Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1921)

September s , 1921 1151 Threatens Peril to Industry Quality Suffers IF the producer makes a picture that he knows will take in altogether $100,000, it is certain that he is not going to spend $125,000 to make it, even if the type of subject requires that amount, or a greater sum, for adequate treatment. This inevitably means deterioration of quality, and therefore retrogression of the entire industry. If the exhibitor, therefore, who can afford to pay more for pictures than the price he would like to pay, faces this fact and is content to accept a less quality for less money, he may and can have his desire fulfilled almost immediately, and he may even make more money temporarily by such a change. I am prepared to go even this far in order to frankly face his view; but will he retain his present public and attract a new following to his theatre if he does not show better and better pictures all the time? This statement is not unsupported by actual fact. Take the history of the industry— look back upon the producing concerns who started out with a very promising producing program, with ambitions to produce an excellent quality of pictures, and many of whom indeed actually produced excellent pictures in the early stages of their existence. The exhibitors began cutting their rentals, and the quality of the pictures began to drop just as quickly and as surely. The high salaried technical experts were discharged ; men of less ability replaced them— and trade marks that bade fair to challenge the world's attention as representative of a high quality product, deteriorated, and in many cases have become a joke in the trade and to the public. Poorer Goods for Less Money IT IS not necessary for me to mention names to establish that fact. Every exhibitor in the country will think immediately of at least three concerns that entered the business under very auspicious conditions and with a high quality product to present to the trade. The exhibitors have driven these concerns to the minor positions they occupy today, only because they recognized their power to obtain that product for less money. They paid less and they got less. Not only did they lose in that respect, but they deprived themselves of a much bigger benefit by destroying a producing competition that would have exerted a much larger influence upon their busmess by creatmg a stimulus for better quality that only serious competition can make certain. Cheap pictures are more easily made than good pictures because they do not require the same amount of heart-breaking thought and energy, aside from the difference in money; but a series of cheap pictures today in the majority of theatres throughout the country would kill the indusuy more quickly than it would have been killed five years ago but for the advent of better pictures, for the reason that the public is more discriminating now than it was then, and would, therefore, tire of the cheap product far more quickly and permanently. Upon what does the future of the motion picture industry depend? Upon the man-power and woman-power engaged in it. Do you recall what Andrew Carnegie said when he was queried as to which he would rather lose — his organiza tion or his plants? He replied that he would rather lose his plants ten times than lose a single part of his organization, for without the latter the plants would be idle, but with it he could build his plants again in a year. Organization Meets Test T^RAVVING a little analogy, when the Famous '■^ Flayers studio burned down on September 11, 1914, the company could not have proceeded to rehabilitation if it did not have the loyalty of a splendid organization with special abilities. Such an organization develops only from the I)rinciple of specialization. Every man knew the part he was to play in any emergency and was equipped to perform it with speed and accuracy. The fact that this organization was equipped so perfectly and manned so well made it possible for us to keep on the supply of pictures to exhibitors without a moment's interruption, thereby protecting him from loss or even inconvenience. This was a direct manifestation of the power of good to the exhibitor himself in supporting fully the plans and policies of reputable producing companies. Such results are built only upon concentrated efforts. Upon the men and women, the boys and girls, in the studios, theatres, exchanges and executive offices of producing and distributing companies, depend whatever greater glories are yet to crown the motion picture art. Do Not Scatter Energies T ET them grow and develop in one sphere ' of activity, let them become experts, specialists. Do not let them scatter their energies and distribute their talents over so wide a field as to have no weight in any one. This appeal extends to the leaders as well as the followers, to the chiefs as well as the subordinates, engaged in whatsoever branch of the industry. Let us all coordinate our work, producing, distributing, exhibiting, to the best of our mutual interests— which all the better elements of the trade are now trying to do — but let us avoid such a close unification that the exhibitor becomes wholly or partly a producer, or the producer slightly or extensively an exhibitor. For then it will be nobody's business! Another important defect in the present relations between exhibitors and producers emanates from a tendency on the part of exhibitors in certain cities throughout the country to dominate the business of exhibitors in smaller surrounding communities, creating for themselves an artificial power over these smaller exhibitors, and in this manner limiting their choice of subjects. Already there have been evidences of dictation to the smaller exhibitors as to which pictures they should or should not be permitted to procure. I have always been unalterably opposed to this dictatorship because it is bound to limit the natural growth and independence of the smaller exhibitor and therefore hinder the advance of the entire industry. The exhibitors alone can cure this evil by a resolute refusal to be drawn into any allied booking scheme, even if the results promised are of temporary benefit to themselves. It is only the man who looks ahead who will be in the business a few years hence, and all temporary profits should be measured by what his status in the trade will be months after that profit has been made and spent. Need Is Clearly Seen I see it today as clearly as I saw the need for better pictures in 1912 that if the producer and exhibitor do not coordinate their interests and permit full and unlimited activity in their own spheres, the industry will drift into the same chaotic condition out of which it energed only in recent years. If exhibitors establish or rent studios for the production of pictures the producers will have to build theatres, not in order to rebuke the exhibitors, but for the simple reason that that will be the only means open to them to protect their producing investments. Such a condition would result in ruinous competition in both branches of the industry, but the producer would have the advantage because he would already have the goods to sell, and the ability and the experience to make the better pictures. No Room for Disorders T HOPE the situation never develops to such a point. So does everyone else who has analyzed the business and looks forward to a brighter future for it. Every branch of the motion picture industry is big enough, at present and for future growth, without seeking new worlds to conquer. There are only a few men in each generation who are possessed of inordinate ambition, and it is a curious fact that they invariably fail. Let the motion picture industry, which has become a symbol to the world of twentieth century industrial organization, which within the span of a few years has taken its place among the old and foremost industries of the world, which has become one of the greatest blessings to humanity and an agency of yet unguessed value to future generations — let this industry be free of such disturbers! Lefit not be said when the full history of the motion picture art is written that its glory was blighted and its radiance dimmed by a would-be Caesar or Napoleon, who in destroying himself destroyed also the spirit and will of the constructive workers of the industry. I appeal to all those who have sought the motion picture as a life-work, and who have found in the world of the studio, the exchange or the ineuir; an answer to the ambitions within their hearts calling for expression. I appeal to them to protect their worlds from invasion — not that they might go on making more money, bat that they might expand their abilities and increase their efficiency the better to contribute to the motion picture's greatness. WHAT BRANCH OF THE BUSINESS ARE YOU IN? WHAT IS YOUR FUTURE? WILL YOU HAVE A THEATRE OR A STUDIO. As surely as there is a natural law of compensation, as surely as there is an irresistible impulse for self-preservation, as surely as there is a point beyond which competition becomes an evil instead of a benefit, so surely, if you want both, you will have .neither. Adolph Zukor. (ADVKBTISBUENT BY FAMOUS PI.ATEBS-I.ASKT COKP.]