Motion Picture Herald (May-Jun 1939)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Vol. 135, No. 7 OP May 20, 1939 VOLUNTARY CHAIN" THE project which seeks the auspices of the Allied States Association for the formation of a buying-and-booking combination representing some 2,500 theatres may be either a political or a commercial fact, or both. In any event it contributes a dash of action and excitement to the recently rather tedious aspect of the issues between the majors and the independents. Twenty-five hundred is a lot of theatres, showing that the independents can be colossal too if they want to, and can get together. One is to be reminded that booking combines have often in the past been a way to power — and commonly to ultimate mergers or other form of benevolent assimilation. The news pages of the Herald last week mentioned the rise of Mr. Stephen Lynch and his theatre combine which went ultimately into Paramount's structure. And there was, and Is, the Stanley circuit, drawn at long last into Warner Brothers. Mr. Sam Katz rose to power and dominion by a Chicago booking combine, acquiring the strength of competitors and neighbors, and that went Into Paramount, too. The Stanley circuit was, If you have a moment for history, born of the nucleus of the Lubin theatres, of which Mr. Sigmund Lubin was required to divest himself when he became a producer member of the Patents Company group. It was the notion of the late Jeremiah J. Kennedy that the picture makers should not, at that time, compete with the exhibitor customers. It is true enough incidentally, that he did have, not only an idea about distribution — which became the General Film Company — but also one about exhibition. And that never came to flower because of government suits, among other things. The pattern of development is familiar, too, in other fields. In the retail grocery trade there has for some years been visible the rise of buying coalitions to give competition to the chain stores with "voluntary chains." The final problem Involved in these inevitable trends toward consolidations Is the maintaining of the local institutionality of the theatre, the showmanship of the local administration — the continuance always of that part of the show that can not be shipped, either in the film can or the press book. In the case of Paramount, the movement has been seen in full cycle, with the semi-disintegration of the Publix chain into the array of Paramount partnerships, each of which Is in turn in no small degree made up of what amounts to sub-partnerships in the autonomous nature of the more successful theatre managements. AAA RELEASE from CARE N the wake of the high wave of shouted contentions, mostly external, that the motion picture must get acutely socially conscious and excited over causes, comes now a marked flow of expression in behalf of what the motion picture is about — entertainment. Over in London the other day, writing in the Observer, Miss C. A. Lejeune, assuredly no die-hard conservative or reactionary, says: . . any widespread attempt to combine pic tures with politics would be exceedingly unpopular In this country, and both dangerous and unprofitable in the long run. . . ." Miss Lejeune speaks for: ". . . more honest comedy and even a reversion to romance and sentiment. Ronald Colman, for instance. In 'Monsieur Beaucaire,' Deanna Durbin and Basil Rathbone In 'Trilby,' and either a revival or a remake of 'Smilln' Thru.' And from Columbia Pictures Corporation's Chicago convention speaks Mr. Jack Cohn, saying: "The world looks today, as never before, for release from care and for entertainment. Where one person may go to the theatre hoping for the strong meat of controversy, hundreds go for lighter but no less Important fare." COMPETITION for the screen, as has been remarked often enough on this page, has been steadily, continuously Increasing ever since Mr. Henry Ford brought out a car to take the customers past the scenery, which previously was taken past the customers on the screen — as exemplified by Hales Tours and Scenes of the World. Since have come cabaret, roadhouse, public dancing, rotogravure, better cheap magazines, golf, bridge, radio, the cocktail custom, organized and syndicated gossip, motor trailers, lotteries, cruises by land and sea, penny-ante stock speculation, installment selling of luxury gadgets, cultured-pearls, merry-go-round economics, and a Federal Theatre. All in all, it is a miracle that the industry of the motion picture has done so well as it has in maintaining call upon mass attention. It was born as almost the only Important mass entertainment and has come into a period where it is but one of many appeals for the customer entertainment dollar. Now important Is the fact that something like an equilibrium of status has been reached by the motion picture among the media of emotional satisfaction, and that from this time on the job is giving the audience, no longer miracle or wonderment, but rather its competitive money's worth of emotional reaction — entertainment. The ill-fated experiment of the campaign entitled "Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment" punctuated the end of the movie "institutional" era. The possession of the medium of the screen assures nothing. The decision is on the entertainment value of the individual picture and its merchandising. Once every motion picture was a show, always entertainment, now it depends on what motion picture It is. It may be the most entertaining thing In town, or It might be more fun to do a lot of other things. BECAUSE men outlive their periods and carry over memories of success patterns of other days, the motion picture industry is still beset on Its margins by hopes and promises of miracle. Miracles are not to come again on the screen. It has had Its share. We have now seen enough of color to know that no perfection of color to come would make a vast, or any, difference at the box office. The stereoscopic picture has long been a fact, using several systems, and it Is a trifling gadget of occasional novelty exploitation. We saw the amus[Continued on following page, bottom of column 1]