Motion Picture Herald (May-Jun 1947)

ililliiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiwiiiiirtiiilUNM Him iiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii imiiiiiiiii mi niiiipiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiui liniiiiiiini iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ADVERTISING CONFERENCE, in which Evan Llewellyn Evans (Sidney Greenstreetl runs the show. The scene is from MGM's "The Hucksters", starring Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr, produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr., and directed by Jack Conway. Exhibitors are to see the picture June 26. IN THE GLADE, a scene from Warners' "Cry Wolf", starring Erroll Flynn, standing, and Barbara Stanwyck, left. Henry Blanke produced and Peter Godfrey directed. The picture will be trade shown June 30. role in MGM's "Virtuous," new Van Johnson-June Allyson film which Norman Taurog is directing. . . .Ernest Truex marks his fiftieth anniversary as a thespian with his newest role in Warners' "Love at First Sight," directed by Frederick De Cordova. . . . Grandy Sutton starts his 200th role in the same film. John Agar, husband of Shirley Temple, will make his film debut with his actresswife in the John Ford-Merian C. Cooper forthcoming picture, "War Party". Both were borrowed from David O. Selznick, who has supervised Agar's training as an actor for the past year. Must Sell Again, Says Sam Wood by WILLIAM R. WEAVER Hollywood Editor This industry, like all others, has got to make up its mind to dig in and start selling again, in the opinion of Sam Wood, whose time in production (he was directing top product when the late Wallace Reid was the topmost star in it) spans the screen's leanest and lushest eras. A man known for the firmness of his beliefs and the frankness of his utterances, producer-director Wood, whose latest picture, "Ivy," was reviewed in the June 14 edition of this publication, says, "Everybody's known all along it had to come, but it got here a little ,sooner than most people expected." In common with others who have expressed themselves to the same general effect, the director of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" declares that exhibitors must reinforce and sharpen their exploitation and advertising methods, but he doesn't rest on that. The selling must begin at the source, he maintains, explaining that he means a producer must require of a picture, while it is yet in script form, that it contain material which "a showman can get his teeth into" when it comes into his hands for selling to the public. Producer Preference Secondary There is no commercial point in making a picture of a certain story just because a producer happens to like it, says the director of "Saratoga Trunk," and that's what some of them have been doing during the last few "take-it-or-leave-it" years. (There is offrecord mention here of grandiose productions in the indicated category which get back their cost strictly because they went into a seller's market.) Pictures of this kind have begun to die on the vine, he says, and will have to be supplanted by live merchandise if the industry is to continue to thrive. The matter of bringing about an effective change of attitude on the part of production personnel is by no means so simple as it may sound, however, according to the director of "Goodbye Mr. Chips," for reasons easier to analyze than to dispel. He says a great deal of artistic inertia traces directly to professional indifference born of the general feeling that in these days of high taxation a first flight producer, director, player or writer proceeds about his business unstimulated by the profit motive, since he knows he can keep about the same amount of money if he coasts as he can if he knocks himself out trying to do his best. Orally, he says, everybody talks a great job, but when the doing of it requires buckling down the end result reflects the lack of application. He's afraid that condition isn't going to change much until the tax rates do. Despite the tightening of the public purse strings, and the thinning out of over-all revenues, Mr. Wood does not foresee a pairing down of production costs. There may be some tightening of pre-production processes, which affect relatively few people, and some lopping off of unessential technological luxuries, but production costs in the main are inflexibly stipulated by contracts and do not yield to ministrations in behalf of economy. Cost reduction at cost of quality is, of course, out of the question as a weapon against box office recession. Impressed but undismayed by the propects of a buyer's market, Mr. Wood expects that in this dip as in the others he's witnessed the good pictures will do peak business and the bad ones will not. He thinks it would be beneficial to everybody if the distribution and exhibition branches could work out a way of making the good ones available simultaneously in a great many more theatres (in each community and across the nation) than is done, but he proffers no formula for working it out. He says the first job, however, for everybody, is to strip down to selling trim and sell — sell— sell. IHiiilliiuiiiiiiiin MOTION PICTURE HERALD, JUNE 21, 1947 31