Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1931)

10 MOTION PICTURE HERALD June 13, 1931 INSIDEI^S* CUTL€€r SOj\1E weeks ago this palladium of truthful purpose exclusively presented the charming story of the English gardens with purling brooks constructed at vast expense in a Hollywood studio for the nourishment of the soul of Air. P. G. Wodehouse, the merry writer of lightsome stories and novels. It was with some journalistic misgivings that the story might be a wee bit overdrawn. But now comes Mr. Wodehouse, himself, with a tale of his own, as purveyed by the Associated Press to the New York Sun : HOLLYWOOD, June 8 (A, P.)— P. G, Wodehouse, JEnglish humorist, looked back today over a year's work in motion pictures just completed, and confessed "it dazes me." "They paid me $2,000 a week— $104.0OO^and I cannot see what they engaged me for," he said. "They were extremely nice to me, but I feel as if I had cheated them. "You see, I understood I was engaged to write stories for the screen. After all, I have twenty novels, a score of successful plays and countless magazine stories to my credit. Yet apparently they had the greatest dii?iculty in finding anything for me to do. "Twice during the year they brought completed scenarios of other people's stories to me and asked me to do some dialogue. Fifteen or si-xteen people had tinkered with those stories. The dialogue was really quite adequate. All I did was to touch it up here and there. "Then they sent me to work on a story called 'Rosalie,' which was to have some musical numbers. It was a pleasant little thing and I put three months on it. When it was finished they thanked me politely and remarked that as musicals didn't seem to be going so well they guessed they would not use it. "That about sums up what I was called upon to do for my $104,000. Isn't it amazing? "Personally, I received the most courteous treatment. But see what happened to my friend. Tommy Roland Pertwee. He did a story and they slapped him on the back ^ and said it was great. He returned to the studio, as usual, next morning", and was informed by the policeman at the gate that he could not be let in. as he was fired. "It's all so unbelievable, isn't it?" This is the first unemployment complaint of the kind to come to the attention of the Insiders. Once again Mr. Greeley is vindicated in his : "Go west, young man, go west." AAA Pointing the Way Mrs. Anne Bennett, president of the Citizen's League for Better Motion Pictures of Baltimore, which represents the ardent censorship advocates of that region, calls upon Gov. Ritchie to reorganize the Board of Censors and to provide a more rigid censorship. In her letter she says, according to the Baltimore American of May 10, 1931 : "The fact that our censor board is not an expense to the State, but maintains itself out of the fees collected from the motion picture producers is no excuse for its members to be subservient to these producers and do their bidding. "According to the Board's own report, the percentage of eliminations has decreased from 22.5 per cent in 1921 to 4.2 per cent, in 1929." This IV ^£k "The real wealth of a people is not in the strong boxes but in its guts," Says Will H. Hays. Vage S Motion picture industry's capitalization reaches one billion; Concentration reflected. Vage 9 George Kleine's death removes able founder of motion picture business. Vage 12 Secret report arouses M.P.'s in England to new fight on the Gaumont deal. Page 11 Fox is out as a member of the board of directors; Clarke announces a cut in dividends. Page 20 Double feature program is approved by independents; It brings back family patronage, they say. Page 1} FEATURES Editorial Insiders Outlook Asides and Interludes The Camera Reports DEPARTMENTS Box Office Receipts Managers Round Table Complete Release Chart J. C. Jenkins — His Colyum Voice of the Industry Classified Advertising Passing in Review Music and Talent Sound Reproduction Chicago Film Row Your Public Page 7 Page 10 Page 19 Page 15 Page 3 6 Page 5! Page 67 Page 52 Page 5 J Page 74 Page }0 Page 48 Page 45 Page 42 Page 47 Way Down in the Depths The four petty larcenv salary-snatchers at 729 7th Ave., New 'York film building, continue to give the industry a black eye. These self-called "independents," are in reality cheap "fly-by-nighters," who attempt to work in on the state rights market with short subjects, boasting proudly of their sensational box-office pullers while their clerks and assistants plead pathetically for back salary. One has a group of under paid clerks whose salary envelopes are always five or six weeks in arrears — and if they quit they lose everything. Another is being sued for a $100 salary check for a film editing job, while a third recently chuckled heartily when an assistant threatened court action unless she received at least half of the four weeks salary due her. IT is a fact that no person's voice, when played back after, recording, sounds as the owner expected it to sound. No one ever recognizes his voice the first time it is heard. That is one thing that has made the making of talkers difficult. Frances Starr, quite accidentally, has discovered how to have a playback of her voice without going near a microphone. She was sitting on the edge of her empty tiled swimming pool, repeating lines from a forthcoming picture, when she noticed that her voice bounced back at her with a strange equality. She experimented and found that, if she stood in the empty pool and read her lines, her voice came back to her with exactly the same quality as it had in a playback in the studio. Consequently, all those picture players fortunate enough to possess swimming pools are using them as rehearsal halls. AAA Recording a Dusty Noise Persons of experience with the jitters that come from party gin all have heard the poignant story of the unhappy young man who sat head in hand over black coffee in the morning with Old Man Remorse at his elbow, when a dainty kitten came mincing into the dining room across a deep pile carpet, only to look up startled and scream at the little cat : "Quit stamping your feet." Until this week that stood as the world's high mark for sensitivity in sound detection. Now a new record, or at least an endeavor at one, is being made by the experts of the somewhat sound picture. The other day a perplexed contact man supervising a newsreel picture under production at a studio over Sherman avenue way called the desk at the New York office. "Say, now on this make-up picture, with the girl in the boudoir, what kind of sound do you want to get?" The expert on the desk stalled and puzzled a moment, and then glibly handed out a ruling. "Strictly natural sound, that's our policy, and be sure you get the real sounds of make up — you know, the powder puff an' everything." Job Insurance There's a young man drawing $1,000 a week for the making of comedies, not because he is so funny, but, because his superior has an item of $25,000 on a loan to collect. The collection rate is $500 a week, so apparently this particular funny business will be in effect about fifty weeks. Debts to the company or debts to the boss have been used as job insurance before, in both Hollywood and New York. THE INSIDERS