Motion Picture News (Mar-Jun 1920)

June 12, 1920 4><<" Zukor s Annual Statement 'I T has always been my custom at this time of the year to make Players-Lasky Corporation for the season to come. \ have endeavored to place before exhibitors facts upon w statement regarding the place and policy of Famous they could base a fair estimate as to what our organization bad to offer them, and I have striven to make clear to them the reasons why they^ could depend upon Famous Play eis-Lnsky Corporation as a dependable source of supply of quality pictures in quantity. My statement for this year is ae follows: "Paramount Pictures for September: George Fitzmaurice production ' The Right to Love,' with Mae Murray and David Powell, as fine as ' On With the Dance." Elsie Ferguson in Mrs. Humphry Ward's ' Lady Rose's Daughter. Charles Ray in 'The Village Sleuth,' supervised by Thos. H. Ince. Thomas Meighan in the famous story ' Civilian Clothes.' Dorothy Dalton in Sir James M. Barrie's story ' Half an Hour.' ' Humoresque.' Cosmopolitan's production of Fannie Hurst's story. Dorothy Gish in ' Little Miss Re hellion." Wallace Reid in 'What's Your Hurry.' Paramount Pictures for October: ' The Restless Sex,' an elaborate Cosmopolitan production of Robert W. Chambers's story. 'Fatty' Arbuckle in 'The Round Up,' his first big feature picture. Douglas McLean in 'The Jailbird,' a Thos, H. Ince production. Wm. S. Hart in 'The Cradle of Courage,' third of his own production. Cecil B. DeMiUe's 'Something to Think About! ' 'A Full Mouse," the famous bim\ with Bryant Washburn. Maurice Tourneur'a production, ' Deep Waters.' from F. Hopkineon Smith's Story, 'Caleb West. Master Diver.' Charles Ray In ' An Old Fashioned Young Man,' a Thomas II. Ince production. Fthel Clayton in 'The City Sparrow,' 'Held by the Enemy,' from Wil liam Gilbert 0*8 famous stage play. Paramount Pictures for November: George Melford's finest work, ' Behold My Wife,' Sir Gilbert Parkera story. George Fitzmaurice production, ' Idols of Clay,* with Mae Murray and David Powell. Elhol Clayton in ' Rozanne Ozanno.' Wallace Reid in 'The Charm School,' from a Saturday Evening Post story, by Alice Duer Miller. Dorothy Dallou in ' The Winter City Favorite,' a story of city gaiety. Knid Bennett in ' Her Husband's Friends.' a Thos. U. Ince production. ' Burglar Proof,' a comedy, fealuring Bryant Washburn. Billie Burko in Clyde Fitch's play, 'The Frisky Mm. Johnson.* ADOLPH ZUKOfl. WW J esse L. Lasky Has to Say 1 HE motion picture has reached a state that demands organization — the big, intricate, highly specialized organization, which alone is capable of producing the type of photoplays that please the public and are successful at the box-office. "Famous Players-Lasky Corporation has this organization. Famous Players-Lasky has it because the men at the head of this corporation long ago had the vision to see that the day was coming when the public would demand that producers produce photoplays and not merely manufacture movies. The production department of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation did not spring into being overnight; it is the fruition of years of patient toil, eternal vigilance, alertness to the constant growth of the motion picture art, and the combined efforts of a corps of men and women who have blended the best talent and genius of the new art with a fine loyalty to an ideal. Only such an organization, backed by resources which places every possible facility and aid in the hands of directors and stars, is capable of producing the newer and finer type of pictures which the season now closing has so conclusively shown to be what the public wants. , , .j "Only such an organization could have ready— in exchanges to be shown to exhibitors— the really notable list of photoplays which we now have on hand for the coming season. It is by means of this organization that we have been able to produce twenty-five pictures four months in advance of the opemng of the season, September 1. "The best promise which the production department of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation make for the next year can is the twenty-five pictures which have already been made. These pictures include such sterling photoplays as George Fitzmaurice's special production 'The Right to Love,' the Elsie Ferguson picture, 'Lady Rose's Daughter,' Thomas Meighan in 'Civilian Clothes,' Roscoe Arbuckle in 'The Round-Up,' a wonderful new Wm. S. Hart picture, 'The Cradle of Courage,' and 'Something to Think About,' which I am assured is one of the best pictures Cecil B. DeMille ever made. "Just as the public has now come to discriminate between good and mediocre photoplays — and discriminate by reading motion picture advertising— so the motion picture has grown to a point that demands infinitely more than a director, a camera, and a star. And ihc new season beginning September 1 marks the crossroads where exhibitors and producers must elect whether they want to climb the road to better pictures or make the easy descent along the other road to mediocrity, oblivion, and bankruptcy. "The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation's production department will continue on the high road. It is our plan to make 104 pictures during the coming year — and every one of these productions will be given all the care and skill and thought that long experience and the best of production genius can supply. "That the public wants the big, special production, was established this year, not only to our satisfaction,but also to the satisfaction and profit of the thousands of exhibitors who were foresighted enough to book such splendid Paramount productions as George Loane Tucker's 'The Miracle Man,' Cecil B. DeMille's wonderful productions, 'Male and Female' and 'Why Change Your Wife/ George Melford's ' Evcry woman/ 'The Sea Wolf,' George Fitzmaurice's 'On With the Dance,' 'The Copperhead,' and that remarkable photbplayj 'Dr. Jekvll and Mr. Hyde.' "In the season of 1920-21 it is our intention to develop this policy of big, special productions, Specials will be produced in the ratio of two to every four Paramount pictures made. And the making of these specials will lie in the bands of such masters as Cecil B. DeMille, George Fitzmaurice, George H. Mel ford, William U. Taylor, who made 'Huckleberry Finn' William DeMille, and other prominent directors whose names will be announced later. "Back of every one of our directors, back of every one of our stars, is a vast invisible force of writers, artists, technicians. Experience lias shown that even the best directors cannot do their best work while burdened with the cares and innumerable (hi tics of business, Their task is to make pictures; and they cannot produce the best pictures unless the multiplicity of details arc removed and placed in the hands of an organization. Thus the organization we have built up assures the exhibitors of America the very be si work of the artists assembled for the production of Paramount pictures. "Moreover, the photoplay material which we place in the hands of our directors and stars is not the output of hack writers. We have a big reservoir of novels, short stories, and stage plays, the work of recognized writers, which enables us to choose only the very best material for our artists. "Our studio facilities have been enlarged to such an extent in the last year as to surpass even the imagination of the men who started this art. The new season will see ns producing piclurcs in Hollywood, in the new $2,000,000 studio in Long Island Lily, in our new studio in London, and in our new studio about to be built in Bombay, India. Every one of these studios is oiT such magnitude and is so well equipped as to afford the greatest possible resources for directors and artists. The new Eastern studio in Long Island City, for instance, will allow eight companies to work on its stages at (he same time. In the London studio only big special productions will be made, with English easts in English sellings. This will bring a new, and utterly distinctive note to the screens of America. But the most far-reaching studio development of the coming season will he the production of pictures in our new studio in Bombay, affording as it dm s the production of photoplays in a picturesque land that is virgin territory to the motion picture director. "This is what I mean by production organization. This is what I mean when I say that successful photoplays cannot be made on promises and publicity. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation's production organization, like its distributing system, is world-wide. It has the resources and the facilities to bring to the screens of American exhibitors the very best photoplays that can be produced anywhere in the world ; and in the season of 1920-21 it is our intention to use this vast production organization to the utmost of its powers, to the end that exhibitors will be able to promise their patrons the very' best in motion picture art.'*