Motion Picture Magazine (Aug 1915-Jan 1916)

110 THE FAKES AND FRAUDS IN MOTION PICTURES tickets, stuffs twenty dollars in the cash-drawer, and, when you count up at the end of the day, you find the receipts far ahead of even the rosy prospect that had been painted, and feel really sorry for Mr. Owner who is willing to give up such a good thing. Of course all the money goes back to the owner, who is still the proprietor, as he is only letting you collect and count his money for him to influence your decision. And it looks good to you ; so you buy. So you step in on a Monday — a fullfledged picture-house owner, by virtue of the $2,000 that you have saved up for ten years and have just paid to Mr. Ginger. Troubles now come thick and fast. The first thing you learn is that Mr. Owner left without paying his operator (the man who runs the picture machine) ; that the exchange where you are supposed to get your films will send you no more reels until you pay the money that this theater already owes the exchange ; that there are half-a-dozen repairs to be made, ordered by the police and the fire departments; and that the piano collector is around to demand back payments due. You find, also, that the chairs are yours under similar circumstances. So that, after you have gotten the show going — a little late because of unexpected and costly set-backs ; your wife in the box-office, your Mr. Ex-clerk at the door — you take stock of what you have bought. From what you have just learnt, you own nothing but the projectionmachine — an old model, by the way — and the " good-will. " How much the latter is worth you will presently find out. No boosters are now working for you; but you learn about their methods, because the children, who have good memories for these things, are asking to be let in for nothing. Your Monday matinee and night nets you about $7. Your expenses for the entire week are over a hundred. You lose thirty-seven dollars the first week. You lose still more the next. Then you do what every other person who owns a business that is not paying also tries to do : you go the round of the Moving Picture brokerage offices, offering your house for sale for $2,500. You may add, as your reason, that your home town, wife and friends are at Far-away Falls and that you find it expensive commuting. If you are very lucky, you will perhaps sell for $1,000, and you should thank your propitious fate that you got off that easily. You have been in the game just long enough to realize that you dont know the first thing about it ; and the chances are that you will go back to your "Far-away Falls " and try to dig up another job. Your picture bubble has burst. Now, all this is not only what might happen to anybody who was trying to break into the business of exhibiting Motion Pictures, but what is actually occurring, with sickening regularity, in every big city in the country. Sensible people would not think of jumping into the manufacture of rubber tires, for example, without previous experience, yeJ: they invade the picture business with confidence, urged on by the smooth and flattering persuasion of the broker. It is a very alluring business. It looks easy, and it looks attractive. It is the old, old case of the moth and the flame. Make up your mind that it takes a person with picture experience successfully to operate a theater. Successful men in other lines will tell you that three or four per cent, is what they consider a good return on their capital ; and dont you imagine that they would jump at the opportunity of making about five thousand per cent., which is what some of the smooth brokers of the Ginger type promise, if there were really the profits in it that these business parasites promise ? Of course there are paying picture houses a-plenty; but they are rarely in the open market, where you, an outsider, are offered a chance to buy them. Next month, the second of Mr. Fuld's articles of this series, entitled "Getting Into the Film Business," which is still more interesting than the present one.