Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1948)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN OU1GLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor Vol. 170, No. 8 OP February 21, 1948 THE BIG ISSUE THE orators are through and the destinies of the industry rest in the hands of eight Justices of the Supreme Court at the end of ten years of legalistic fencing, consent decree truces, trial and appeal. For this tedious anti-trust case the end is in sight somewhere in the next few months with the final decision. The significance to the industry depends obviously and entirely on the nature of that decision in its several aspects and the consequent effect upon operations and structure. The great single, all-important, issue is divorcement. If producer-distributor control of theatres, beyond the showcase requirements of picture selling, is broken, then the federal action will indeed have delivered a significant portion of the promises of that imposing lawsuit filed in July, 1938. Theatre control is the surviving essence of the action. It is to be remembered that the initial Bill of Complaint delivered in Foley Square that day went at length into charges of monopolistic pooling of talent in Hollywood, wherefore the Petitioner prayed that the defendants be enjoined from "borrowing, loaning, or otherwise making available their contract stars, featured players, or other technical personnel to any of the other defendants" in any manner whatsoever. That element of the suit was never heard from again after the filing of the papers. Other aspects of the complex case grew pale and dimmed out, too. Now remain trade practises and theatre control alone. A decision to divest production of its direct tie to the box office would be in effect an answer to trade practise issues also. INBRED" BUT "LUSH A SPARKLING example of the stuff that has made the grand illusion and rainbow dream atmosphere between t the Hills of Hollywood and the sea is afforded by a headline in the Los Angeles Examiner of February 10, proclaiming that a star vehicle has been bought "For Only $200,000." The subjoined article by Miss Louella O. Parsons relates that Mr. Darryl Zanuck had said the other day that "Captain from Castile" was "the last big money picture". And now . . . "comes word that Darryl has bought 'Prince of Foxes' . . . for the neat little sum of $200,000. And you know as well as I that this adventure tale, during the Italian Renaissance, can't be made under several millions — to be conservative. It deals with the Cesare Borgia family — a very lush, extravagant period in history." The typical and reasonable reader might be inclined to say: "And so, what of it?" The answer is that you have to know Hollywood. What the local papers say means the world press out there, in that bright, tight colony of creators. Mr. Eric Johnston had the subject apparently very much in mind the other day when he had Mr. Howard Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune down to Washington for a candid chat. Subsequently, Mr. Johnston was quoted: "Studios will have to face up realistically to that problem that better pictures will have to be made cheaper. Too many people feel the way Herbert Hoover did at the outset of the depression in the early '30s — that everything will clear up without doing anything about it. It is an attitude typical of Hollywood, which is very much like a highly inbred family, having few contacts with the outside world." Mr. Johnston incidentally had a cheerful note: "The readjustment is going to be difficult, but I am confident that it will have been accomplished before the end of 1949." That's only two years away. Meanwhile, Louella and the local press are still for "a very lush, extravagant period in history". Back to Borgia ! DECENTRALIZATION THOSE discussions of projects to decentralize production of the motion picture are hardly more than "pieces for the papers". The notion seems to be that, if the American industry were to rush hither and yon with casts and cameras, making pictures in many lands, the result would be a wider, easier world acceptance of the product. As a broad principle, such a proceeding would be about as practical as taking steel mills away from Gary, motors from Detroit, publication and the stage from New York. Centers for arts and industries have been produced by natural forces and causes. Where pictures are made is of minor importance alongside the question of how well they are made. Pictures have been made in many lands around the world for fifty years. London, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm were production centers when Hollywood was growing avacadoes. It would take an extraordinary amount of expeditionary appeasement to make those lands overseas consider that America had put them into the picture manufacturing business. In an earlier, and less strife-ridden, day the American industry achieved a considerable degree of international coloration by the acquisition and absorption of foreign talent of promise, whenever and wherever it appeared. More recently that has been resented, too. Despite the fact that Hollywood has unhappily been more recently making some poorer pictures for more money, it is still the basic production center with the capacities required to make the best pictures for any money. ■ Ml C| After exhaustive research, Edward Stern & Company of Philadelphia, printers of quality literature, report that "the average business executive has a larger vocabulary than the average college professor." That is understandable. The average executive has more provocations and fewer inhibitions. ■ ■ ■ €| Now that the annual fever of the awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is upon us, let us renew our annual suggestion of a special award for the creative personnel responsible for the making of the picture which has made for the year the highest box office return upon the investment. The showmen who retail the pictures in the theatres would be interested in that. — Terry Ramsaye