Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1945)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD COLVJN BROWN, Publisher MARTIN Q U I G L EY ^ President and Editor-in-Chief TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor Vol. 158, No. 4 OP January 27, 1945 FILM & WAR FURTHER and statistical demonstration of how connpletely the motion picture has become integrated with forces and factors in the war world scene appear in the news pages of this issue. Contemplated allocations of raw stock show the film ever deeper into the services of war from camp to battlefield, and edging deeper into the concerns of international relations. "The Industry", which is to say the American industry, gets prospect of 27,000,000 feet less for the first quarter of the new year than for the last quarter of 1944. Russia, which means the state controlled cinema of the Soviets, gets its first allocation in an item of 37,000,000 feet. It is for war. The demands for the prosecution of the war call for a great and yet uncalculated increase in photosensitive materials for the U. S. force*, which must come .out of the sources for cinema film. The motion picture and photography are engaged in battle as positively as a man in a bayonet charge. The big Russian allocation — it is an estimate, not a delivery — is involved in the intricacies of international traffic in silver salts and considerations of technology involving not only picture materials but also certain explosives, and maybe other considerations not at this time disclosed. All this pertains to the state of war in the period of discussion. The moves on the big checkerboard are vast and swift. None can anticipate what may be ahead — what war may yet demand of the raw stock industry, or what the moves, gestures and manipulations of the making of the peace may require — of this or any other industry. More and more it is evident, if not conspicuous, that decisions, adjustments, settlements and commitments, either directly big in dollars or in future prospects for what we once called business, and private enterprise, are being made by governments and groups of international negotiators who report to governments. Things and substances are involved: steel, paper, oil, lumber, coal, and with them strips of film 35mm wide and six thousandths of an inch thick — vehicle of the shadows that record and tell the whole story. It must be involved, too. The big game is for keeps — and everybody is in it. m m m SUCCESS by SERVICE TWENTY-FIVE years ago this week motion picture theatre presentation in Canada began to catch step with the rise of the screen and the feature era. It was this week in 1916 that N. L. Nathanson and a group of other Canadian businessmen formed Regent Theatres, Limited, and acquired first the Majestic, a melodrama house, to rebuild it into one of Canada's first "deluxe presentation houses". Today that enterprise, now under the guidance of Mr. J. J. Fitzgibbons, is a far-flung institution of 345 theatres, from coast to coast. It plays to two and a half million Canadians every week. It pays a total of $10,343,158 taxes a year and has an annual payroll, to Ca nadlans, of $6,000,000 a year. It has given 980 employees to the war and, of these, 40 are known to have fallen in battle. It participates in all the war loan drives and movements of patriotic service. It bears high repute among Canadian enterprises and contributes much to the good name of the motion picture. It is one of the great, consistent successes of this industry. ■ ■ ■ MANPOWER ONE may suppose, and hope, that the war will be over before we have arrived at anything resembling a complete efficiency in conducting it, or in serving the devastating hunger of organized destruction of men and the works of men. The while there are endless manifestations of our lack of coordinations which could save so much, give so much. A tiny, but poignant, case in point just came across this desk in a memorandum from Hollywood: In the ...... studio the scene script called for a burning fireplace in a living room. A gas-fitter had to bring the piping from an outlet on the stage to the set. There he had to stop. From there the gas was piped into the set by a set-constructor and there connected with the fireplace. Then he stopped. When it came time to light the fireplace, an effect man had to be called. Then through the long operation of photographing the screen the three experts were required to stand by to see that there was no letdown in the facility. There is no endeavour here to enter into all the problems posed by the situation, one that is duplicated the country over every hour of every day. It is to be recognized that labour has its perplexities and that Its way Is often as complex as it is difRcult. There is, however, obviously a problem here presented which, in the face of the national emergencies, does not involve a question of finding work for skilled men to do. The skill of organized labour, were It to be addressed seriously to the manpower and production problem, might achieve a tremendous contribution, with loss to no one. JUST as a national "How's business?" note, let us record that the New York Times In its "Arrival of Buyers" columns for one week has printed a total 3,470 names of incoming merchants, the highest number In eighteen years of records and comparing with the 1944 peak of 2,568 for the corresponding week. The names took eight columns of the Tuesday paper alone. Christmas shopping has left the shelves and showcases across the nation empty. It is a sequel to the maddest buying season that the retail trade has ever known. That is the sort of loose money market that the motion picture box office is selling into. ■ ■ ■ BACK yonder with the police reporters and the underworld it started, all this business of swift labels and graphic nomenclature. You'll remember "Gyp the Blood", "Dan the Dip". In time the sports writers took it up. More recently, and crisper, we have "The Lip". Radio has given us "The Voice". Now we have "The Face", a super-secretary to D.O.S., and again the pin-up girl of the year called "The Shape". It is suggested that the sequence now be closed as a measure of public safety. — Terry Ramsaye