Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1931)

June 2 7, 1 9 3 1 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 9 CIRCUITS MAKING UNREASONABLE PROTECTION DEMANDS: LICHTMAN Lessons and Profits JV m from Adversity Results of incalculable value will be gained by the motion picture industry out of the experiences of the past few months. These past few months have been a period of utmost difficulty during which the business has been heavily burdened, both with the conditions growing out of the widespread depression as well as with a variety of unfavorable internal conditions. Previous to the recent experiences the industry did not realize the extent of the improvement in its operations which might be brought about. And it also did not realize how easy this improvement would be once the attendant problems were attacked in the right spirit and in the right way. The experiences of the past few months have led to a markedly sounder and more economic basis of operation throughout the whole industry in all of its branches. The need and the opportunity for various readjustments had long been apparent but with a consistently increasing gross business the industry never previously felt itself driven, as it has lately been, to an uncompromising attack against the abuses that existed. This attack has been made and in a large way has been generally successful. Its good results will long stand by the industry to its greater security and prosperity. After many years of temporizing the production situation has had a determined hand laid upon it. Many of its traditional extravagances, which previously stood secure as if within a charmed circle, have been beaten down. There Is no Indication that production has been — or ever will be — placed on a basis of mechanical manufacturing but it is a fact that it is now much more closely geared to a plan of strict economical procedure than at any time previously. In theatre operation there has been literally a revolution. Operating costs have been driven down to figures hitherto considered far beyond reach. At one time, in circuit operation It was considered that approximately seventy per cent of the cost of operations stood in the category of fixed charges upon which no adjustments could be made without a complete upset, leaving only the margin of thirty per cent as being subject to cost-reducing treatment. In the light of recent experience this status of the matter has been reversed. It is being calculated that only thirty per cent of the cost of doing business may properly be regarded as being fixed as unalterable charges, with the total of seventy per cent being subject to some adjustment. The deadly theory that there Is relatively no limit to the possible gross on a great picture has been exploded. The free and easy scheme of going, induced under conditions which were resulting in a consistently increasing volume of business — allowing ample room for mistakes and extravagances with a profit left over — has been discarded. It has been supplanted with arrangements aimed to produce a profit In the face of revenues that are assured or may reasonably be expected. The Industry has become keenly Interested In the cost of money. The old notion that the business of motion pictures may be considered sufficiently profitable to warrant the payment of exorbitant finance charges has disappeared. The industry generally has Indicated Its determination to have its name erased from sucker lists. Out of all of this has come an underlying condition In motion picture affairs which justifiably Inspires profound confidence In what the industry Is going to be able to accomplish In prosperity and development in the future just ahead. The motion picture Industry has strengthened and entrenched Its position. It has cut free from many abuses which might still have remained as a menacing threat over the future of the business were it not for recent conditions which no longer left their elimination a matter of choice and alternative. With genuine confidence. Intelligently arrived at, may the Industry now face the turn for the better In general business conditions which is at hand. —MARTIN QUIGLEY. But Finds Status Better In Zoned Districts ■ We Will Have Protection As Long As We Have Film Business," Stales Sales Manager In territories where no protection agreement has been reached some circuits are making "unreasonable demands" in buying the new season's product, according to M. A. Lightman, president of the Motion Picture Theatre (Dwners of America. Commenting on the situation in a statement to Motion Picture Herald, he said : "My impression is that exhibitor reaction in territories where fair zoning and protection have been set up is that they are better off than previously. "Where none has been set up some circuits are making unreasonable demands. "You realize there are many zones where no plan was adopted. I believe the independent exhibitors in these zones are hurt as a result of the campaign that was started but not completed." Lightman's reference is to the conferences held in numerous exchange Centers last year between circuit and independent theatre men for the purpose of re-zoning districts so that the period and extent of protection might be placed on a basis considered more favorable to the independent. The meetings were called by C. C. Pettijohn. Circuit heads in New York could not be reached for comment on the Lightman statement. Sam Katz of Publix refused to be interviewed on the subject. The attitude of some distributors toward protection is expressed by one prominent sales manager, who stated to a Herald representative that "we will have protection just as long as we have a motion picture business. "Protection," he said, "is just as much a part of the picture business as the picture itself. Of course, when some of the circuits keep demanding a greater and greater radius of protection that is unfair. "If an exhibitor wants six months' protection and is willing to pay the price, let him have it." An exhibitor who asked that his name be withheld stated that in buying this year he is confronted in one spot by a circuit demand of 150 miles protection. This is not in one of the territories in which re-zoning was accomplished. Alteration Delay Holds Up Vitaphone Studio Reopening Reopening of the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn has been postponed until July 27 from July 8, the date first announced. Delay in completing studio alterations was held responsible for setting the date back by Sam Sax, production chief at the plant.