Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1922)

842 Motion Picture New A very large percentage of the population of this country will want to see these and our other “ better pictures.” That’s certain. Whether they will or not will depends upon — exploitation. Motion Picture News will do all it can — with its Exhibitors Service Bureau. We wish it occupied the entire book. And we’ll try and get the advertiser — that will be a millennium — to use his advertising pages to the same important end. Namely, exhibitor exploitation aids! Exploitation will spell the success of the business this year . * * * The Dollar Sign THE newspaper announcements that Mr. Hays is to receive a salary of $150,000 were speedily followed by a yarn that his life was to be insured for a mere matter of $2,000,000. All of which will suggest to the politicians everywhere new schemes for taxation and renewed efforts for censor boards with all the income and patronage they entail. And which will further convince the public mind in general that this business is a financial circus. . . . About the first step to be taken in the campaign of constructive publicity so sadly and so immediately needed is one that will take the dollar sign off our industrial door. And to replace it with the modest truth about the lowly financial size of this industry as compared with the giant industries of the world. Or, better still, to have the public mind gradually grasp the fact that our chief concern is not dollars but the responsible control of a certain agent whose real greatness consists in its ability to sway the minds and morals of one tenth of all this country’s population every day. * * * William Fox THE anniversary, this week, of the Fox Film Corporation brings out the fact that William Fox has been in this business for a matter of eighteen years. And a mighty interesting career it has been. One could pretty well write the story of the film business and miss nothing of its romantic revolutions by writing the story of William Fox. He has been constantly in the thick an» thin of it. Today his abilities and his indomitable in dustry are expressed better than we can tel them by the size and solidity of the Fox File Corporation with its large, modern and corr plete plant in New York and its well-establishe< domestic and foreign branches. He is a fighter, an independent first, last an< foremost; and this industry may never knov just how much it owes to William Fox it freedom from monopoly. In every tendency ii this dangerous and futile direction you coul( alwavs be sure of one opposing force — and tha was William Fox. You can still be as sure. He is a producer — in the true sense of tb word; and nothing illustrates this better thai the facts about the production of “ Over tb Hill.” It was he alone who dug up this burie( treasure of a theme. He read and reread an( even acted the story till a director saw it as b did. From that point on and as you see it toda; every bit of it expresses his showman’s intuitioi and guiding hand. We hope for — and there will be — more pic tures like “ Over the Hill ” from William Fox ;jc >jc Patience ! SPEAKING of stars’ salaries — as we did th other week — a film executive sends us ; i practical commentary, to wit; A super-salary, meaning a salary as high as th clouds, serves only to ruin the star and enrich th government. The star, let us say, gets a salary so high that th exhibitor cannot, at least does not, make money. H loses money. So does the distributing concern. Bot are sore, with all the soreness that losing money alwax excites. The star, after reaching an enviable positior goes tumbling swiftly down — and down. The star alone received a lot out of the super-salar contract. But the government steps in and takes mos : of it. So in the wind-up the star got less than half the sal ary and loses a good-will worth millions. And th distributor and exhibitor lose heavily. Only the government wins. It may seem patriotic to foster super-salaries. Bi it destroys business and prosperity, from which a taxes come. How much better that the star should receive a sa ary so that all, including the star, may make a profitand the star, in addition, may continue to build u good-will ! Wm. A. Johnston.