Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1948)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD MAR7W QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Vol. 170, No. 2 TERRY RAMSAY E, Editor OP January 10, 1948 COMES A DAWN THE beginnings of an endeavour to emerge from the fevered chaos of concerns and ill-concealed alarums that have spread across all American industry, including this one, in sequel to the hectic global disturbances of the war, began to appear on the dawning horizon of 1948 this week. There seemed promises that a new hold was being taken, that leaderships were considering and planning, becoming less concerned with deplorings and defenses, more addressed to positive steps to be made now and , tomorrow. PRODUCT Directly in our business, there was an element of institutional encouragement in an announcement from Mr. Jack L. Warner devoted entirely to the subject of pictures to be played upon the theatre screen. The statement was the first, for a long time, setting forth a design for performance, a considered product announcement calculated to tell the exhibitor something about what he might expect to see coming forth from a major studio for a long period ahead. Some fifty-eight properties were discussed. Those completed but not released were named. Thirteen pictures either now in production or ready for the camera in January were outlined. There is about it an impact of substance and design, positive in its approach. HOLLYWOOD Retu rning from behind what he termed "the velvet curtain" of Hollywood, Mr. Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune on Tuesday presented the first piece of a series on what he, with the fresh eyes of an easterner, saw of what he called the "throes of a panic" and the signs of some spirit of recovery from the shock of the international market situation touched off by Britain. Most significant of his recordings were in an interview with the decidedly objective Mr. Joseph M. Schenck. The essential quotation was: "We have two productions currently shooting, when we should have six or seven. They are going to be made on quite a different basis from that employed during the last ten years. . . . I've never seen a picture that was too short. . . . If there is something wrong with the film industry at the moment, it is our fault. The day of the $3,000,000 budget is over. It will probably be good for the screen." PROGRESS OVERSEAS First ponderable, measurable fruits of the labours of the Motion Picture Association against the adverse situation in the foreign market, ensuing on what Mr. Irving Maas of the Motion Picture Export Association termed the "chain reaction" to the British confiscatory tax, came this week with the tidings that the Scandinavians were coming to terms. It is announced that agreements negotiated over there by Mr. Gerald Mayer of the MPA's international division result in one-year deals which let American product into Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and without any of those countries resorting to a tax. NEW FRONT The metropolitan press comes into the new year with a vigorous address at consideration of the world as it is and consideration of what business may do and is starting to do about it, as of the Now. There is extensive examination of the industrial and commercial scene, around the world and with special attention to our neighbors, north and south. It shines forth clearly that the United States and Canada are today, in terms of resources and productive power, the only important solvent nations on the globe. It is abundantly apparent that they must share a large proportion of the burden of setting an unhappy and hungry world on its feet. The scene may be politically controlled but the performance is to be had only by industry and business. The press is getting around to saying so in new terms. LADIES' CHOICE LAST week we released the annual story that goes around the world, the exhibitors' judgment on the "Ten Best m Money Makers" of the year. This is the first and only poll which is based on the opinions and experiences of showmen at the box office. It has in these sixteen years become an institution of established authority, gaining in attention in the press and radio of all the lands where pictures are played. Examination of the tables of the "Ten Best" down the years indicates a remarkable longevity on the part of a number of the most famed of the players, notably in the case of Mr. Clark Gable who has been in the rating for thirteen years. And now comes Mr. Bing Crosby at the top for the fourth year, his eighth year among the ten. The predominance of femininity in the audiences is reflected in the ever continuing leadership of males in the top ten ratings. The average for the sixteen years has been 62 per cent male, 38 per cent female. Male stars have been in the majority since 1934, and this year the ratio is 70 to 30 per cent. SNOW IN SILVERMINE — When winter takes command with cold and wind and snow, sweeping away those thin arteries of the powar lines, burying the highways and sweeping planes from the skyways, a real isolation falls across this Connecticut valley. The limits of the world become the stardim farmhouse lights a far mile up the hill, and living is confined to these old walls and the little pools of visibility cast by oil lamp and candle — narrowed, too, into the small scope of the warming glow of the fireplace. The newspaper of the day before and the last mail up from the village take on a new significance — last word from the world before the big silence arrived. The woodpile suddenly becomes wealth, the pantry shelves a precious larder, and those bottles, row on row, a treasure beyond compare. Presently the world with its woes and services will move in again, but for this day there is an isolation to be savoured, enjoyed. Elsewhere is nowhere. — Terry Kamsaye