Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1956)

for NOVEMBER 1956 GEORGE SCHUTZ, Editor EDITORIAL INDEX: TRIMLY DESIGNED FOR SHOPPER PATRONAGE: New Northgate Theatre, Memphis, Tenn 10 FOR VACATIONERS: New Shore Drive-In Near Virginia Beach 13 THE REMODELED SAXON THEATRE IN BOSTON 16 THE TECHNICAL AND CLEANING STAFF— AND PUBLIC RELATIONS 20 THE BUYERS INDEX 23 ABOUT PRODUCTS 37 CHARLIE JONES SAYS: Buying Pictures Today Is Kinda Like Getting Married by Proxy ... 42 ABOUT PEOPLE OF THE THEATRE 4 BETTER THEATRES is published the first week of the month, with each regular monthly issue a bound-in section of Motion Picture Herald; and in an annual edition, the Market Guide Number, which is published under Its own covers in March as Section Two of the Herald. QUIGLEY PUBLICATIONS, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y., Circle 7-3100. Ray Gallo, Advertising Manager. Hollywood: Yucca-Vine Building; HO 7-2145. Government Loans For Modernization The decision of the Small Business Administration to grant loans, under certain circumstances, for the remodeling and reequipping of theatres, particularly the smaller operations (since it is presumed that the larger ones can obtain private financing), brightens the prospects for many a theatre that is now trying to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. A large section of the exhibition plant is between the devil of obsolescence and the deep blue sea of box office inadequacy to the financial requirements of modernization. The possibility of a Government loan for this purpose offers a potential release from such a stalemate. • It is impossible to measure confidently the effect of physical obsolescence upon a specific theatre. Each situation must be judged according to all of the circumstances influencing patronage. Whether a loan is warranted depends upon location, changes in local recreational resources, relationship of those changes to higher costs of operation — and, a point we set off for emphasis, the adaptability of the structure, in architecture and plan, to progress in motion picture technique and to refinements in public taste. It is foolish to believe that the public would be flocking back to our theatres if they all were glitteringly new\ It is reasonable, however, to say that theatres dismallv outmoded, uncomfortable and technically incompetent to give the film production its due, place a burden on the industry’s effort of rehabilitation. Product alone cannot carry the load. It never did. Quite likely it never will. • What has happened is that the motion picture has lost its captive audience. More people now' can do more things, anywhere. 20 miles, even 50 miles from home about as readily as once they could go to the movies a few blocks away. Or they can stay home and still have some sort of professional entertainment, some contact with the world beyond their familiar, humdrum existence. This would seem to argue that the picture must carry more of the load than it ever did. Undoubtedly product must uniquely supply great visual and emotional experience to a degree not previously required. But theatres are part of this process. No picture can be better than the conditions of its exhibition. Product, moreover, cannot overcome altogether the lack of convenient parking, the memory of discomfort and of ugliness encountered in previous visits to theatres. It would take an extensive appraisal of properties to judge what the SBA decision really means in a practical sense. It seems, however, to offer salvage to many theatres; and believing that it does, we shall suggest in December how money thus made available might be used with most practicable effect. There are properties for which mere refurbishing can do quite a lot. But obsolescence in our theatres has been at work a long time — in some cases a couple of decades. Much of the exhibition establishment was built when theatre design was under influences radically different from those operating today. It will be w'ith these in particular that Ben Schlanger, noted designer of motion picture theatres, will deal in Better Theatres for December. — G.S. 9