Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1941)

December 27, 1941 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 33 THE HOLLYWOOD SCENE By WILLIAM R. WEAVER Hollywood Editor Esteemed Editor: Tom Bailey, long of National Screen Service and now also of service personally to the community hereabouts in its preparations for whatever more in the way of blackouts and such the future may hold, was on the 'phone but now to inquire whether we hadn't printed considerable material, in the last two years, pertaining to the experiences of British exhibitors coping with similar problems. He was referred to Aubrey Flanagan's many excellent London dispatches on the subject and you'll be hearing from him directly. What with blackouts or their imminence a new factor in showmanly plannings on this coast, and presumably elsewhere, a republication of excerpts from the Flanagan reports of wartime theatre operation in Britain would appear assured of a wide rereading. V We are in receipt of a letter from Y. Frank Freeman, president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, notifying us that "Effective immediately, the studios will have to consider all previous agreements regarding sneak-previews as abrogated" and that "the studios shall in the future select any theatre, regardless of location, for this purpose. . . . The hardships to the studio personnel involved in the necessity of having to travel long distances at night (under present emergency conditions) are evident." Asks Cooperation His letter closed with, "We therefore request that the newspapers and trade papers give the studios their complete cooperation and not review any pictures until formal notification of trade or press showing." We have replied to President Freeman assuring him that "the Quigley Publications will of course cooperate with the studios in this and all related moves in industry interest" and added the suggestion that "as one such related move clearly indicated by the same considerations" he also "abrogate the rule under which press-previews are held at Glendale, Inglewood and other remote points, requiring members of the press to subject themselves to hardships identical with those referred to." The abrogated agreement governing placement of sneak-previews dates back several years to a catch-as-catch-can system under which trade and lay press people dashed around Southern California, at great waste of mileage and sleep, to sneak up on the unedited film unawares and sprint into print with a review of same. Everybody got pretty tired of that, whereupon an understanding was achieved in which the press promised not to report sneak-previews occurring outside of a zone which some unknown cartographer conceived as constituting "the metropolitan area" and studios promised to screen the PRODUCT REPORT Two of the 1 1 pictures started during the week have to do with the war, although both were prepared for the cameras before America's declaration. They are Frank Lloyd's "The Saboteur" and Columbia's "Cam p Nuts," which may undergo a change of title. The checkup: COMPLETED MGM Out of the Past PRC Broadway Big Shot RKO-Radio Lum & Abner No. 2 Mayor of 44th Street Arsenic and Old Lace 2jth-Fox Not for Children Universal You're Telling Me Warner Juke Girl STARTED Columbia Camp Nuts Prairie Gun Smoke MGM Tarzan Against the World Monogram Law of the Jungle PRC Girls Town SHOOTING Columbia Canal Zone Trinidad Blondie's Blessed Event Korda To Be or Not to Be MGM Along Came Murder Courtship of AndyHardy Tortilla Flat This Time for Keeps Rio Rita Mrs. Miniver I Married An Angel Ship Ahoy Monogram Below the Border Western Mail Paramount Palm Beach Story Take a Letter Darling Holiday Inn Mr. & Mrs. Cugat My Favorite Blonde American Empire Out of the Frying Pan Billy the Kid Trapped RKO-Radio My Favorite Spy Republic Sleepy Time Gal South of Santa Fe Universal Ghost of Frankenstein Saboteur This Gun for Hire RKO-Radio Powder Town Tuttles of Tahiti Magnificent Ambersons Roach Cubana About Face 20th-Fox This Above All Rings on Her Fingers Tales of Manhattan To the Shores of Tripoli Night Before the Divorce Moontide Universal Drums of the Congo Mystery of Marie Roget Warner Yankee Doodle Dandy In This Our Life Larceny, Inc. finished product inside of that zone, with due process of invitation, at an appropriate time. The placement of press-previews in the suburbs is a recent and unofficial arrangement arrived at by hedging and compromise after inception of the exhibitor-ordained ban against lay press reviewing of films in advance of release. After a good deal of fussing, the newspapers consented to ignore trade press screenings if they were not held in theatres inside still another zone which still another unknown geographer figured out as constituting private domain or something equally unrelated to the issue. That was pre-war, of course, but a formal notice of abrogation may be required to change the condition. What's to be done will be done when need demands its doing. Haste is made slowly in all these matters. Up to now there is no visible or audible reason for doubting that commonsense will prevail at long last in a muchly-muddled field of necessary and functional activity wherein fear and threat have wielded influence beyond belief. Maybe it required a state of war to establish in this outpost of journalism that wordof-honor basis upon which publications in general have so long and satisfactorily handled such material as the text of a fireside chat, the review of a four-bit novel and a diversity of materials made available for linotype composition but not for publication in advance of eventuation. V The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chagrined fewer than it pleased by cancelling its annual Awards Banquet. Some matrons of the Town who don't make the hot spots regularly but do show up for this more orthodox outing may have experienced a moment of irk. Their men didn't. Dinner a Trial The Academy Dinner had developed into something of a trial in more ways than one. It was in the nature of a "must" affair, wherefore it had become a crowded one, and it had grown long to the point of exhaustion before being shortened somewhat last year by the then president, Walter Wanger, who had survived a great many of its predecessors running into the wee, small and extremely dull hours. Retention of the practical features of the institution, the balloting and the presentation of the Oscars, safeguards against sacrifice of the generous and helpful publicity which the Academy's annual declarations of distinction have received in the past. Winners of the 1942 Oscars will be winners no less, and profit no less by the winning, than if hailed before an audience of sleepy diners and compelled to push a few halting remarks through a microphone already glutted with too many. The Academy gained respect, admiration and prestige by its decision. V Holidav greetings. — W. R. W.