Motion Picture News (Oct-Dec 1930)

58 Motion Picture News Showmen Ignore Dialogue Cuts By Chi Censors Chicago — New trouble between the Chicago board of censors and local distributors is brewing here over dialogue which has been ordered out by the board but which exhibitors, with increasing frequency, are failing to eliminate at showings. Legally the censors here have no authority to order deletions of dialogue or to censor it in any way, as the audible lines are given the same legal status as spoken lines on the stage, and no ordinance exists for the censoring of these. Distributors, however, have not made an issue of the matter, taking the attitude that if they did protest the censoring of dialogue it would be a simple matter for the censor board to get the required ordinance placed in the books. With this authority behind them, distributors believe, orders for dialogue cuts would soon become a far more serious problem than it is at present. Use Fader on Cuts Under the present system, when the censors ask a dialogue deletion the distributors send a registered letter to the exhibitor playing the picture advising him of the disapproved dialogue, and asking him to comply. The letter relieves the exchange of responsibility for what happens thereafter. Exhibs who comply with the censors' demands use the "fader" at the objectionable points, so that, while the picture continues, the spoken lines are made inaudible. Some exhibs also "varnish over" the sound track at the objectionable points, but inaccuracies in computing their position on the film, and comparable difficulties encountered with discs, result in slips which the censors are beginning to regard as deliberate. Many exhibs. too, ignore the exchange's instructions entifely. Complaints against exhibs who are playing pictures without the necessary permits are also increasing and result in plenty of aggravation over at the police building. Universal May Get New Building Chicago — Tentative plans for the completion of the Film Exchange building at Thirteenth St. and Wabash Ave. now indicate that the owners of the Universal Exchange building may take over the construction and operation of the proposed new building in the near future. This is indicated in a lease recently signed by the Universal exchange here, which stipulates that Universal will retain its present quarters until completion of the new exchange building, at which time it will move to the Thirteenth St. location. The lease implies that completion of the new exchange building is to he undertaken by the owners of the present Universal exchange building. Wabash Ave. — South {Continued from page 57) . Joe Fisher, associated for a time with the Essaness advertising department, is now editing a South Side community raq — a weekly. * * *' Tom North is vacationing after completing an assignment as short subject salesman for Pathe. * * * B. & K.'s Berwyn zuas knocked over for %221 on a busy Sunday night with 1,200 people watching a performance within twenty feet of the cashier's cage. * * * M. Van Praag, general sales manager of Advance Trailer, in town for the past week. * * * Lee Verschuur doing a snappy Chi page for "En-Ess-Ess" National Screen's monthly house publication. * * * It was the Chi Daily Neivs which promoted all those trailers asking the public to help cmt the unemploved with a snack of work. * * * Ludung Sussman is giving one-third of this zveck's gross at his Adclphi to relief work among the unemployed of the millionaire Rogers Park district. ATo foolm'. * * * Ted Levy, Filmack salesman, to New York for work and play. * * * Jonas Perlberg, formerly of the Englewood — and you name the rest — dickering with a circuit for a managership. * * * Max Grulke, manager of the Castle, up home in Wisconsin shooting ducks last week. The game wardens let him get back with more than his quota but it didn't do Max any good — they were all taken away from him by pals when he got to Chicago. Max ate in a Thompson's the night after. * * * Anws V Andy_at the first shozv at the StateLake Saturday morning. * * * Bennie Eisenberg and Ted Meyers, Universal city salesmen, given a country route last week. * * * De Forest moved to 1155 South Wahash last week. * * * Where was Frank Young at 8:30 P.M. on the night of October 24th, and why is Bill Brumberg so interested in the storv? KANE. Chi Being Shot Up Some More Chicago — The townspeople are getting a few of their infrequent glimpses of pictures in the factory stage this week. Sidney Lanfield, Fox director, arrived early in the week with cameramen and technicians to shoot exteriors for "Three Girls Lost," authored in three weeks by the youthful Bob Andrews of the Chi Daily News, in which paper the story ran serially. Shortly after. George Hill, M-G-M director, arrived to spot locales for a picture which will go into work here in the near future. Hill refused to disclose any information concerning the production other than that the scenario was by Frances Marion, his wife. November 1 , 19 3 0 Stars Palling on Chi Reporters; Want Leg Poses Chicago — "Movie folks," observed a reporter at the La Salle Street station the other day, "are altogether too numerous around here. They get in your hair." He glanced a little dejectedly at an assignment slip bearing an even dozen picture names. "If I was a guy without no imagination," he remarked, "the sheet wouldn't get a story out of the batch of them. Hey, Harry," he yelled at a photographer who was preparing to shoot a smiling actress posed on the steps of a Pullman coach, "lay off that. If she won't climb up on a baggage truck and cross her legs she can wait till the fan mags come around for her picture." Among the transient luminaries this week were John Wayne of Fox's "Big Trail" cast, here for an opening day appearance at the Roosevelt ; Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire, former musical comedy folks, now of the films and here for a week at the Palace ; Irene Bordoni, just completing a week at the same theatre ; Stanley Smith, former juvenile support for Nancy Carroll, here to do a week's turn at the Oriental. Hollywood-bound was a group of foreign stars who will make German and French versions of "The Boudoir Diplomat" for Universal. They are Olga Tschechova, Tala Birrell, Ivan Petrovich, Andre Nicolle and Marcel de Garcin, and Mr. and Mrs. Johannes Riemann. Adolph Zukor was here to attend the seventh conference of Major Industries at the University of Chicago in mid-week, and Harry M. Warner also spent a few days in Chicago en route from the Coast to New York. Maurice Hi-Hat Sighs Irene, But Buddy Says Nay Chicago — France is accusing Maurice Chevalier of having donned the Hollywood high-hat, and is now declaring that one hundred million Americans can't be right about him, so Ashton Stevens, drama critic of the Herald-Examiner, quotes Irene Bordoni as tattling. Bordoni, Stevens says, now refers to Chevalier as her "one-time" favorite gamin. In the same breath the critic hastens to add a defense of the Frenchman contributed hv his nal. Ben Bernie, orchestra pet of the Bvfie'd's democratic dance room — the College Inn at the Hotel Sherman. "Bernie," relates Stevens, "recently gave Chevalier a 'bon voyage' night in Hollywood with a $10 cover charge and half a thousand applicants turned awav. More than $6,000 was turned over to Chevalier after ful deductions for expense, breakage, and interest on the bonds." "But the high-hatter," Bernie's story goes, "wouldn't take a cent for himself."