Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1937)

MOTION PICTURE DAILY Wednesday, January 6, 1937 MOTION PICTURI DAILY (Registered U. S. Patent Office) Vol. 41 January 6, 1937 No. 4 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 Pub , lishing Company, Inc., Martin ffM Quigley, president; Colvin Brown, vice-president and treasurer. Publication Office: 1270 Sixth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, New York. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." All contents copyrighted 1937 by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Other Quigley publications, Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, Teatro Al Dia, International Motion Picture Almanac and Fame: 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: 4 Golden Square, London W 1, Bruce Allan, Representative. Cable Address "Quigpubco, London"; Berlin Bureau: Stuelerstrasse 2, Berlin W 35; Joachim K. Rutenberg , Representative; Paris Bureau: 29, Rue Marsoulan, Pierre Autre, Representative; Rome Bureau: Viale Gorizia, Vittorio Malpassuti, Representative; Australian Bureau: Regent Theatre Buildings, 191 Collins Street, Melbourne, Cliff Holt, Representative; Mexico City Bureau: Apartado 269, James Lockhart, Representative; Budapest Bureau: 3 Kaplar-u, Budapest, II, Endre Hevesi, Representative ; Tokyo Bureau : 880 Sasazuka. Ichikawa-shi, Chiba-Ken, H. Tominaga, Representative; Prague Bureau: Uhelny trh 2, Prague 1, Harry Knopf, Representative; Shanghai Bureau: Rooms 38-41, Capital Theatre Building, 142 Museum Road, J. P. Koehler, Representative; Rio de Janiero Bureau: Caixa Postal 3358, A. Weissman, Representative; Buenos Aires Bureau: Corrientes 2495, N. Britski, Representative; Montevideo Bureau: P. O. Box 664, Paul Bodo, Representative; Moscow Bureau: Petrovski Per 8, Beatrice Stem, Representative; Vienna' Bureau: Neustiftgasse, 55, Vienna VII, Hans Lorant, Representative; Amsterdam Bureau: Zuider Amstellaan 5, Philip de Schaap, Representative; Helsingfors Bureau: Fredriksgatan 19 C, Charlotte Laszlo. 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. Lesser Is Expected To Buy Back Studio Hollywood, Jan. S. — Sol Lesser will probably buy back his former studios, now known as Educational Studios, and resume production at the plant when he returns from Europe. Negotiations are now under way. In addition to his own productions, nine a year, Lesser will rent out space to independents. Barney Briskin, general sales manager, is due back from New York next Wednesday. Close Washington House Washington, Jan. 5. — The Belasco here closed today after nearly two years of films. It is scheduled to open Jan. 18 under a new policy combining some form of legitimate attraction in addition to pictures. It is considered likely that the present management, headed by Jack Thoman, will be continued. Nuovo Mondo Moves Nuovo Mondo Pictures have moved from the RKO to the Film Center Bldg. Zukor: A Success Story (Continued from page 1) steps forward. Any review or history, automatically and by the facts, veers toward him. When he did not make history, the history in the making failed to complete itself without him. Present at the start, he recognized the opportunity, peered into the future and made for himself always a vital and significant part of that which was going on. The success story of Zukor is also the success story of motion pictures. It has had its pitfalls, setbacks, disappointments, and, of course, its mistakes. But the volatility and the refusal to be permanently downed has been as much a characteristic of the man as it has of the business which he has done so much to advance. Many men have contributed to the development of Paramount, but over all of them, sometimes wrong and usually right, stands the one and his name is Adolph Zukor. ▼ His was the final responsibility during those many years when he was president and operating executive of the company. Sidney R. Kent did the sales job; Sam Katz, the theatre spread eagle; Jesse L. Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, B. P. Schulberg, kept the lifeblood pumping vigorously and otherwise at the studio. Zukor, in the first and in the final analysis, had to concern himself with all. He set the foundation and nurtured the growth. If the term master builder might not be too extravagant an application, Zukor was that. Troubles were many throughout his long and noteworthy career. In the earliest days, when precedent was lacking, there had to be made decisions about product and distribution. It smacked of the pioneering and, actually, it was exactly that. One of his greatest fights, pushed forward in the aggressive manner to which Zukor so frequently subscribed, was the danger to him which he saw in the original First National organization. ▼ In and about the '20s, Paramount was stepping lightly in theatres. The Talleys, the Hulseys, the Blanks, the Balabans and the Katzes, dominant theatre operators all, were in arms over Zukor's price demands for Artcraft, forerunner of the "A" percentage attractions of today. Up from Australia, was J. D. Williams, a promoter with a promoter's idea. It became First National and it placed squarely in front of Zukor's production and distribution activities, the nation's dominant exhibitors engaged in an identic sphere of activity. It also confronted him with a decision crying to be made. Zukor made it. You might argue exhibitors had as much right in exhibition as did a producer and a distributor and you would be correct. But that runs counter to the point. Zukor, quietly and so effectively that the structure eventually crumbled, through the back door and one by one bought up the First National franchise-holders, licked his Waterloo and made Paramount the largest individual owner and operator of theatres in the amusement world. The decision was a ten-strike and its execution, by any count, one of the most brilliant campaigns of strategy in the corporate history of this business. T Moe Finkelstein wanted money for expansion. This one was pressed by notes falling due. So close was the friendship between Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor that the dynasties once were united in marriage. It went considerably beyond. Midway in the 1920 decade when mergers were in the air, commonly accepted as an ultimate union was Paramount and Loew's, if there were to be a union by either company at all. Zukor was pre-eminent ; the LoewMetro enterprise had not yet flowered. At one time or another and as fortune or circumstance dictated, all the headline names of the industry were closeted with Zukor, not always getting what they may have sought but usually getting advice if not the cash. This was the era when Zukor led them all in the impact which his personal leadership imparted. T And yet, it has not always been so. The picture at Paramount changed and with it Zukor's when the depression pinch set in. Banking influence began to dim his long-flashing star. Authority was split among other hands. Trade paper headlines reported less Zukor, more Hertz, Katz, Spitz and Kohn. Then bankruptcy, the long period of trustees and court management. Trying days, those. Trying for those who looked beyond and into the broad range of the industry to realize how dangerous to the entire institution of motion pictures would be a. complete collapse and, thus, elimination from the scene of a spoke as vital as Paramount. But no more trying than for Zukor, his peace of mind, his clipped authority, his shriveled activity. Those were the times when the boys in Times Square were scoffing when they were not regretting what had happened to Zukor. Those, if you recall, were the times when the boys were ready to "make book" that he would return one of those minutes, more powerfully entrenched than ever before. T There then came the Otterson regime, continuing at its outset to maintain Zukor somewhere in the rear. This is no discussion of John E. Otterson and his administration except as it bears indisputably on one excellence in his judgment: his decision and then his dependence on Zukor and the Zukor experience for guidance. What Otterson may have done after the benefits of that experience were his, belongs, if it does at all, to another time and another place. And currently, what? Zukor is back. Quite emphatically and most conclusively back. He is back in a part and filling a spot which is both new and not new to him. As the final word in Hollywood, responsible for the backbone of Paramount's or any company's business which is the product, he is treading ground largely familiar through his past endeavors. Today, however, the responsibility is full-time and he likes it. The amazing resilience of the Zukor backbone manifests itself today and now as perhaps never before. After all of those crises through which he has passed, he might have remained in the twilight of his formidable past a beaten man, but with honor. The point, and it is a significant point, is that Zukor has never learned to be licked. At sixty-four, conviction rises in a loud voice to say that he would not and could not start Auditors Winding Up Two Gatherings Here RKO yesterday wound up a two-day meeting of the field auditors at the Waldorf-Astoria and Loew's tomorrow will end a four-day session at the Astor. Attending the RKO meetings were A. A. Schubert, manager of the contract department ; Elmer Sedin, R. A. O'Brien, Robert E. Helms, J. Emmett Cashman, W. J. McShea, J. J. Schnitzer, John A. Downing and M. G. Poller. Eight field men are attending the Loew's meetings in addition to a number of home office personnel. Alan Cummings is conducting the annual session. Has U. K. Rights, Too George McL. Baynes has acquired for the Golgotha Corp., distribution rights in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, the British Dominions and Argentine for "Golgotha," the French film depicting the closing days of the life of Christ. Asks Historical Films Washington, Jan. 5. — H. D. W. Conner, national archivist, today asked permission to film important national events, such as the inauguration, for historical purposes.