Motion Picture News (Oct 1914-Jan 1915)

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102 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 10. No. 26. Did You Sign One? (No. 63. Straight-from-the-Shoulder Talks by Carl Laemmle, President.) 'VE been hearing some interesting stories about the operations of some of the many get-rich-quick men who have been wedging their way into the moving picture business. One of them deals with a smooth tongued individual who conceived the plan of getting exhibitors to sign a contract whereby they agree to book one of his so-called "features" every week for 52 weeks. He got the exhibitors to sign the contracts on the strength of a very good picture which he showed them as a sample of the 52 he intended to make every year. So the poor duffers (are you one of them?) signed the contract! The first picture, as I said before, was fine. But the second, third and fourth were rotten. The fifth was good, but the succeeding ones were junk. The exhibitor began to suspect that he had been stung, but he felt that he was hooked up for a year because of his contract, not realizing that the smooth-tongued fellow who hooked them had ALREADY SMASHED THE CONTRACT TO PIECES by misrepresenting his proposition and failing to deliver acceptable pictures. But the really interesting feature is this: On the strength of the contracts which he had inveigled the exhibitors into signing, Mr. Smooth raised a fat and healthy bank roll. Did he put any of it into new pictures? Not at all. He salted it. He got it by using the exhibitors as a tool. He sold stock on the strength of their signatures to contracts, and now he rolls around in automobiles and gives the exhibitors the merry laugh. If you've been one of his victims it's your own fault. I've warned you so many, many times that I've worn out my warning apparatus. If you'd only take the extra money that you now spend for "features" and spend it for newspaper advertising, you'd be building on a solid foundation and you'd get somewhere. You're not wise to sign any contract for films unless you sign with a strong, reliable concern; one which has demonstrated its ability to make a good program ALL THE TIME INSTEAD OF JUST FOR A WEEK OR TWO; one which proves by its enormous investments in permanent equipment that it is HERE TO STAY. When you find a concern like that, sign as fast as you like so that no competitor can take your service away from you. Personally I know of only one such concern in all the wide, wide world. I refer to the concern which proved its faith in the future of this business by building A WHOLE CITY out West just to make pictures; the same concern which is now building, across the river from New York City, the largest glass studio in America. It's the Universal, of course! CARL LAEMMLE. Be sure to mention "MOTION PICTURE NEWS" when writing to a'lvertisers.