Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1944)

December 2, 1944 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW W elcome Diff erence It was a well known United States Senator talking and what he said added up to this: For the first time in more years than he could recall, the motion picture industry top men were in Washington for something other than defending their industry or asking for something. He was referring to the magnificent Humanitarian Award Dinner the Variety Clubs tendered to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. That Senator was absolutely correct. We cannot recall (and we've been around this business since 1909), when the industry was in so favorable a limelight and seated side-by-side with the top men of our government. The picture of that dais should hang in the office of every executive in our industry. It should behoove the industry to offer a round of applause and a vote of thanks to the Variety Clubs for the opportunity thus provided for the industry to be so favorably situated as they were last Friday night. Never forget that in all the strife and keen competition of our business, those twenty-four Variety Club Tents are "The Heart of Showbusiness" — a phase of our industry that is a credit to the Clubs and the motion picture fraternity, too. Risky Business There are many pictures in the current backlog that are apt to grow slightly mouldy waiting for release. And wrapped up in each picture is a sock full of dough that just "ain't" bringing home the bacon to the studio or producer who made it. True, no producer or distributor likes to yank a piccure that's doing a land office business, but while he or they may be justified in their personal stake there is a much greater stake involved: the whole industry. In all businesses competition is keen. But in the movie business it seems to us that the sales branch carries it too far. For example, if Mr. A's picture played Times Square or the Loop for a number of weeks, Mr. B isn't going to be satisfied until one of his pictures plays longer. And so the vicious circle is ever expanding; pictures are held over just so long as there are customers to buy tickets; then they are moved over for another long run; and Mr. Subsequent Run watches the pictures being milked dry while his tongue hangs out for sorely needed product to maintain his policy. So the Revenue Department gets some fat, juicy, excess profits while the exhibitor wonders when the boom is going to come his way, when all the time the industry should be looking after those pre-war customers whose business added up to a healthy percentage of the nation's gross. ^iayhs — but we doubt it — some of the companies will stop looking at the currently fantastic grosses long enough to look into the crystal ball and the future and realize that the geese that were laying those golden eggs before the war have to be fed now with some product or they just won't be around, come the postwar dawn and a day of reckoning. It is our honest and considered opinion that a time limit could be set on any first run so that product will move into circulation at a far faster pace than it is moving now. Sure, it will end up some thousands of dollars short of current national grosses, but it will make for a healthier industry for all of the exhibition elements instead of being a picnic for just the first runs. Besides, less mould will gather on those many fine pictures now on the shelf. How Are You Doing? The entire Sixth War Loan Committee is jubilant over the reports coming in from the various sections of the country. Since no one gets jubilant over bad news, the reports must be okay. And that's exactly as they should be. You theatremen, aided and abetted by the other branches of the industry, have a job to do and, apparently, you are doing it even better than the optimists thought you would. That, too, is as it should be. You are pretty much like the boys in the artillery division of the Army. Everyone else may have something to do with manufacturing the ammunition, but until it is loaded into the guns and fired, it just doesn't do much good. You theatremen on the firing line have been given all kinds of ammunition, but unless you load it, aim true, and fire accurately, nothing in the preliminaries will count. But the fight is hardly half over. You've done a good job and a good beginning is a swell advantage in any fight. But don't let up now just because your bond sales may be exceeding even your estimates. That's the perfect time to set your sights higher and to try for records never before achieved or expected. So, altogether, individually and collectively, let's put this Sixth Loan Drive up to a total that will give the Seventh Drive Committee next spring the heebie-jeebies when they set out to plan a campaign to top the Sixth. —''CHICK" LEWIS