The New York State Exhibitor (1933)

THE NEW YORK STATE EXHIBITOR 3 The New York State EXHIBITOR Issued on the Tenth and Twenty-fifth by Jay Emanuel Publications, Inc. 219 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 1600 Broadway, New York City Washington, D. C. Jay Emanuel Publisher Paul Greenhalgh Herbert M. Miller Advertising Manager Managing Editor Circulating in New York State and Northern New Jersey. Subscription: $2.00 for one year; $3.00 for two years. Publishers also of THE EXHIBITOR, of Philadelphia, and THE NATIONAL EXHIBITOR. Official organ of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of Buffalo Zone. All editorial and business communications should be addressed to the Phila¬ delphia office. Vol. 5, No. 22 July 25, 1933 Kill Exclusives IT IS generally conceded that exclusives have heard their death knell sound as far as this industry is concerned. In October, last year, when protests against this practice were just beginning, this department said: “The exclusive idea must be nipped in the bud; it must be barred from the practices of the industry. “There are some who will say that nothing can change the distributors’ and producers’ minds ex¬ cept the box office. Then in this case the wait will be costly. The producers and distributors will find that the public, in addition to the trade, itself, does not want exclusives. “ . . . the exclusive run has no place in this industry. “As long as it exists, this department, for one, will not stop fighting it.” Exclusives, the trade hears, will be restricted only to those situations where they have been used as a part of proper business procedure, namely, that when one house of a handful in a town, or alone in a town buys product, with no subsequent run. The reason for banishment of exclusives is, as sug¬ gested above, one of the box office, not exhibitor protest. The public, apparently, refused to be bamboozled. So the idea, for the present at least, is dead. If it should come to life, this department is still fighting. No More Score Charges WHEN score charges were first introduced, the exhibitor was more or less confidentially advised that the electrics demanded it, that in a season or two, the idea would pass. A season or two later, executives began to predict that the year in question would mean the end of the score charge. 1933-1934 opens and practically all companies are unanimous that the score charge stays. Argument has been advanced that music on film has resulted in tre¬ mendous savings of overhead to the exhibitor, enabling him to dispense with the burden of a musicians’ payroll. Recording charges must stay, it is added. It is generally known that many companies do not obtain score charges from exhibitors in all territories. Why, then, it must be argued, should score charges be made on some deals if not on all? Those who do not pay score charges are getting the same so-called benefits of eliminated musicians as well as those who are paying score charges. Perhaps the fact that the exhibitor, since talkies, has an added burden in higher cost of shorts (features are shorter than during the silent regime), higher cost of features, increase in shopping on the part of movie¬ goers (the fixed theatregoing habits of silent days have vanished with sound) does not seem apparent to the home offices. The fight against the score charges should be brought to Washington. Retention of the score charges is noth¬ ing more than a high class racket. Both the M. P. T. O. A., headed by Ed Kuykendahl, president, and Allied are unanimous in their declaration of opposition to score charges. They deserve the sup¬ port of every exhibitor. Score charges should be banned. W h y Foreigns ? T A RECENT meeting of exhibitors, an issue arose that is of prime importance to theatremen everywhere. Why must American exhibitors be given foreign product of dubious quality to exhibit on their screens? In this category, such box office possibilities as “Vari¬ ety” or perhaps “Be Mine Tonight” should not be included. The exhibitor has no fault to find with a foreign production that lends itself to selling angles. Rather, he has a grievance against those companies who insist that the pictures be accepted as part of a con¬ tractual obligation even though the buying price is usually so low that it reflects what the company itself thinks of the product. Some companies, fortunately, do not insist on ex¬ hibitors playing foreign pictures. It is with the ones who do that the exhibitors quarrel. Home office executives admit the necessity for American distributors to handle foreign product on account of quota laws. Perhaps, then, home office executives of the same mind could answer the following questions: 1. Why must American exhibitors be penalized if American distributors are forced, through quota systems or political obligations, to buy foreign pictures? 2. Why must American exhibitors be forced to pay high prices for domestic pictures made ob¬ viously for foreign markets and which are handicaps as far as the American box offices are concerned? 3. Why must American exhibitors be forced to lose good will of their customers because contracts order them to play foreign pictures of less than mediocre quality? 4. Why should not the American exhibitors have privilege of cancellation of foreign pictures, outside of regular cancellation privilege? 5. Why force this type of product on the ex¬ hibitor at all?