones and directly to the jury. He was interrupted twice, once by Frederick H. Wood and another time by Reed, who were cautioned against the practice. When he completed his closing arguments, Hardy had 70 minutes of the five hours allotted to him unused. All statements by Arthur and a number of other Government witnesses were refuted by the defense. Leisure Speaks First Leisure, the first to take the floor, argued that Ned E. Depinet could never have made a statement about Warners bringing pressure because of a clause in the contract between the two companies which provides that in the event RKO re-enters exhibition here the pact would be canceled. He stated Arthur got John S. Leahy to the Park Plaza Hotel in New York on false pretenses as Depinet had never been Arthur's "friend of long standing." Arthur's interest in the case, Leisure said, is that he expects to gain fame and wealth by collecting triple damages and sending the defendants to jail. F. & M. were in mischief in St. Louis and will be in more before they get through, the RKO attorney declared. "I don't believe any man on the jury has any doubt Depinet is an honest man," Leisure stated after sketching the RKO head's history. He also said Hardy was inconsistent when the Government held a letter signed by both parties was not a binding contract. In reference to Cresson E. Smith testifying falsely, Leisure said, "I'd like to take Hardy 10 months from today and ask him what he said on the stand here and see if he remembers his testimony." Case Groundless, Says Reed Lashly described the issue as "just an ordinary business dispute between men over money and properties." He said that if the bondholders had gone through with the agreement reached with Warners on Sept. 18, 1933, "we wouldn't be here." He stated, "It's strange the jury couldn't hear Harry Koplar's story," and asked, "why don't we hear from him?" He recited the alleged trouble RKO had with the Koplar-Arthur-F. & M. -Snyder group about so-called false box office reports, how Arthur had claimed he had lost $33,000 on RKO pictures, holding this was good enough reason for Depinet closing a deal with Warners. "All these things are part of pecu liar and sinister fights by Koplar who sets them into motion and then disappears," Lashly stated. Reed reviewed the Warner situation thoroughly, going over the ground covered previously. He pointed out how the company had tried to salvage its $4,000,000 equity and work out a plan of reorganization with the bondholders for the Ambassador, Missouri and New Grand Central ; the decision to take the Shubert-Rialto for its own pictures and later the Orpheum to give the company representation in the uptown and downtown districts, and the individual negotiations with Paramount and RKO for product. The former Senator said he had never seen as groundless a case in all his life. "We are seriously handicapped by Abel Carey Thomas' absence," he added. "I never heard a speech to a jury so unfair as Hardy's." He declared that the Government tried to keep out the facts. Calls Trial One-Sided "Neither the Government, Congress nor President Roosevelt ordered this case," Reed stated. "It was just Hardy who did." The exSenator held the grand jury investigation and trial were one-sided and "Hardy says with a sneer that there are so many lawyers here. When can you indict IS parties and not have a lawyer for each?" he inquired. Lambasting the prosecutor again, Reed said "he's had the grand jury notes for weeks. He's had sleuths all the time and it only came out when Samuel W. Fordyce put him on the stand and asked him about it." Refuting Hardy's previous statement about certain of the Government witnesses not having an interest in the case, Reed pointed out that Thomas N. Dysart, chairman of the bondholders' committee, tried to secure his job for 16 years when he insisted on the committee getting control of the voting trustees instead of Warners. Joseph Grand and Frederick H. Kreismann, he said, were on the bondholders' committee. Most everyone had an interest, Reed asserted, and "I can show some lied and have very treacherous memories." Charges Distortion Reed declared Hardy distorted everything that took place at the conferences, saying, "How willing he is to give a false impression." In answer to Hardy's query why Paramount and RKO did not commit their films to all three bidders for the houses, Reed said, "How in the world could they do it?" Referring to the Park Plaza meeting, the ex-Senator stated, "John Barleycorn was talking instead of John S. Leahy when the latter said in substance and effect that Depinet should break the contract with Warners." The ex-Senator then lashed into a trenchant delineation of Government witnesses, calling J. M. Ulmer of Cleveland "as sharp as a rattlesnake, full of malice for Warners" because of a dispute over a lease of the Capitol, Wheeling, W. Va. He compared the character of Sam B. Jeffries, Arthur Simpson and Miles Alben with some of the Government lawyers who testified, adding, "if Hardy can write a better history for himself than Teffries he's a better man than I think he is." Reed asked why Harold Schilz, who had attended the Washington Ready for Dates St. Louis, Nov. 8. — One of the Warner men figured out a unit show, composed entirely of Warner men, which can't be topped: Five minutes of ball juggling and dumbbells by none other than the Adonis, Gradwell L. Sears. Three minutes of a brief skit which would feature Herman Starr in a recitation from "Richard III." One hour for Moe Silver to draw pictures of his new arrival. meeting and queried Herman Starr at the time on the purchase of the defaulted bonds, was not put on the stand. "He's the man who blasts on the bugle horn with a 1,000 toots and never lets one out." He then wanted to know why Will H. Hays, Charles C. Petti john and Gabriel Hess were not subpoenaed and interrogated. "What happened to Adolph and Eugene Zukor and Ralph Kohn about whom so many questions were asked of George J. Schaefer?" the Warner chief counsel queried. "All we did was fight a conspiracy," Reed stated. "Mosaic of Falsehood" "The contradictions of Hardy's witnesses make a mosaic of falsehoods and are hardly worth while going over," the former Senator said. Reed reviewed Arthur's advent into the local theatre situation with acquisition of the St. Louis in November, 1933, the Fox in January, 1934 and the Ambassador, Missouri and New Grand Central in February of last year, all of which the Warner attorney declared happened in 60 days. "The Arthur group was violating the Sherman law by trying to take away pictures that didn't belong to them," Reed held. "We got about 100 pictures from Paramount and RKO. Are we to be punished because the other people with five theatres couldn't get enough product?" "The only thing in this case is the charge we conspired to restrain interstate commerce by preventing the shipment of films to three theatres. It's a bottomless case, as inflated as a balloon," Reed concluded. In concluding summations, Hardy again charged the defense counsel with the use of an old trick by their insistence F. & M. had a monopoly. "It's a lot of claptrap," the prosecutor said. "You don't have to decide," he informed the jury, "whether I'm a rascal or a saint." Apologizes for Gentry He said the reason for objecting to the introduction of many exhibits was because he only wanted "reliable evidence." He contended the reason Paramount brought in the minutes of the Campi session of Mar. 12, 1934, and the report on Schaefer's long disstance calls from Miami was "to deceive the jury." He declared the men who were responsible for the records should have been brought to the stand to testify. Hardy apologized for William R. Gentry describing Arthur as a "perjurer." Gentry objected, but the prosecutor insisted on entering the fact into the record whether the Paramount attorney liked it or not. He denied Arthur had lied on the stand. Hardy said the fact Wood called the Koplar group "crooked" is hearsay and had not been proved. He called it an unfounded accusation, holding if it were true RKO should have brought suit in the courts to collect monies due. "Why should we bring Koplar in? Anything he knows or does is utterly irrelevant to the case," the prosecuting attorney stated. He also described as "perfectly ridiculous" the statement made by Reed that "Koplar tried to get Warners over a barrel." "I don't know if you've ever seen Koplar, but he is the last man in the world to get a man over a barrel," Hardy said. Interest High-Pitched The Government representative explained the reason for not putting Schilz on the stand was because of independent evidence of the purchase of the bonds and the use made of them. "If a monopoly existed the defendants should have taken recourse \>i the courts," Hardy insisted. "If they were fearful of the Dept. of Justice they could have obtained an injunction." None of the defendants and principals in the case will go to New York for the week-end. Interest is at a high pitch here and everyone is on edge awaiting the decision on Monday of the 12 jurymen who have patiently sat through 29 days of the trial. Charter Two at Dover Dover, Nov. 8. — Picadilly Amusement Enterprises, Inc., has been formed here by Julian T. Abeles, Leopold Bleich and William Lieber ol New York. Carlton Laboratories, Inc., has been incorporated by James L. Carlton, Long Island City, Herbert F. Braithwaite, New York, and J. Hume MacDonald, Garden City. Form Dramatic Club Sacramento, Nov. 8. — Incorporation papers have been filed here by the Cinema Dramatic Club. Francois de Broillette, Vina Haggarty, Laura Chase and Max Luttichow are the incorporators. They intend to produce, sell and exhibit pictures. Terre Haute Gets Shows Terre Haute, Nov. 8. — Stage shows are again being presented here. At the Indiana recently Major Bowes' Amateurs were presented and last week six acts of vaudeville, featuring "International Follies," were staged. At the Hippodrome "Three Men on a Horse" will open soon. Poole Quits in Oregon Klamath Falls, Ore., Nov. 8. — Harry Poole, for many years practically in control of exhibition here as the operator of three houses, has turned the houses over to George Mann, who operates a string of houses in northern California. Arrange Cartoon Deal The third series of ComiColor cartoons will be distributed in the United Kingdom by British Lion Film Corp., Ltd., through an arrangement concluded between Sam Smith of British Lion and C. J. Giegerich of Celebrity.