Motion Picture Herald (July-Aug 1935)

August 2 4, 19 3 5 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 59 Mexican Company Plans Villa Film EQUITY APPEALS FOR FILMS' COOPERATION by JAMES LOCKHART yiexico City CorresponJenf The hard driven life and sanguinary exploits of the late General Francisco (Pancho) Villa, guerrila warfare chieftain who sat for only a few minutes in the presidential chair, have welded themselves into dearly beloved sagas in Mexico. There is now more interest than ever in Pancho and his doings, although twenty eventful years have passed since his violent death. Metro cashed in to a very considerable extent on this interest with its "Viva Villa," a picture which rewarded them handsomely in Mexico. Mexican producers have been quick to sense the opportunities of increased interest in Villa. Several of them, including one production written, directed and produced by Felipe Mier, former Warner Mexico City manager, have done pretty well with Villa pictures. But the most pretentious of all these made-in-Mexico Pancho pictures is in the offing. The big picture is "Viamonos Con Pancho Villa" ("Let's Go With Pancho Villa"), based upon the novel of the same name written by a Mexican newspaper man who was a personal friend of the late guerrila chieftain. The picture will be put into production in September on the very ground that Villa reddened with blood and fire by the Compafiia Cinematografica Latino Americana, S. A., moving spirit of which is Alberto Ricardo Pani, son of Engineer Alberto J. Pani, former minister of finance and one of Mexico's ranking capitalists. The direction will be by Fernando de Fuentes, former manager of Paramount's display cinema in Mexico City, who has several native productions to his credit. The picture is to have an English version. Mr. de Fuentes has gone to Hollywood to select a cast and make other arrangements for the production in English in Mexico. It is proposed to exhibit this version widely throughout the English-speaking world. Depicting the authentic Villa, though softpedaling his most gory exploits, will be the spirit of both versions. Work on the English version is scheduled to start in October. Five other Spanish-language features and twelve shorts are to be made by this enterprise during its 1935-36 season. Company headquarters are in Mexico City. The strike of attaches for more pay and less work that closed six large Mexico City neighborhood cinemas, threatened to involve four other like houses and a first-run cinema, and cost the exhibitors around $30,000 in lost business during the shutdown of about a month, has been settled with the signing of agreements with the exhibitors that allow a slight wage raise and some minor concessions. This agreement, it is expected, will prevent strikes of cinema employees in the capital for at least two years. The National Listitute of the Cinematographic Industry, now in formation, will be granted 2,000,000 pesos by the Ministry of National Economy to aid in making native films. The Institute also will obtain national and international distribution of the product and act as censor. Association Bulletin Declares Screen Is "Not Equipped" to Develop Talent at Present The assertion that the motion picture industry "is not equipped" to develop players and directors and writers, "and under the present setup it probably never will be," is made by Actors' Equity Association in its latest plea to the film and radio for "cooperation— not competition" with the stage of the drama. • Equity, in its position as a dues-collecting actors' union, has assumed the role, of teacher to educate both screen and radio that the stage is their basic source of talent material and any competitive influence which they exert over the stage only limits that source. "From their very first inception motion pictures and radio broadcasting Interests, alike, appear to have regarded the legitimate theatre solely as a competitor which was to be eliminated where possible and vigorously opposed at every other point," Equity complains. "There are, undoubtedly, a certain number of persons who prefer the legitimate theatre, with all its faults, to any other form of entertainment now available. Perhaps if there were no more theatre left they would unanimously turn to and be satisiied with motion pictures or radio broadcasting. It is more likely that they would create some sort of a theatre for themselves to fill the void thus made. Calls Stage Training Best "But," continues Equity, "the legitimate theatre is of much greater value to motion pictures and to radio than these patrons might be, even if they were much more numerous than they are and even if their allegiance could be captured merely by disposing of the legitimate theatre. "For in spite of long continued and extraordinarily earnest efforts to develop their own sources both radio and the motion pictures still find their best actors, writers and directors are those whose original training was received in the legitimate theatre. "It is quite probable," Equity believes, "that the leaders of those industries never really stopped to consider this problem. As they needed raw material both in men and stories they reached out and took them where they found them. It may have seemed only a coincidence, it may have been a matter entirely without remark that those men who were in the theatre, that the best material for their purposes was there, too. "What would it profit them if they could entirely dispose of the theatre if they found that by so doing they had deprived themselves of their best training school and proving ground," asks Equity. "Purely from the standpoint of their own selfish interests they would have dealt themselves a terribly punishing blow and one from which they would be long recovering." Sees Legitimate Permanent Equity does not believe that either the motion picture or the radio, or anyone else, will ever dispose of the legitimate theatre. Equity, it was said, "has encountered, in its long career, sterner and more ruthless enemies than they and, though changed and changing still and even if considerably restricted in scope and influence, it has survived those enmities and will survive this competition. For neither these rivals nor any others have quite satisfied the hunger of people to participate in the action passing before their eyes as the legitimate theatre does, nor can their auditors ever succeed, as the theatre's do, in identifying themselves with the characters of the play." "But it is not enough that the overlords of radio and motion pictures should realize that they should not actively oppose the legitimate theatre," Equity continues. "They should feel that they actually have a stake in the legitimate theatre and that, far from competing with it, they ought to cooperate with it. "They ought to encourage their players to return occasionally to the legitimate theatre and find them better actors for that return. They ought to see that cities throughout the country from which the motion picture interests have vigorously and too often successfully excluded touring productions and stock companies in the past few years should be opened again to the legitimate theatre. In the long run their properties will be benefitted by the variety of entertainment offered. "In short, they should search for points at which they might strengthen and assist the legitimate theatre instead of attempting to inflict further damage at those points. "The motion pictures have no minor leagues for their talent to correspond to stock companies or touring companies. They have to depend on some other institution (the legitimate theatre), to do the sorting out and the preliminary instruction. When these players and directors and writers are developed, motion pictures with their greater wealth can step in and take them over. But the industry is not equipped to develop them itself and under the present setup it probably never will be. "Nor has radio, in spite of its host of little stations and amateur tryouts, ever succeeded in building up a sufficient flow of acceptable material. For much of its outstanding talent it, too, has looked unconsciously to the theatre. "The situation has developed largely, if not entirely, because the leaders of these industries have been too busy building them up and running them to consider where their basic interests lay. If they would stop now for that consideration they would find that their interests lie in the direction of cooperating with the theatre — not competition," concluded Equity. Shine's Expansion Plan Confirmed by Lazara Louis Lazara, Ohio zone manager for Shine Enterprises, has confirmed the report that the circuit is expanding generally in Ohio. He is looking for theatres in all parts of the state. Recent additions are the Forum, Norwalk, and houses in Bucyrus, Van Wert and Wooster. The A'ine, at Alt. Vernon has been enlarged. Arpad Szemere in New York Arpad Szemere. representing several foreign distributors, is in New York to look over the independent field for product and to arrange for distribution of European films in this country. Roman Rebush of Kinematrade and Empire Film Distributors will represent him in America.