Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1959)

jesday, November 24, 1959 Motion Picture Daily Foreign Films — Fact and Fancy A Qualified Expert in the Field Separates the Wheat from the Chaff by ARTHUR L. MAYER I HAVE been importing foreign films since 1935 and know little about them. But I do know enough to find practically everything I read or hear concerning them incorrect. One would gather from commentators, critics and crackpots that foreign films have suddenly become hugely popular with American audiences, that this popularity is unprecedented, that the men who import them are and always have been a rather shady crew with a particular penchant for pornographic pictures, and that both lengthy spectaculars and high admission prices are recent phenomena. Actually, Adolph Zukor, Mr. Movies himself, was the first film importer. He bought the French production, "Queen Elizabeth," with Sarah Bernhardt, for the then stupendous sum of $35,000 and opened it on f uly 12, 1912 at the Lyceum Theatre. The admission price was $1.00, I ully the equivalent in those halcyon times of $3.00 today. The first of he great blockbusters, however, was "Quo Vadis," imported less than in year later by another of the distinguished and eminently respectable ounding fathers, George Kleine. It ran over two hours and was shown lor months at the Astor Theatre with an admission price of $1.50. Its deception was so enthusiastic that in a short time 22 road shows were ;overing the countryside and as the nickelodeons were neither large nor impressive enough to play it, Kleine booked it into empty legitimate theatres, in this fashion, as he put it, converting them into highly lucrative illegitimacy. Two other successful early spectaculars were the Italian "Last Days of Pompeii," which claimed (I never counted them) to have a cast of 10,000 performers and 260 sets, and the French "Les Miserables," which ran for over three hours. German films developed less rapidly than their Continental rivals, but their eventual success in the U. S. was even more sensational. In 1919 First National distributed "Passion" throughout its theatre chain, which then included the newest and best American houses. "The Last Laugh" was handled by Universal with nationwide critical and popular acclaim. Most successful of all, however, was "Variety," imported by Paramount, which established a box office record for foreign film attendance which the Bardots and the "Hercules" have still to equal. Indeed, by 1922 German pictures had acquired so widespread a reputation for merit (not for filth) that Will Rogers wisecracked none too humorously in "The Rophr Fool," "If you think this picture is no good, I will put on a beard and say it was made in Germany." The enthusiasm over German films was so great that Adolph Zukor and Marcus Loew loaned UFA four million dollars. Foreign co-production, it appears, is not a sudden inspiration of the 1950's. Russian films, because of their ideological content, were less widely distributed than the German, but anyone suffering from the impression that the prestige of foreign films in the U. S. is predicated on an undue emphasis on sex, has little acquaintance with the Soviet masterpieces, such as "Potemkin" and "Ten Days That Shook the World." Nor, for (Continued on following page) Congratulations .. . To BEN ADLER From KINGSLEY INTERNATIONAL PICTURES * UNION FILM DISTRIBUTORS A Continuity of Hits Year After Year . . . NOW BOOKING: LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER THE MAN UPSTAIRS LOVE IS MY PROFESSION THE YOUNG HAVE NO TIME BROTH OF A BOY HOUSE OF THE ANGEL THE GIRL FROM HAMBURG Opening in New York for Christmas "THE BRIDAL PATH" Starring BILL "Wee Geordie" TRAVERS A Frank Launder — Sidney Gilliat Production In TECHNICOLOR