The Moving picture world (January 1924-February 1924)

MoviKg Picture WORLD Founded j'n ltyOJ by J, P. Chalmers The Editor s Views WE heard an exhibitor grumbling in the corridor of the Film Building the other day. His plaint was this: "What do you know about it? The Whoozis Company is asking as much money for pictures this year as the Whatzis and the Wherezis companies! Ain't that nerve?" We passed the incident by until we heard a salesman for the Whoozis Company complaining the next day. His wail was in the same key: "How do they expect me to show results? Why, they are actually asking me to get prices as big as the Wherezis and Whatzis companies! And sometimes more. It can't be done. They are losing the exhibitors' good will." OF course the salesman quoted above was merely reflecting the attitude encountered among exhibitors. But in the words of salesman and exhibitor there is an indication of one of the most unfair twists of this muchly-twisted business. Suppose we had said to the exhibitor, "Yes, but aren't the Whoozis pictures WORTH AS MUCH — or more — this year? Haven't I heard you complaining that the Whatzis and Wherezis productions fell down?" You know his answer as well as we do. "That has nothing to do with it. I NEVER HAVE paid that money for Whoozis pictures and I'm not going to start." This attitude is directly unfair to many organizations, but eventually most unfair to the exhibitor. Any picture is worth its individual value_ at the moment to the exhibitor, regardless of his past habits with the organization offering it. When he fails to pay that price he is penalizing the ambitious "comer." . „ And the discouragement of "up and coming competition eventually wreaks its greatest harm on the customer. PATHE has scored a clever business stroke — and, incidentally, performed a good turn for the industry — in linking the Pathe News to the nation-wide balloting on the Bok Peace Award. Few subjects have received more first-page publicity in recent months than the Bok prize offer. That's the narrow-gauge view of it. The broader aspect is this: The Bok contest and the winning plan are certain to constitute a permanent page in history. That it has been found possible to tie the motion picture tangibly into this event is something for congratulation. Here is the sort of appeal that the exhibitor must weigh well and carefully. The yearning for international peace is deep — and universal. It isn't the sort of thing that is expressed visibly, and audibly. But it is there — in the hearts of the mothers, and the fathers. It is good to have the industry a part of anything that strives to answer that groping. UNIVERSAL has purchased the rights to a story by one of America's most prominent novelists, scheduled to appear next fall in a leading magazine. P. D. Cochrane was discussing the story with the author a few weeks ago. "Your title is very good for the story," he said, "but there are a number of reasons why it won't be the best possible for the picture." And he told him why. Did the author rear on his hind legs and belch denunciation against the commercial fillum men who would even suggest that his title wasn't THE only one? He did not. He replied: "Well, you give it a lot of thought from your angle and let me know the title you choose. We can get together." It's a shame to give you this incident in film history without due credit to the author involved. But he isn't within reach at the moment and we hesitate to use his name without permission. Some of the literary reviewers might spot these paragraphs and place the novelist's name on the black list as a spineless tool of those devastating motion pictures.