The Moving picture world (May 1922)

May 27, 1922 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 385 Five-Day Convention for Fox Field Men; Nine Super Specials Screened for Them SIXTY-NINE officials, executives, district and branch managers and special representatives of Fox Film Corporation are attending the ninth annual convention of the company which opened for a five-day session in May 15. William Fox is presiding w^ith the assistance of Winfield R. Sheehan, general manager, and R. A. White, general sales manager. Screen Nine Specials The convention body is meeting both at the New York studios. Tenth avenue at Fifty-fifth street, and at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The first three days of the meeting will be consumed with the screening of the nine super specials on the Fox program for 1922-23, among which are "Monte Cristo," "The Town That Forgot God," "Silver Wings," "Nero," "The Fast Mail," "A Little Child Shall Lead Them," another Harry Millarde special, "Lights of New York," and "A Fool There Was." The schedule for the coming season thus enhanced by this list of important super productions presents the most formidable array of pictures. Fox says, he has ever offered the American public. Thursday and Friday of the convention will be taken up with a discussion of sales and production policies for the immediate future. Frank Made Sales Head of Association W. B. Frank, who since last autumn has been assistant sales manager of Associated Exhibitors, became sales manager this week, by appointment of President Arthur S. Kane. Mr. Frank has the unique distinction of having risen from a place as field salesman to a desk in the home office, and finally to the head of a sales department, without ever having served as a branch or district manager. With his present appointment as sales manager he takes the post made vacant on Mr. Storey's return to Pathe, following his year's leave of absence. Flat Parcel Post Charge of One Cent Would Hurt Trade The moving picture industry will be hard hit if the plan suggested by Postmaster General Work for placing a flat charge of 1 cent on each parcel post package is carried into effect. Pointing out that the rates of postage now charged for this class of matter by no means cover the cost of handling and transportation, the postmaster general has laid before the Interstate Commerce Commis sion, the Joint Postal Commission and the House Appropriations Committee the necessity for making some provision for increasing the charges so as to make up some of the deficit of $100,000,000 a year now borne by the postal service. May Increase Pound Rates Outside of the mail order houses it is probable that no industry would be more seriously affected by the proposed charge than moving pictures. Practically every film sent by an exchange in the Washington territory to the theatres it serves is shipped both ways by parcel post, and this method of transportation prevails generally throughout the country. It is probable, however, that the plan finally adopted by the Post Office Department to make up this deficit will not stop with a charge of 1 cent on each package but will be an increase in the pound rates, which would make a greater difference in cost under this proposal. De Mille Gets Degree The honorary degree of Master of Arts will be conferred in absentia on Cecil B. De Mille by his alma mater, the Pennsylvania Military College, Chester, Pa., in June, acording to a message received by the producer from Col. Charles E. Hyatt, president of ihe college. The degree was awarded by the trustees of the college "in recognition of the producer's distinguished services in the field of dramatic art," to quote from the president's message. Music Tax {Continued from page 384) nearly thirty years of encouragement of the authors and composers. When it is heard — if it ever is — I doubt if any sane man would expect it to ever become law. The point in all this is that the so-called "music tax" simply forms a peg upon which oratory can be hung at convention after convention, and instead of the exhibitors' organization meeting the society upon a friendly basis, recognizing its rights under the law, and making such a deal for its entire membership as would save the society the great expense incident to making its collections under the present conditions it encourages its members to fight the society — to their loss and inconvenience. At the last convention it was suggested I believe, that the exhibitors' organization form some sort of a "clearing house" for music, do its own publishing, and a lot of that sort of "bunk." Nothing of the sort will be done, and nothing of the sort was ever in good faith intended or suggested to be done. Exhibitors' organizations have already tried "one sheets" and a lot of other related junk, all of which came to precisely nothing as far as service to the exhibitor was concerned. The exhibitors will no more publish music, or control any sort of a publishing business, than they will go into the making of their own pictures, accessories, or the publishing of their own trade paper. All proposals to do these things are just talk — revived at convention after convention, and amounting to pecisely nothing but a waste of time. But I do wish to discourage the exhibitors if. they desire to publish music; it might be well for them to give it a try, and possibly they could make a great success of it. Certainly the printers would welcome their effort — and most certainly the leaders in their theatres wouldn't play the junk that they would publish. This sort of thing has been tried before — another trial may be in order now — ■* and at least it might serve to clear up one mooted question, that one which is so persistently maintained by some exhibitors, to the effect that it is the publicity given music in their theatres which creates a demand for the printed copies. It might be well here to state that any such contention is, in the writers' opinion, just "bosh." Music was popular and sold in just as large quantities, before the motion picture theatre was ever dreamed of, and it will continue to be popular and sell in large quantities long after they are forgotten. For eight years and more the authors and composers have maintained one price level for licenses, ten cents per seat per annum. I know of nothing else that has not been increased in price. At the time I first entered info consideration of this matter I urged them to continue the same rate, and they did so, assuring exhibitors that it would not be raised for three years at least. The exhibitors, instead of appreciating decent treatment, met these proposals with such epithets as "robbers," "blackmailers," "thieves," "extortioners, etc., etc., ad. naseum. Their continued opposition has so increased the cost of the society's doing business, that it now seems to me in order that the license fee rate should be raised; in fact, I think it should be doubled, unless the exhibitors will now frankly face this situation, and their executives, after seven years of combatting the society, recognize the situation and make a trade for their entire organization. Sixty-three million dollars a month is spent for amusement in this country. The bulk of it is spent in motion picture theatres. Music constitutes, by the admission of exhibitors, forty per cent, of the value of their entertainment to the public. They pay less than one-tenth of one per cent, for the right to use it. It seems to me that two-tenths of one per cent, ought to be fair enough for forty per cent, of the service one is selling. Another little figment of the imagination of those who discuss this proposition before conventions should be discussed. That is their constant reference to "publishers" in connection with this matter. They damn the publisher up hill and down dale, yet the publisher is powerless if he would, to relieve them. .\s a matter of fact, the authors and composers of the country are no less critical of the publishers than the exhibitors, but on quite different grounds. They contend that the nublisher is altogether too patient in the protection of their rights, too inclined to be easy-going, entirely too considerate, and when the day comes that the counsel of the publishers is removed from this situation — ^when because of the continued ill-advised opposition of exhibitors the authors and composers reserve their performing rights when granting contracts to publishers — on that day the exhibitor will rue his shortsighted policy, for the author and composer will require him to pay something like a reasonable amount for the very valuable service rendered in constantly creating new compositions with which the exhibitor entertains his public. It seems to me, and I speak as much the friend of the exhibitor as of the publisher, that it is time to "get together" — time to stop this silly bickering and bluffing, which is only costing the exhibitor more money and in the long run avail him nothing; time to put this old time issue, which has long outlived its usefulness for purposes of propaganda upon the part of organizers, in its grave, and upon its tombstone inscribe the old Latin phrase, "Requiescat in pace."