Motography (1912)

252 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. VII, No. 6. The Universal Film Manufacturing Co., 1 Union Square, New York, offers: Bison, Powers, Rex, Imp, Nestor, "Animated Weekly" (till Gaumont takes it over to the Film Supply crowd in a little while), Ambrosia. Itala, Champion. An effort is being made to revive the Gem and Victor, which may join the "Universal." Now we'll look at the men behind. In the same • ncicr that the films have fallen in the foregoing paragraphs we find these men of the Film Supply : Raver, Grey, Hutchinson. Hite, Aitken, Blache, Magie, Prieur, ( )es. And back of Universal there are : Bauman, Powers, Swanson, Laemmle, Horsley and Dintenfass. I am told that some of these men have sold outright to the Universal, a closed corporation which includes in Yale Boss, in Edison Films. its officer list Bauman, Powers, Swanson and Laemmle, as president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. Take your choice. You are a film man and I'm not. But they do say that Carle Laemmle is getting hump-backed lugging his lawyer around in these hurry-up days. % % 5JI Please don't confuse the Mutual Film Corporation, with the Film Supply Company. The Mutual is strictly an exchange proposition. The Film Supply is for the manufacturing group of independents. He * * ■ It will take money to swing this split in the independent ranks— lots of money. I'm glad to know that the outsider will have a chance to get in and that money will make better films. Better films is the cry of the land. The exhibitor will glory with his public in even improvement. It should. not fall to me to take sides, and I don't mean to. I've been so far from most of the makers that they all look alike to me. But a goat has its preference, and I'm inclined to. thosefellows who know what the West' is., like and what .the West likes. I want to see commendable things hammered through to a successful conclusion, and when I know that the busi ness motives are as sound as the men themselves, I like to watch any contest that promises for the betterment of the film game. The present scrap was inevitable. The men instigating it were trying to play a square game. The old Sales Company served a useful purpose, but it outlived its usefulness the minute it started to play "hog" with any one of its individual members. I couldn't stick along on the outside of the film business if I didn't try to make the best of the conditions as I find them. I can't make the thing over. If I hadn't contributed scores of suggestions that have been kicked and cuffed and lambasted, only to be taken up and caressed and ctiddled a little later on, I would join the Sales Company right away. It is ready to receive the dead ones. ^ ^ ^ There may be a reconciliation. I look for one, because the film business is logically a closely affiliated proposition. Inasmuch as there is no open announcement of price-cutting, there must be excuse for a subterranean arrangement between the two warring independent factions. I have frequently said that the shrewdest men in the world were in control of filmmaking. Two factions among the independents will improve film quality, if the money holds out. This disturbance can mean one thing for sure — more outside money will get in and it will take more money to improve the films. The same argument would hold with the licensed crowd, but they don't need more money. If they want to chuck from $10,000 to $100,000 into a film subject, they send the janitor into the vault with his scoop, and out comes the coin. On the other hand, if they want to ram through a mushylot at little expense, the General Film Company must take it, and complaints count for naught. One thing commends the Film Supply Company in my eyes particularly. I am told that it is not requiring exclusive contracts with the exchanges. It confirms my good opinion of that western spirit which has always been found willing to give and take. >fc H= sjs Julius A. Leggett, in his suit against the Vitagraph Company, is making a record of somethingmost film men have known for a long time, namely, that the maker got lugs of money for advertisements that appear in regular releases. He cites the case of the American Tobacco Company advertisement in the Jeffries, Johnson fight pictures at $25,000; the Wm. Wrigley, Jr., Company, which agreed to pay $15,000 for a film that showed a near view of a little girl taking a piece of Spearmint from the wrapper. Leggett wants $26,000 for commissions on these and other contracts of like kind which he claims to have landed. * • * * For a long time we have been threatened with a limited nurhber of strictly "educational" film exchanges where the demand for such subjects might be satisfied. About five exchanges are needed. This talk about not reaching the public will continue indefinitely unless film exchanges are accessible to those theaters which will be confined to the high-brow show. There is a lucrative business. for not less than a hundred motion picture theaters which will confine their programs to educational, scenic, scientific and travel pictures, interspersed with an occasional comic or such masterpieces as Selig's "Columbus," or Edi