Publix Opinion (Jun 13, 1930)

PUBLIX OPINION, WEEK OF JUNE 13ru, 1930 OUTLINES SCOPE OF PARAMOUNT PRODUCTIONS (Continued from Page Five) will do'to this company. The time has passed of passing it to the ex-hibitor, and if it is not good, the exhibitor kicks back. That is over, because we carry our own bag. We are now at the point where I think we will consume over 40 per cent of our own company’s output this coming year, so you can well understand what bad pictures would do to Paramount Publix. There is one more Harold Lloyd coming along and the Two Black Crows in ‘‘Anybody’s War.” We ran that in Atlantic City, and it is much better than the first one. It gets away from the serious side and is a blackface “23% Hour Leave’’ thing. It will do a lot of business. Then the ‘“‘Spoilers’’ with Gary Cooper, and “Follow Thru” —that is finished. It has Buddy Rogers, Nancy Carroll and Zelma O’Neal. Then the four Marx brothers again. ‘‘Monte Carlo’’ and the next Chevalier picture, ‘‘The Little Cafe,’ by the man who made Vagabond King. I read the script and it is down to earth stuff. While ‘‘Love Parade” and ‘‘Vagabond King’’ served our purpose tremendously in Europe, this picture is being kept down to earth. “Manslaughter,” you remember, was made by DeMille and it will be a great talking picture. For the Children Then “Fighting Caravans. ”’ There was a debate to make over the ‘‘Covered Wagon” as a sound picture, but we were afraid to do it over. We saw some shots of “FRKighting Caravans,’ and you will see it in the trailer. It looks like it will have size. Another thing the theatre department insisted on was that the company make pictures to bring the children back to the theatre. These social dramas have.hurt our childrens business, and while they are trying to do good, the most important thing is to get product out that will bring children back to the theatre. For that reason we are making ‘‘Tom Sawyer,” | fort. which will bring Jackie Coogan back in his first talking picture, and ‘Huckleberry Finn” with Durkin is heads up. While ‘Follow Thru” played as a musical comedy in New York, it is not a back stage story; it is a golf story, and it is in color. We have seen the shots of it and we have kept it away from back stage things entirely. ‘“Heads Up’’ . isa pirate story. It is not a stage story at all. MR. KATZ REVIEWS PICTURE PRODUCT bear in mind the variety of the ee s “Rose of the Rancho”’ a Ane Cooper. It is a western story in which they are able to give a slight musical flavor. ‘‘The Scarab Murder Case’ is good; “The Right to Love” is another. Then another kid picture, “Skippy,’ and it is a worth while efIt is taken from the comic strip Skippy: Then Chevalier in a Lubitsch production, ‘‘The Ladies’ Man.’’ ‘‘Let’s Go Native.”’ I saw that and itis a riot. It has about as much story value as Cocoanuts—none. But a lot of laughs. ‘‘Rodeo Romance” will be next, with Nancy Carroll. And then the Byrd picture. I have seen a good bit of it and it is not a scenic. It has a moving story running through it. A very thrilling thing, and Floyd Gibbons is doing the announcing through the picture. Those of you who have heard him on the radio know what he can do on a thing like this. It is one of those he-man, red meat things, and I have read his description of the plane as ae flies over the pole. The Byrd Epic It is very effective, and I should not be surprised to see this picture play to more people than any picture has yet played to. It has had two years in the making; has more possibilities than any picture has ever had. The picture will be ready for its initial showing the same week Byrd arrives in. New York, and I really look for Par amount’s biggest gross on that one. Then “Grumpy,” which was made as a silent years ago, and there is a lot of romance in it. Then, of course, the typical ‘“‘star’’ pictures, Rogers, Bow, Jack Oakie, and down the line. | The only reason I drifted off on these subjects and’a little description of them, was to emphasize the point I made that.we have our fists in the making of this product from our theatre viewpoint, and as I read it, you will notice the variety of the product. You don’t see the mistakes of last year, operas and back-stage things, and we have things so flexible, that if they get fed on Westerns, out they come. % Paramount Outstanding | The next thing is about Paramount as compared with the other companies. I think Paramount has more stars applicable to talking pictures than all of the other companies combined. It is interesting to look around at some of the other producing companies, who had a jump on this business, and note how few if any great personalities came across out of their production. You played their product, this year, and know those that were good and otherwise. | Just as the policy has been in the | A New Star | Then we have ‘‘Morocco’’ with Gary Cooper, and this German girl, Marlene Dietrich. She has a lot of IT. I don’t know how many of you saw Janning’s first picture, but she talks opposite Jannings. She speaks perfect English and she steals the picture from Jannings. She is opposite Gary Cooper, so you don’t have to ‘sell a new personality in the first instance. “T™he General’ is another hit. “Wine, Wives and War” is the heading of this picture. It is the effect of war, and a good one. Then the “Sea God. ”? George Abbott will direct it. It will be the first sea ‘picture in sound and talk. They will do ‘Dancing Mothers” -over again, and it will make a fine dialogue picture. This is the first sex picture I have come to in the book, and as I go along, try to 4 theatre department to fit its youth, so your company is well coordinated on young talent. Nota star shows up in New York with a little talent, that you do not find Paramount moving in fast. When you look over this stock company, it reads like a ‘‘Who’s Who” in the theatre business. Stars Came Firaug) : I don’t know anybody loose that you wish the company had. Also, I don’t know of any star that has been taken on recently by any of the other companies that you wish Paramount had taken on. The interesting thing is, you saw Oakie come through; Jeanette MacDonald, Chevalier, Stuart Irwin, Morgan Farley, young Phillips Holmes, Stanley Smith, Colbert, Harry Green, Ginger Rogers, Frank Morgan are all great, and I am just touching on some of the stageent jobs, different from what they ~ people. The point I am making is that coordination is going on with all of the business, and the appreciation of the studio of what it must do to keep the theatres going. Well, now, as I said at the outset, Iam on this trip purposely for no specific business—just to meet you and have you meet, through me, our Home Office. I want to repeat a few things I stated before. I want you to feel at all times as sincerely as I know how to express it to you, that your Home Office is appreciative and does appreciate that contribution you make, big or small; that they have the greatest faith and confidence and respect for you. Home Office Regards They believe you are the best lot of fellows that ever existed anywhere. Every boy up there wishes he could come down here and face you as I am doing, and I know they would tell you just exactly what I am saying; and all that we ask of you in return is that you repose in us that same confidence that we extend to you. You believe we are the greatest lot of fellows that exists everywhere, just as we believe you are. You have the same faith in us that we have in you. Be as patient with us as we are trying to be with you. When you request something of New York and it does not happen just like that (snap of fingers), when you request an expenditure, remember maybe 1561 theatres are requesting the same expenditure, and we must organize properly. We have no well of money; our expenditures must be made out for a good year, intelligently, and we must know what to expend next year, and we have 1500 _ theatres to do it for. This delay isn’t because we didn’t get your message. Your S. O. S. message gets to us pretty quickly. It is just a matter of judgment, whether or not, at the time, we shall spend money in Hope, Arkansas, or Fort Kent, Maine. So I ask that you bear with us for these reasons. Now, in conclusion, I am very happy to meet with you, even for this little time, and I have hopes that when and as we get this new stuff absorbed that we have in front of us now, 1 shall be able to come down here twice a year and get to know you a little better each time, and with each official trip, be able more intimately to discuss things with you. Dallas Highlights May 21, 1930 We tried for a year or two to establish the name Publix, so that it might of itself and within itself spell quality. We tossed a lot of money into the business on the theory that we might not get a return for several years, but that we might bring about a feeling that Publix really and essentially represented quality, that the investments would be well worth while, and that this company would extend and grow in ratio to its performance and discharge of its obligations. We are in business all over again with each change of program in each individual theatre and in each individual town. When you think of your fellows in New York, your Dembow, Bill Saal, Lewis Schneider, and all the names you hear out of New York, remember that is the same group of fellows I found when I got there four and a half. years ago; most of them in differ were in at the beginning. All that has happened is that they have been shifted and put into a type of thing that I felt fitted them better and that they might work in better, but they are still. there doing a great job. Only Two Changes I got a real thrill yesterday in New Orleans, for example, when I found in the acquisition of the Saenger Circuit, in the year that has elapsed, there have only been two managerial changes in that whole circuit, and in talking with Louie this morning, he tells me there have only been six in this entire division. I know when I bring that, story back to New York and tell the boys in the home office the reverse of what I am telling you, namely, that) the same group of boys that started out in the field with this business are the same group of boys that are going to carry it on and develop it and develop with it, the boys in the home office will get the same fine emotion and feeling that I have from that knowledge. If I have one specific thing to urge you managers of theatres, it is just exactly this; that you have a fine patience, willingness to be certain and sure whatever change in your theatre, you are going to bring out and develop man-power for the further growth of this company. And to the District Managers and Division Managers particularly, I go on record publicly that I have no patience and won’t have any patience with that particular District Manager or Division Manager who in turn won’t exercise the fullest human understanding and human patience in the development of his man-power. Faith in Manpower I have a very selfish objective in all of this, because we sit in New York, thousands of miles away from the center of action of these territories, and would be of no service and could render no service unless that same feeling permeated throughout the field so that we in turn can go home each night comfortably feeling that throughout our organization everybody is glad to be with us and everybody is for us and everybody is going to carry that part of his load willingly, conscientiously and happily. Without that we can not do our job, I know. With that, I am not disturbed about our present load, I have no apprehension about it at all, and I am encouraged to stimulate the company’s activities far beyond its present state. When I talk about your patience more or less, let me be a bit specific. Large organizations are presumed to have all kinds of red tape; that is, for the fellow out in the field, and I can thoroughly understand it. the days when I ran a given theatre like you, not quite as nice as most of them you have. You want something for your theatre, maybe a booking change, or maybe a request from the maintenance department, it might be any one of many things, and when you don’t get it like that, I know the tendency is to think unkindly about this bugaboo, New York. Let me picture something to you to carry with you every time that occurs. \ Be Patient Every time you are making a request just try to think that maybe fifteen hundred and sixty other theatres are making that same request, or a similar request, probably at the same I have not forgotten time. If we had the Federal Reserve Bank to draw on we still couldn’t answer every request just as quickly as it is made, because we haven’t. the man-power, We can not carry sufficient man-power to answer every request just at the moment it is made, and so, sometimes, we must forego some of the things. I agree with you, for the best interests of your given theatre, that it ought to happen right then and there. But sometimes, we must forego that. I purposely gave you all the figures in the beginning so that I could get to this situation. Each one of you who thinks one hundred per cent of your theatre all of the time—each one of you should think one hundred per cent of your theatre— must remember that you are all a part of a great big business. In the back of your mind must lurk this thought, that our job funda ‘mentally in New York is to return a proper return on this total capital invested and to give to that portion, each quarter and each six months, a higher general level than it had previously. If we accomplish that, then we in turn are discharging our greatest obligathat we give the tion, namely, stockholders of our enterprise, people who invest their money with us, and place the trusteeship of that investment upon us, a proper return and a proper respect for the confidence they express when they put up securities and give us the money with which to carry on this business. Help Wall Comics’ | So, if you will exercise just a little bit of patience with us about that point, Iam sure you will find that in a natural, normal and organized manner, every reasonable aid and every reasonable help that you need for the better conduct of your theatre will normally and naturally flow to you. Every one of your requests are taken very seriously. I personally read every district manager’s letter that is written every week, and therefore I read about a hundred of them. I personally read every bit of the entire office correspondence and I get copies of all that falls around. I am not trying to impress upon you the amount of work I do, but rather to give you a picture that we, in the home office, are diligently interested and tied into almost every last detail of what takes place in this operation. K q i All Working Hard | iy I use a trite phrase around the home office, namely, that we don’t |run this business from a golf course; neither do your boys in the home office run their business from a golf course. They are working hard. I can assure you they are doing and putting in at least as many hours as any man in this room; I can assure you that vacations are a kind of un known quantity as yet, around the home office. Only last week before I left, at the last cabinet meeting, I had to do a very unpleasant task, that of telling the home office boys that there would be no vacations this summer in New York. There are a lot of things I would rather have said — than that, but with all we have just taken on, you can well understand why we need everybody close to the wheel. I am merely trying to give you, if I can, a picture of those boys there, what they mean to you and how they are really trying to be a specific and ‘|definite aid in each and every one of your problems. Most of those boys, as I have grown right out from you, and you, and you. That is where they are coming from, so (Continued on Page Seven) said before, N te * OI I OE a Ee En See. eT Pee STE Oe Sak ae ad