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COMPLETED MGM
My Brother Who
Talked to Horses MONOGRAM Ghost Busters UNITED ARTISTS
D e V i I's Playground (Hopalong Cassidy Production)
UNIVERSAL
Michigan Kid
WARNERS
Cheyenne
STARTED
MGM
Secret Heart
MONOGRAM
Gentleman Joe Palooka
PRC
Dangerous Men SCREEN GUILD PRODUCTIONS
Man from Utah
(Golden Gate) 20TH CENTURY. FOX 13 Rue Madeleine UNIVERSAL Smash-Up
SHOOTING
COLUMBIA
It's Great to Be Young
Down to Earth Gallant Journey Thrill of Brazil
INDEPENDENT
Curley (Roach) MGM
Sea of Grass Lady in the Lake High Barbaree Beginning or the End Uncle Andy Hardy Mighty McGurk Woman of My Own
MONOGRAM High School Hero PARAMOUNT
Where There's Life
I Cover Big Town (Pine-Thomas)
PRC
Melody Roundup RKO RADIO
Katie for Congress Deadlier than the
Male Nocturne Honeymoon Best Years of Our
Lives (Goldwyn) Secret Life of Walter
Mitty (Goldwyn) It's a Wonderful Life
(Liberty)
REPUBLIC
Last Frontier Uprising
Mysterious Mr. Valentine That Brennan Girl Angel and the Outlaw
20TH CENTURYFOX
Carnival in Costa Riia
My Darling Clementine Razor's Edge
UNITED ARTISTS
The Chase (Nero) Miss Televsion
(Comet) Dishonored Lady
(Stromberg) Bel Ami (Loew
Lewin) Abie's Irish Rose
(Crosby)
Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (Award)
No Trespassing (Lesser)
UNITED WORLD
Bella Donna (Int'l)
UNIVERSAL
Wild Beauty Pirates of Monterey The Killers (Hellinger)
WARNERS
Cry Wolf
Deception
Life with Father
Stallion Road
Cloak and Dagger
USES EXHIBITORS' REPORTS ON PICTURES AS GUIDE POSTS
by WILLIAM R. WEAVER
Hollytuood Editor
Exhibitors who write box office reports to Motion Picture Herald's "What the Picure I>id for Me" department are telling producer John Houseman what kind of pictures they and their audiences want him to make for them. It's ancient and widespread knowledge that many another producer and director and writer take their cues from the findings of the men who meet the ultimate consumer on his home ground and hear him out at first hand, but Mr. Houseman makes no secret of the fact, indeed elaborates upon it in his sunkissed garden atop a practically private mountain overlooking Hollywood.
Exhibitors' reports to "What the Picture Did for Me," says Mr. Houseman, "provide the best existing evidence as to the state of audience demand and taste. I read them religiously, and feel I know some of the regular contributors almost personally. I get a tremendous lot of benefit from reading what they say, not only about my pictures, or any one company's pictures, but about all pictures."
Made to Measure
Producer Houseman's last picture made to the measure of exhibitor testimony regarding audience preferences is "Blue Dahlia," the Alan Ladd-William Bendix melodrama now doing quite nicely (thank you) in the first run theatres. The one before that was "Miss Susie Slagle." How well the producer interpreted the exhibitor comments from which he took guidance in producing these attractions is a matter for post-exhibition reports to attest, but while the evidence is accruing he's busy preparing "That Girl from Memphis" for early start of production.
Among the most satisfactory of <Mr. Houseman's interpretations of "What the
Picture Did for Me" reports is exhibitor confirmation of his own belief that the story is the thing that counts most in a work of fiction. By no means a film producer only — his background includes stage production and direction, radio production embracing two years as director of overseas radio for the Office of War Information, and some pioneering in television production — the craftsman who, with Orson Welles, created the Mercury Theatre is no believer in cycles. He is a violent dissenter from the theory that a formula found profitable at a given time should be followed again and again until the profit in it shall have run out. In witness, he points out that the three pictures named above have practically nothing in common, and declares he wishes never to have to duplicate a past work.
Change Called Vital
"Change is vital," he says, "in pictures as in life. The world is not the same today as it was yesterday, and it will be different again tomorrow. Nobody can know for certain what kinds of stories will be wanted, but it is very certain that a good story, of whatever kind, will never lack an audience."
The same order of things will prevail in the field of television when the experimenting is over and the novelty dies away, according to Mr. Houseman, who adds, "Television will combine essentials of the stage, the screen and the radio, ultimately, without taking anything away from any of them. Whatever format it may develop, it finally will have to tell a story, and in that field, as in all the other fields there are, a good story will succeed and a bad story will not."
By and large, Mr. Houseman could remark freely because he is no studio's yeararound employee, the pictures of the present and recent past have not progressed in point of quality. "The golden age of pictures," he maintained, "was that period between
1933 and about 1937, when box office returns were not so lush as they have been since and studios were ready to invest money in novel or different subjects and treatments, in the hope of creating new interest in theatregoing. Many great pictures came out of that hope.
No New Stars Developed
"With grosses at the level they are now, there appears no financial necessity of seeking new material, exploring new paths, and studios in the main are going ahead on the economically sound enough policv of making one picture after another in the same general way. It's nobody's fault, and nothing can be done about it — maybe nothing should be done about it — although there are some consequences, apart from the artistic, which will have to be faced some day. For one thing, almost no new stars have been developed during the past five or six years. For the present, the established familiars meet box office requirements. Whether they will do so when attendance begins to languish is a question."
Unlike most producers, Mr. Houseman has no inflexible conviction about the so-called "message picture," a topic brought up by his visitor in the belief that a man who supervised OWI radio programs beamed at a world in war would have firm opinions on the subject. If a good story happens to convey a good message, he says, that is a pleasant circumstance. If it doesn't, yet is a good story, no harm's been done. But, and of this he's very sure, the idea of cooking up a picture for the purpose of putting across a message for the sake of that message is preposterous.
To Use Warner Films in New Zealand Schools
Warner Bros, have presented to the Ministed of Education in Wellington, New Zealand, full length 16mm prints of "The Story of Louis Pasteur" and "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet." The former film is to be used for educational purposes in New Zealand schools, while the latter goes to the Medical School of Otago University.
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MOTION PICTURE HERALD, JUNE 8, 1946
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