Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1945)

2 Motion Picture daily Monday, December 17, 1945 Newsreel Pool In Europe Is Dropped Personal Mention Tradewise By SHERWIN KANE DONALD NELSON, president of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers, will leave Hollywood tomorrow on the Super Chief, for New York. • Ted Schlosser, formerly a Quigley Publications field contact, recently discharged from the Navy, after three years in the Pacific in charge of a Navy motion picture exchange, has been appointed manager of Alliance Theatres' Parkway in Chicago. • Adrian Scott, RKO Radio producer, will arrive in New York on Dec. 26 to scout for talent and story material ; his wife, Anne Shirley, will accompany him. Louis J. Kaufman, Warner Theatres executive, is due back at the home office today from a Cleveland meeting. Edward L. Marin, RKO Radio producer, left New York for Hollywood at the weekend after scouting for talent. William F. Rodgers, M-G-M distribution vice-president, who left New York Saturday for a Miami Beach vacation, will return before Jan. 20. • Lt. Col. George Muchnic, former executive officer of the Army Pictorial Service, Astoria, L. I., received the Legion of Merit on Friday. • Ray Bolger and Mrs. Bolger are at the Waldorf Astoria, here, from Hollywood. New Italian Firm to Handle Monogram London, Dec. 16.* — Norton V. Ritchey, vice-president in charge of foreign distribution for Monogram, here from New York, announces that the new Italian distributor of his company's product is Cine B. D. B., a firm controlled by Nino Battistoni and Renzo De Bonis. B. D. B. is a new organization and does not appear on a recent list of 45 production and 15 distribution companies in Italy. B. D. B. should not be confused with G. D. B., named for its head, Giovanni de Bernardinis, the company established in 1944 at the direction of the Russian Embassy to distribute Russian product on a commercial basis and independent of the Psychological Warfare Board (PWB) Film Section which handled American and British motion pictures in Italy. Allied Board Feb. Meet The winter board of directors' meeting of Allied States has been set for Feb. 11-13 at the Warwick Hotel, here, and it is expected that the Conference of Independent Exhibitors' Associations will hold a meeting in connection with the Allied board sessions. TP is not uncommon for dis*• tribution men to express themselves on what they think is wrong with present-day theatre operation but the average exhibitor appears to be somewhat less vocal about how he believes distribution should be run. (We do not refer to film prices or playing, arrangements, about which every exhibitor has hi opinion and expresses it freely, but merely the day-to-day operations of some distributors.) When a recent mail brought an airing by E. C. Grainger of his views on the subject of di tribution's internal affairs, we .thought it interesting enough to pass along. "Some sales executives," he writes, "who like to rant and rail at circuit theatre operation on the alleged grounds that managers' functions are reduced to those of wratchers; that the manager is not permitted to publicize, advertise of exploit his programs, with the result that the box office intake is reduced, stand guilty of hamstringing their own managers to the detriment of their customers and, hence, the detriment of their own product. "Some sales managers," the letter continues, "have taken from division managers even the authority to date pictures. Division managers, in turn, have curtailed district and branch managers in corresponding degrees "To illustrate, one of my theatre managers was unable recently to get an approval on a New Year's Eve booking from the exchange city in his territory despite the fact that ours is the only theatre in its city. In another city in the same exchange territory we operate two "A" theatres. There, confirmation could not be obtained for a Sunday opening booking in the larger theatre. 'NewYork hasn't approved the date,' was the only explanation given." • "It is the policy of our circuit," Grainger continues, "to permit our men to be managers, not glorified watchmen. That this policy is the right one is attested to by even the distribution executives with whom we do business. Many of them have told us over the years that because of our policy our theatres produce more dollars, house for house, on the same pictures than do comparable circuits. Further, they have told our managers that they like to do business with them because they can get an answer on 90 per cent of their business dealings with us without recourse to our head office. "What bewilders me is, why, if distribution executives recognize and concede the value of delegating authority to managers in my business, they are unable or unwilling to employ the same policy with respect to their own managers. "I asked a sales manager recently : 'Why pay your managers a salary unless you let them manage? Why pay bookers a salary unless you permit them to book? Why is it necessary to go to New York for approval of an offer of "A" time in an "A" theatre in a situation in which there is no better time?' I'm still waiting for the answers," he added, "I guess they, too, will have to come from New York." • Grainger says it amazes him how the type of sales executive to whom he refers can find the time to handle details which clearly should be limited to the field of branch operation, and still be free to cope with the problems of sales and distribution. He recalled the case of a district manager who appeared bent upon personally handling the work of branch manager, bookers and shippers. This man, Grainger said, eventually was admonished by the late John Clark as follows : "If you want to be shipper of that exchange, you can change jobs with the shipper at his salary. You can be booker at the booker's salary or branch manager at his salary. You can be any of these but you can't be all of them. No one is that smart. Make up your mind which job and salary you want; then fill that job and let the others alone. A district manager should be a supervisor and you are not functioning as one when you try to do the other fellow's job." "Wouldn't that," Grainger asks, "be good advice to many sales executives today?" • • Grainger refers only to a segment of distribution. The policy he advocates, that of delegating more, rather than less, authority to sales officials was begun by some distribution companies some time ago and has been pursued by them earnestly since. Discontinuance of the American newsreel companies' war-time pooling arrangement in Europe became effective over the weekend when the five newsreels immediately started operat ' ing on their own in the various coun I tries. The pool, under which all fia| . companies shared material SG^1 abroad, was set up one week aire** America's entry into the war. The return to independent operation', in Europe at this time is attributed in large measure to the fact that European newsreel companies, par-J ticularly the French, are going back into business. French companies are reported to have resumed officially on Saturday. No Pacific Action No action has been taken toward dissolution of the pooling arrangement in the Pacific theatre, however, and it is believed that it will be several months before group operation there is abandoned for individual coverage. All companies now have representatives in Europe. Under individual operation, however, they are faced with major problems involving transportation and equipment ; but relief of the transportation problem is expected to be forthcoming shortly in the form of the Army's release of jeeps to the companies. Four-Day Holidays For Most Companies Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, 20th Century-Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers will close on both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, giving employes a Friday night to Wednesday morning Christmas holiday and a Saturday noon to Wednesday morning New Year's layoff, the five companies calling for a half-day's attendance on the Saturday before New Year's. The Motion Picture Association of America will probably do likewise, with some of the other companies, which were undecided at the weekend, following similar closings. Undecided were Columbia, Monogram, Paramount, Republic and United Artists. PRC will take the four-day Christmas holiday, but is undecided on the New Year's stretch. Sparks Leaves (U'sT» Advisory Board Robert Sparks, Universal executive and member of the company's advisory board, has resigned, effective immediately. Sparks joined "U" last February as coordinator of all writer activities. Later in the yzzr he was made a member of the advisory board. He went to Universal from the Marine Corps, where he held the rank of major. Prior to that he held executive posts with Paramount, RKO Radio and Columbia. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Martin Quigley, Jr., Associate Editor. Published daily except Saturday. Sunday and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Quigpubco. New York." Martin Quigley, President; Red Kann, Vice-President; Martm Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo J. Sullivan, Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; David Harris. Circulation Director; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, Sam Honigberg, Representative; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Bldg., William R. Weaver. 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