Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS 29 OH, ITS AN INTERESTING LIFE! Punctuated by GEORGE D. PROCTOR of say, sixty, theatres within six months. The pictures will be known as "Broadway Star Features." SURVEYING the week with the cold, judicial air of that wellknown institution, the cash register, it would seem that old Father Time is soon to ring up another year. The glad Yule-tide has come and gone. Others have dilated on that fact by and large. Now a brand new chunk of Time, 365 days strong, confronts the motion picture business. Time is indeed golden and endowed with wings in this industry. Fortunes are being made quicker in the motion picture business than in any other legitimate occupation. Lose but a little time and some unsleeping competitor may beat you to the golden opportunity. Little more than a year ago the man would have been considered a hopeless optimist who would have said that motion pictures would have made the strides they have. Who would have been brave enough to predict pictures actually crowding the legitimate right in Times Square, the few feet of earth that make the theatrical center of the country. But pictures now are crowding the legit and the legit is moving over to make room for 'em. Take the most optimistic prediction which sounds reasonable for the coming year and add fifty per cent. That is my idea of what pictures will do in the next twelve months. The way in which the industry is progressing even the less meritorious firms are going to get by with profits comparatively large. But the people who deserve the credit and the money, and who often get both, the Rollo books notwithstanding, are the people who are crowding every nerve to aid and uplift. They are the people who are making good pictures, the folks who are conducting their business on sound principles, the folks who do not connive at trash, but steadily aim at all that is highest and best. More power to 'em. All of which may be construed as a clumsy way of saying "Happy New Year." A combine has been made by the theatrical firm of Cohan and Harris and the Kinemacolor Company of America. Cohan and Harris will furnish the plays and the theatres. They will put pictures next summer in the houses they control, using black and white as well as color pictures. This deal was put through, it is understood, after Cohan and Harris had dickered unsuccessfully with several other motion picture firms. Echoes drifting in from Ohio show that the censors there are having trouble among themselves. J. A. Maddox, chairman of the censors, handed in his resignation last Saturday to the Industrial Board. No reason is given out, a fact significant in itself. Mr. Maddox has been in the motion picture business in Columbus so he may return to his place. His successor has not yet been appointed. With his face bearing the tan of sunny Florida, Frank V. Beal strode into our town recently. Frank was down where the breezes blow soft and FRANK V. BEAL— THAT'S ALL sensuous, producing pictures for, Tampa Films, Inc., but returned to see the festivities attendant upon the exhibition of the picture he produced, "The Inside of the White Slave Traffic." Frank, by the way, was formerly head producer with the Selig Polyscope Company, so he acknowledges. The Vitagraph Company of America announces that soon after the first of the year a big Times Square theatre will be opened as the Vitagraph Theatre. Most likely the Criterion, as rumor has been very strong concerning this deal for some time. Here will be shown the big Vitagraph features, of five or more reels, now being produced, before their general release. The Vitagraph Company, it dawned upon me some time ago, has hit upon the ideal method of procedure — to produce big pictures and own its own chain of theatres. I understand that, if this present deal is successful, the Vitagraph company will have a chain Incidentally Vitagraph will soon put out a new brand of comedies. Charles Feature Abrams, who has been selling Great Northern Special Features since the flood, took his pencil in hand the other day and computed that he has sold more than 5,400,000 feet of film. Incidentally, Charlie gave away nice little gold pieces for Christmas presents to all his employees. Chester Beecroft, press agent and advertising manager for the General Film Company, is in Chicago on a business trip. Joe Brandt, the peerless press agent of the Universal, has returned from Europe. Mr. Exhibitor, take note. Taking testimony in the suit of P. A. Powers against the Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Carl Laemmle, involving the Horsley stock, has been continued till January 6. On that day hearings will be held before Referee Morgan J. G. O'Brien at 2 Rector street. Maurice B. Seltzer has just taken charge of the advertising department of the American Theatre Curtain and Supply Company, manufacturers of Radium Gold Fibre screens. He was formerly connected with the S. H. Rosenheim advertising agency of St. Louis. The George W. Dillingham Publishing Company has closed a contract with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company to produce "Traffic in Souls" in book form. Eustace Hale Ball, Marathon novelist, short story and scenario writer, will write the book. Albert Blinkhorn gave all his little playmates in his office a "Christmas box" on the twenty-fifth. This is English for an extra week's salary. The souvenir program to be auctioned at the Screen Club ball should sell for a handsome sum this year. Kessel and Bauman have already started the fun with a bid of $1,000.