Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1922)

January 21, 192-2 601 Reorganization Set , Gunning States Policy Changes in Personnel Completed to His Satisfaction ; Important Policy Statement Issued AN important and interesting announcement to the trade was made by Wid Gunning, Inc., this week. Mr. Gunning, on his recent trip to the Goast, made changes in the personnel of the Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco offices. The statement declares that Mr. Gunning placed the offices in those territories in the hands of men of the type that he desires to have associated with him in such a broadly cooperative proposition as he expected later to announce. These changes, it is said, had been delayed only by the fact that Mr. Gunning had not sooner been able to visit these offices. Ben Simpson, among the best known figures in the East and on the West Coast, and one of the organizers of Realart’s exchanges with Jack Woody, is now carrying the Wid Gunning banner in San Francisco. George Slater's appointment to the Los Angeles office was announced while Mr. Gunning was on the coast. Harry Willard, the popular Realart representative in Chicago since that organization was started, has been secured to handle the Windy City territory for Wid Gunning, Inc. After returning to New York and making a few other minor changes in the personnel, Mr. Gunning decided that he now had throughout his organization the type of men whom he desired to be associated Maine Forms Strong Unit of M. P. T. O. of A. THEATRE owners from all parts of Maine, some travelling a distance of 200 miles to be in attendance at the most representative theatre owners’ convention ever held in the State of Maine, assembled at the Penobscot Exchange Hotel on Wednesday. January 4th, 1922. The primary reason was to disband the old organization which was known as the Allied Theatres Organization and to form an official Unit of The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America. Resolutions were unanimously adopted endorsing the work of Sydney S. Cohen and The National Organization, thanking Mr. Cohen and the Legislative Committee for their efforts in the repeal of the 5 per cent film rental tax, and commending exhibitors all over the country for their assistance in sending letters and telegrams to this end. Every theatre owner present signed a contract for Official Urban Movie Chats of The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America, and adopted a resolution unanimously endorsing the official screen organ of the M. P. T. O. A. The following officers were elected: President, Charles Stern, Bangor; VicePresident, Wendell Hone, Presque Isle; Treasurer, William McPhee, Oldtown; Secretary, A. S. Goldman, Bangor. The Executive Committee elected was as follows: William Stitham, Chairman, Pittsfield; Wilbur Shea, Lubec; Charles Rush, Millinocket: Charles Uson, Old Orchard; Richard Flora. Caribou; J. Harriman, Portland; C. Hanson, Camden; Robert King. Ellsworth. Marcus Loew Is Elected President of Metro MARCUS LOEW was elected on Friday to the presidency of Metro Pictures Corporation, and William E. Atkinson chosen vice-president. Mr. Atkinson, hitherto general manager of the company, will continue to serve in that capacity in addition to holding office as vice-president. The results of the election disprove the recent rumors in the industry of Metro’s merging with any other picture company. The Metro policies and organization will undergo no change. Plans for production and distribution for the next six months are, Metro officials state, complete; and will in no way be affected by the recent election of officers. with him in such a revolutionary proposition as he was about to announce. He then placed before the men throughout the country and the new men in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco what is declared by the Wid Gunning organization to be “the greatest selling innovation of practical benefit that has ever been established in the film industry.” “As Mr. Gunning sees it,” the official statement declares, “the Wid Gunning machine is actually and in fact only, a selling and exploitation service, charging a percentage of the gross for its operation. “There is naturally in such an organization a certain amount of fixed overhead, such as branch office accounting, shipping and office routine. Mr. Gunning has. definitely segregated his productive and nonproductive forces so that the managers and salesmen do not now have the burden of the accounting particularly placed upon their shoulders, but these men whose work it is to sell film are definitely instructed that the selling of films is their chief and specific duty. “In addition to the segregating of these departments in this simple and fundamentally correct manner, Mr. Gunning has given all his sales managers and salesmen a straight percentage proposition, which gives them an opportunity to earn two and three times what any film company has ever paid its salesmen and sales managers. Mr. Gunning is continuing the payment of the managers’ and salesmen’ salaries and expenses, paying these sums now as a drawing account against their percentage, so that the men, under the new system, have everything which they had in the past with the additional incentive of an exceptional chance to make very large sums, providing they work in a manner that brings in returns. “Mr. Gunning has arranged a sliding scale of percentages paid direct to the sales workers without any deduction of branch or home-office overhead charges of from eight to fifteen per cent. Anyone who knows anything of the workings of film sales will quickly realize that this is a very large percentage for selling.” In discussing the organization’s official announcement with members of the trade press Mr. Gunning declared, “ My reason for adopting this method of operation is that I am endeavoring to give the highest incentive to the salesmen who sell, for, in all events, they are actually the men who do the work and . maintain the necessary contact between the real creator of motion picture productions and the theatre owner. Essentially, what I am doing is placing the men who are selling in my organization in business for themselves and doing this in the most attractive form possible. “ It seems to me that this is a needed innovation in the film business. In practice, this method of operation actually permits the exhibitor to know that when he spends his dollar with a salesman for Wid Gunning, Inc., that he is actually doing business with that salesman and the real creator of the picture and nobody else. From a hard-headed business viewpoint I think it is splendid business for producers to have me paying salesmen so liberally since, while the salesmen will make more money than they would be able to in a position on a straight salary basis, at the same time, if the salesman is making more money for himself, he is, by his added effort, making more money for the producer.” “ Wid Gunning has always insisted,” says a statement of the new policy from Robert E. Welsh of the Gunning organization, “that the film business must get to the fundamentally right basis of paying only those who actually contribute to the success of the film business. He feels that this new arrangement does this and the men in the field tell him that it does if generously. His entire force is relieved of the responsibility of the branch and home-office overhead, is permitted to draw regular weekly payments and expenses, just as in the past, and yet they receive a very large percentage on every sale made. Thus we feel that Wid Gunning has put into actual practice a plan of operation which he has for years advocated as being the needed step to provide a proper and definite incentive towards better selling and better pictures. When the real creator receives a real return for the making of a really successful picture, that creator is, in every instance, willing to take that money and put it into the making of better pictures for the future. The dollars thus handled will not roll into the New York sink holes but will actually keep in circulation for the betterment of the film industry, and the film industry is still sadly in need of intelligent betterment.” Charges Violation of the N. Y. Censorship Law The New York State Attorney General’s office will probably proceed shortlv against a motion-picture firm located in Buffalo, which is alleged to have used the same serial number and state seal, given by the State Motion Picture Commission, time after time, on pictures other than the one which was submitted to the commission, and licensed. Arthur E. Rose, deputy Attorney General, has the matter in hand, and admitted that he expected to shortly go to Buffalo in connection with the matter.