Motion Picture News (Sep-Oct 1923)

Published Weekly Motion Picture News, Inc. Williarn,A. Johnston, President E. Kendall Gillett, Treasurer 729 7th Avenue. New York City 752 South Wabash Ave., Chicago Room 616 Security Bldg., Hollywood, Calif. Western Union Cable Addres» is " 'Ficknews.' • New York Motion Picture Founded in September 1913 Copyright 1923 by Motion Picture News, Inc. in the United States and Great Britain. Title registered in the LL S. Patent Office and Foreign Countries William A. Johnston, Editor J. S. Dickerson, Managing Editor Fred J. Bcecroft, Advertising Mgr. L. H. Mason, Chicago Representative J. C. Jessen. Los Angeles Representative Subscription price $3 per year, postpaid in United States, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Philippine Islands. Canada, $5. Foreign, $10. Vol. XXVIII NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 15, 1923 No. 11 The Greater Movie The greater movie is with us at last. A cohort of " big " pictures have marched upon New York and taken Broadway by storm. More are to follow. Broadway legitimate houses are at a premium. The New York newspaper critics are almost emotional in their praise. The stage business is wondering just what is going to happen to its Fall season. It is a fact that " The Covered Wagon," " The Hunchback of Notre Dame," " Rosita," " The Green Goddess," " If Winter Comes," " Little Old New York " and " The White Sister " will call forth the highest grade audiences New York can boast of today, the kind of people the stage itself does not reach right along. It is all very fine. For almost ten years this publication has been calling for, and prophesying, the individual picture, the picture individually made and individually handled. That kind of picture has appeared from time to time right along; we don't for a moment, discount the successes of the past. Some may never be parallelled. But the point is this : not only is the individual picture here, but the era of making the individual picture has at last arrived. Formerly, it was a matter of better vision and inspiration here and there with a few. Today the industry itself is gearing itself, through a new production and distribution policy, to the point where the individual picture is an assurance rather than a hope. A new era has set in. sH + This is great progress. Practical progress, as well as artistic progress. For the greater movie means greater movie audiences. We have more than enough seats but not filled seats Five or six millions a day are not enough for our 14,000 theatres; and while the admission price is a factor so, too, is the attraction. Every exhibitor knows the stimulating effect on attendance of the occasional outstanding picture. * * * But as we write — and while the critics' praises sound and the billboards flash and the electric signs dazzle and the larger newspaper advertisements impress — we are thinking of the eighty percenter. The ten thousand and more theatres in the four thousand communities of this country! Then there's the fifty thousand population town. What are they thinking of the New York onslaught? What does the new picture era mean to them? In short: when will they get these pictures? And how? On flat rentals or percentage? What kind of prints will they receive? And last but not least what advertising will they employ to get the greater movie audiences? It is one thing to make greater movies. It is another — to handle them. s|? % * Let's not lose our heads. One of Wallace Reid's pictures booked 8922 theatres. Tom Mix is called " the life-saver " by thousands of exhibitors. Hoot Gibson is preferred to the greatest present male star in many and many a picture house. And at a little gathering in New York last week of hard boiled picture men, the question was propounded: if you could have any one of the line-up of big pictures now playing in the metropolis which would you rather have? And most of them selected " Why Worry? " Harold Lloyd's picture at the Strand. It goes right away into the picture theatres.