Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1937)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD Vol. 126, No. 12 March 20, 1937 NO LIMIT CAME" THE nation is entering upon an era of rising costs of labour and all commodities. The production of motion pictures is sharing in the movement, inevitably, integrated as it is with the whole of the commercial and social fabric. Meanwhile picture production costs are now and for some months have been getting closer to the ceiling of the capacity to do business at the box office. In spite of that, the indications are that for the season ahead costs will be higher yet. Hollywood, which spends New York distribution dollars, is puzzled, perturbed — not precisely alarmed. NEW YORK'S annual winter expedition of distribution and exhibition executives have dropped the word, trying to be gentle about it, that exhibition cannot just now get any more money and that costs cannot go up. Hollywood regretfully states that it so chances that the costs are going up anyway. Hollywood is accustomed to having its way. It was the calculation of Mr. Darryl Zanuck, in a recent conversation, that today the costs of production have advanced to twenty per cent higher than a year ago, and he finds this an approximately horizontal increase — spread across all factors. Rising costs of production are in part simple participation in the national trend. Added to that influence, however, are the special motion picture factors: first, the earnest endeavour to make boxoffice merchandise; second, and at least as important, the intense rivalries of the production camps. This production rivalry, which superficially appears to be solely the concern of the men involved, is in very truth the force which has brought the screen to its high level of performance. The motion pic ture has been considerably more uplifted by the endeavour of the picture makers to be worthy, important, in the eyes of their own creative community than by any other single pressure. Thus, indirectly, the result is to the benefit of the art and perhaps its patrons, too. There are no pains too great, no device too complicated, no remake too costly in the opinion of a top rank Hollywood producer in the high heat of completing a major opus. It is a decision of a moment to spend another fifty thousand dollars for a promise of a new dramatic accent, in Hollywood, while in New York the equivalent action would call for a meeting of the board of directors. This is not precisely a critical observation because if pictures are to be made, they will be made the way Hollywood makes them. The system is only in a minor degree the creation of those who use it. It is rather a resultant of the basic forces that support and ultimately control the industry, and if at times it appears illogical, it is because the motion picture serves an illogical race. T can be observed that since there are so few — hardly more than a dozen — executives who make the decisions which determine the level of production costs, there would be no large problem in reaching some understandings calculated to end certain competitions more costly than productive and the mad bidding for talent of all sorts which drives the figures upward. That could all be arranged at a quiet luncheon at Palm Springs some Saturday. But it will not be. Besides, while the motion picture industry can, [Continued on following page] MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Incorporating Exhibitor's Herald, founded 1915; Motion Picture News, founded 1913; Moving Picture World, founded 1907; Motography, founded 1909; The Film Index, founded 1906. Published every Thursday by Quigley Publishing Company, Rockefeller Center, New York City. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Colvin Brown, Vice-President and General Manager; Terry Ramsaye, Editor; Ernest A. Rovelstad, Managing Editor; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, C. B. O'Neill, manager; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Building, Boone Mancall, manager; London Bureau, 4, Golden Square, London W I, Bruce Allan, cable Quigpubco London; Berlin Bureau, Berlin-Tempelhof, Kaiserin-Augustastrasse 28, Joachim K. Rutenberg, representative; Paris Bureau, 29, Rue Marsoulan, Paris 12, France, Pierre Autre, representative, cable Autre-Lacifral-12 Paris; Rome Bureau, Viale Gorizia, Rome, Italy, Vittorio Malpassuti, representative, Italcable, Malpassuti, Rome; Melbourne Bureau, Regent Theatre, 191 Collins St., Melbourne, Australia, Cliff Holt, representative; Mexico City Bureau, Apartado 269, Mexico City, James Lockhart, representative; Prague Bureau, Uhelny trh 2, Prague I, Czechoslovakia, Harry Knopf, representative; Budapest Bureau, 3, Kaplar-u, Budapest Hungary, Endre Hevesi, representative; Buenos Aires Bureau, Corrientes 2495, Dept. 8, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Natalio Bruski, representative; Shanghai Bureau, 142 Museum Road, Shanghai, China, J. P. Koehler, representative; Tokyo Bureau, 880 Sasazuka, Ichikawa-shi Chiba-Ken, Japan, H. Tominaga, representative; Rio de Janeiro Bureau, Caixa Postal 3358, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, A. Weissmann, representative; India Bureau, K. G. Gidwaney Post Box 147 Bunder Road, Karachi, India; Uruguay, P. O. Box 664, Montevideo, Uruguay, Paul Bodo,^ representative, cable Argus Montevideo; Amsterdam Bureau, Zuider Amstellaan 5, Amsterdam, Holland, Ph. de Schaap, representative; Vienna Bureau, Neustiftgosse 54, Vienna VII, Hans Lorant, representative. Member Audit Bureau of Circulations. All contents copyright 1937 by Quigley Publishing Company. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Better Theatres, devoted to the construction, equipment and operation of theatres, is published every fourth week as section 2 of Motion Picture Herald. Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Daily, Teatro al DIa, Spanish language quarterly in the theatre and equipment field, and International Motion Picture Almanac and Fame, the Box Office Check-up, both published annually.