We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
96 ^ <^> <> The Motion Picture Industry
of the most important of these was that producers had relied too much on the novelty of sound to carry their pictures. Another factor, which made difficult the maintenance of a high standard of quality in films, was the constant state of flux in corporate ownership throughout the entire industry and the subsequent unrest among managements and employees. In connection with these changes of control, it is debatable whether the managerial policies of some of the bankers and the large electric companies, when applied to the production of motion pictures, were sound. One of the objections of producers to their policies concerned their demands for lower negative costs. Some producers believed that since there was little relation between production costs and box office receipts, such economies would retard the creation of more interesting films.
A further factor contributing to the prevalence of poor films was that motion picture executives, having gone through the recent period of prosperity in the film industry, had spent much time in operating the stock market. Then, too, some producers simply had failed to perceive that the general public was becoming increasingly intelligent in respect to its choice of motion pictures. One of the major reasons for the production of low-quality films, however, is inherent in the motion picture industry. This factor is important because it is applicable today as it was in 1930, and it is too much to hope that it will ever be substantially removed. It is that the very number of feature pictures being produced every year makes it impossible for them all to be good, whether judged in terms of box office receipts or by any other standard.
No company, regardless of its organization or the ability of those in charge of production or the imaginative power of those responsible for scenarios, can be expected to turn out 50, 60, or 70 pictures year after year and at the same time have them all distinctive and uniformly successful. From some points of view, it is rather unfortunate that producers feel called upon to resort to these large-scale pro