Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1922)

605 January 21, 1922 min1 linn' |nHMI,|.H.»u.;....|,,.n|.nnn»,1|.|M,M,. .............. iiMimini.n'ii.iimiiimimMiii.mm immimii..iimmmii...iiimii.iini The Star Theatre Lays 10 to 1 and Loses E i Wifflnm.i.i .111 iiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiii.miimiiir THE STAR THEATRE, Grayslake, III, submits a reply to a questionnaire of Famous Players-Lasky, venturing odds ofio to 1 that it would not see print. We will, with pleasure, answer the Star theatre’s query as to why, in the series of “Seeing It Through” letters from exhibitors, no mention is made of the prices paid by theatres for pictures. The reason should be apparent. The writers did not submit any price figures. Herewith, in full, is the Star theatre’s letter : In reply to questions put by Famous Players, I will make the following answer : Question No. 1. What is the outlook regarding future business conditions in your locality ? The conditions in Northern Illinois rural agricultural sections have been about the same for the past eighteen months. And it does not appear that there will be anything for the betterment in the near future. The exhibitors are outcasts in the field, they have no friends in the trade papers. While the support of the trade papers comes from producers and distributors, yet without the patronage from the exhibitors (circulation) the trade papers would have to go out of business. The trade papers have been shouting increasing better times when they must have known that there has been no improvement. Just last week Fox Film Corp., asked of me $17.50 for pictures which I paid $15 for in 1919 in the height of good times. This is a town of 600 population. It looks at present that the exhibitors have only one friend and that is Carl Laemmle of Universal, he offers them pictures at living prices instead of trying to mop up a few dollars more from where he knows they cannot come and still let the main support of the industry live. Laemmle is the only producer who displays the slightest bit of confidence in those with whom he does business. Question No. 2 — How will such conditions affect your prices? Prices must remain the same, 15 and 22 cents in order to buy pictures worth while, for it is the pictures that the people pay to see. If the patronage does not increase or the rental prices lower, by July 1st, 25 per cent of theatres now running will have to close. The question of presentation or orchestra does not bother our class of theatres. That takes care of question 4 and 5. Question 6 — What is the general sentiment of your public regarding big productions ? Big productions are well received, if not offered too frequently and the people are willing to pay slightly advanced prices. Question 7 — Have you advanced your admission prices on special productions and with what results? Prices have been advanced and with intensive advertising extra people were brought in and perhaps a little more money made. But really special productions are too high. For instance, United Artists offered me “Why Down East” for $200 (in town of 600), also demanding that two of Griffith’s flivvers be contracted. Then they withdrew the offer all-together. That shows something of the integrity of the socalled producers. Question No. 8 — Newspapers are the best advertising medium. Questions 9, 10, 11 — Do not concern small theatres. Comments — The motion picture industry is due for the greatest shaking up that any large institution has experienced in all times. Our trade papers are continually shouting about being attacked continually, and yet these papers seem so blind that they cannot see the reason. I will give $25 to anyone giving me the name of any industry in which there is so little confidence displayed towards the buyers of the product as there is in the motion picture industry. And I state that the exhibitors are the buyers of the product. Without the exhibitor, the box office, the whole industry would go flat over night. We buy these pictures and put them over at our own risk and expense. An exchange does all it can, to hamper the exhibitor. In the first week in December I contracted for the Sheik, giving $35 for two days, paid it at the time of contracting, to be shown on January 1 and 2, when the films came it came C. O. D., causing me to tie up $70 plus advertising and other expense before I had a chance to show it. To date I have not had a refund and if it is as slow coming as usual it will be Feb. 1 before I again get that money back. If that isn’t the rottenest way of doing business, and the best means of creating discord between distributor and exhibitor, I will give up the job. Confidence — Producer distributors know nothing about it. Why is this business not conducted like any other business? There may be some crooks in the exhibitors rank, but why place the honest men with the crooks and treat the whole raft of them as crooks? Why do the exchanges not extend the customary ten or thirty days credit to reputable exhibitors? Because it is a lack of confidence so necessary in any business. Why do exhibitors go from exchange to exchange with their backs to the wall for fear someone will find out what they are paying for pictures? Like thieves in the night ! Why is it that not once in a year, or not even the once you see a line in a trade paper about what this or that theatre paid for a picture? Motion Picture News who is just now running a series of letters from .exhibitors makes sure that such a line does not appear in the printed letters. That is what the exhibitors are interested in, what the exhibitors like to know and want to talk about. The trade papers which take up the talk of confidence will not only make a hit with the exhibitors, but will be doing the industry the greatest amount of good which can possibly be accomplished. This article is going to various trade papers, as well as Famous Players, and it is ten to one it will never get into print. Now we’ll see how many of the trade papers are cowards. Respectfully, THE STAR THEATRE, Grayslake, 111. Coast Against Censors ( Continued, from page 598) most beloved public men in San Francisco, in a tribute to Thomas H. Ince said : “If a man could have looked forward twenty-five years ahead and could have looked into the future as far as man’s eye could see, and prophesy what the moving picture industry would develop into, and has developed into, he would have been regarded as a dreamer. It follows, therefore, that man’s foresight is not as good as his hindsight, for if it were, we might all have been Thomas Ince’s pioneers in this wonderful amusement feature of the day. “Someone said — I don’t know who — speaking of the effects of people, ‘If I were permitted to write the songs of people, I would not care who made their laws,’ emphasizing, by that, the important effect upon the nature of the character of people of the amusements and entertainments that were given to them. There is nothing in the world today that attracts the American people and all people so much as moving pictures. I regret that Mr. Ince is not here. He is a man of enterprise, a man of genius, a financier — and a pioneer, as it were, in territories that have as yet to be developed.” Adverting to the subject of censorship, the Senator said : “The moving picture industry is in its infancy, but I just want to emphasize this, and I am going to close, because I have to ; there is a responsibility resting upon those who control the motion picture industry in this country and in the world. If they want to have no censorship, they must clean house, they must uphold the morals of those whom they employ, and they must only produce those things that will have an elevating and an ennobling influence upon the people, and not things that will have an opposite effect. “That has been the tendency of today, and I think will be of the future, but don’t rest in any false security. The future of this industry, and the right to operate it as you desire, depends upon the judgment that is exercised by the men who control it. and I predict and hope that in San Francisco this industry will thrive and prosper, and that the day will come when there will be no criticism not only of the pictures, but of the people that are employed therein.”