Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1936)

MOTION PICTURE DAILY Tuesday, March 10, I93; MOTION PICTURE DAILY (Registered U. S. Patent Office) Vol. 39 March 10, 1936 No. 5S Martin Quigley Editor-in-Chief and Publisher MAURICE KANN, Editor J. M. JERAULD, Managing Editor JAMES A. CRON, Advertising Manager Published daily except Sunday and holidays by Quigley Publications, Inc., Martin Quigley, president; Colvin Brown, vicepresident and treasurer. Publication Office: 1270 Sixth Avenue, at Rockefeller Center, New York. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." All contents copyrighted 1936 by Quigley Publications, Inc. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Other Quigley pub lications, Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, The Motion Picture Almanac and The Box-Office Check-Up. Hollywood Bureau: Postal Union Life Building, Vine and Yucca Streets, Boone Mancall, Manager; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, C. B. O'Neill, Manager; London Bureau: Remo House, 310 Regent Street, London, W. 1, Bruce Allan, Representative. Cable address "Quigpubco, London"; Berlin Bureau: Stuelerstrasse 2, Berlin W 35; Joachim K. Rutenberg, Representative; Paris Bureau: 19, Rue de la Cour-des-Noues. Pierre Autre, Representative; Rome Bureau: Viale Gorizia, Vittorio Malpassuti, Representative; Sydney Bureau: 600 George 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; Tokyo Bureau: 4 7 Higashi Gokencho UshigomeKu, H. Tominaga, Representative. 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, and foreign $12. Single copies: 10 cents. Ampa Truth Dinner Play in Rehearsal Ralph Rolan, vice-president of the March of Time, and Gordon White, Ampa president, are in the midst of rehearsals for the show they are producing, which will be the leading feature of the Ampa Naked Truth dinner-dance at the Hotel Astor Saturday night. The play, which will lampoon the industry, was written by Charles Williams and Marcy Klauber, writers for Educational, and Charles Curran of Donahue & Coe. Hugh Cameron, Walter Fenner, Fred Hillebrand and Arthur Kay are playing the leading masculine roles, whilst Alice Rinehart has the feminine lead. The musical accompaniment was prepared by Jimmv Burns. Kent, Hossfeld Here Soon Percy Kent, head of National Theatres realty division, and Milton Hossfeld, who has been named assistant to E. L. Alperson, film buyer, are scheduled to arrive from the coast next week to make their headquarters in New York. PHOTOGRAPHER— EXPERT TIMER, for copying negatives in production. One who has specialized in this work and can make good copies fast on 35 mm. film and enlarge them on paper. State experience, lowest salary, former employers and how long in each place. Box 900, Motion Picture Daily. Insiders' Outlook By RED KANN' Hollywood, March 9. C URROUNDED by his pipes, ^ and walls adorned with handsome photographs of his polo stable, Walter Wanger muses over the celluloid estate and speculates if the time has not arrived for an assertion of what he regards as the industry's inalienable rights. There's a phrase for you. In political history, it's been known to have had the mob sobbing. Wanger, a good showman and on his toes, has an appreciation of publicity values and by no means is to be scored or overlooked for it. Not in this business. . . . T And so, interrupted by casting directors, Raoul Walsh, opening and closing doors and telephone arrangements for a bit of polo at Riviera in the afternoon, United Artists' latest acquisition expounded this : "I remember when I first broke into show business, which is quite a number of years ago. It was anathema in polite society to be mentioned in connection with the film industry. Today, motion pictures have captured the world's imagination as well as its interest. New York and London society now make it a season here in Hollywood. It's smart to be around film people. "It seems to be, therefore, and since swaddling clothes and disrepute have long since been dropped that the industry should have developed enough guts to refuse to be kicked around the way it is. I am not referring to dirt in pictures. I don't think anything not in good taste belongs, but efforts to block the normal progress of producers toward better and more courageous things is something else." T "Are you referring to the trouble over 'The Forty Days of Musa Dagh' and 'Paths of Glory'?", appeared the logical question. Replied Wanger : "Yes, for one thing. I know about the attitude of the Turkish and French governments. Yet suppose all of us agreed to stand the gaff of our product banned in one foreign country. It might be a good idea to withdraw and to see if that nation can get along without American films. This would establish the right of the industry to proceed on its way and to make an even better grade of film." T It registered as convincing, but Wanger knew he was largely theorizing. For Paramount to essay "Paths of Glory" as Humphrey Cobb wrote it with its castigation of French army tyranny would unleash a diplomatic howl that would extend far beyond France's borders and imperil not only the specific producer's output there, but the entire industry's as well. For Irving Thalberg to produce "Musa Dagh" as Franz Werfel wrote it would outrage Turkey, but the pressure would go beyond and into all channels where Mustapha Kemal and Istanbul could marshal their influence. Yet the problem is both knotty and vexatious, for, as Wanger accurately points out, the continued hampering of Hollywood by international complications definitely retards progress. It reaches within domestic borders as well, in that a "Paths of Glory" conlined to the domestic market would endanger the distribution of American production in 1 '"ranee. . . . Now that he is proceeding on a unit basis, Wanger sees only merit in such a system. Tn a local interview, he pointed out recently : "Most of the big, the successful films of the past two years have been made under the unit system, and it is now the individual picture, rather than the mass product, that counts. And it's immediately known when you have a good picture. . . . But when a studio is grinding out 50 pictures a year, its head man can't even find time to talkto the people on the payroll. His studio accumulates contract players, writers, directors, all 'on call.' They have to do what they're told, regardless of whether they're suited to it or not, and when a story comes along that is adapted to them, they're tied up on something else. They all become part of a racket. It's the wrong psychology from an employment standpoint." . . . And then this : "A producer should be capable of selecting his own talent, his own stories. He should have a background in the business. He should know exhibition first." Let's take a look. He says the unit system brought forth the big films of the past two years. There is Louis B. Mayer over at Metro, for instance. He's been doing pretty well and he has only producers. The studio head responsible for 50 pictures has been diagnosed many times before ; he's more to be pitied than envied. Agreement with Wanger on that point. But when he talks about major plants accumulating talent, he ought to remember he's following the same line, modestly to be sure. Experience in Theatre Activity In South Hits New Peal Theatre activity in the south i now at its peak with major and in dependent circuits participating ii new building and acquisitions, accord! ing to home office sales executives re turning from trips to the territory. Expansion plans are taking some o the larger circuits into the smalletowns and at the same time bulwark ing surrounding situations, the sale: executives state. New structures an now going up in open situations. Kin; cey & Wilby is said to have taken ovei about half a dozen houses in the las three months. Other circuits likewise have added to their holdings. LeRoys on Way East Hollywood, March 9. — Mervyr LeRoy and Mrs. LeRoy left here today on the first leg of a trip to Europe and return. exhibition, of course, is of value. Undeniably so. . . . T Through his telescope, Wanger sees other bits of this and that which strike him as wrong. Read : "There are too many executives in the big film studios. Everybody should do more of his own work. There is probably no other business where incompetents can hold on so long and where they can find so many places to hide out. It's astounding what mistakes film executives can make and still have their companies survive. Yet the demand for pictures is so great, the probable percentage of profit so terrific [there's that word again] and the market so wide, that 'boners' which would wreck other industries still get by in Hollywood." Pointing the nozzle away from Hollywood and toward New York, he continues : "In the past 15 years, sales methods in every other business but pictures have been revolutionized. But here, though personnel has changed in the production end, particularly since the introduction of sound, the same old heads of companies continue in power, the same outdated ideas of merchandising and exhibiting persist. That is what has retarded artistic advance. "New York sales forces have proved time and again that, as dictators of picture tastes and talent, they are worthless. What New York office would have given Grace Moore a new chance in a musical after two previous flops at M-G-M? Who back there could have predicted the phenomenal success of 'Mutiny on the Bounty'? Your eastern sales force wants 52 copies of what was the most successful last year, ignoring the obvious fact that no audience desires a duplicate of something it has seen before, any more than a woman wants to buy last season's hat." T If he persists in talking in this vein, Wanger will find his social status seriously impaired. . . .