Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1947)

SHOWMENS TRADE REVIEW, October 18, 1947 CURRENT OBSERVATIONS About current and forthcoming pictures Chalk up on the very happy side of the ledger the following: Paramount's "Unconquered;" MGM's "Green Dolphin Street;" 20th-Fox's "Forever Amber;" RKO's "Walter Mitty;" Columbia's "Down To Earth". These are forerunners of many other strong box-office pictures due to hit your screens this winter and should answer the treatremen's urgent call for strong pictures to maintain high grosses. * * .-c Cinecolor's take-over of Film Classics augurs well for this up-and-coming company and should go a long way towards consolidating its position as one of the newer and progressive distributing organizations. As a matter of fact, anything that will inject added competition into the present distribution set up will be good for the business as a whole. The old-timers seem to have lost their zest and their courage and the way some executives are conducting the affairs of these outfits, makes one wonder whether they haven't lost their foresight and business instinct. Local tax situation is going to bear close and careful watching between new and the spring. Municipalities everywhere, in their intense search for added revenues, will be looking in the direction of the local theatres. Local situations can best be watched and protected by the exhibitors themselves rather than their state organizations, although they can always call on the latter when help is needed to fight any taxation or license-fee threats. Rapidly regaining wide favor with both theatremen and patrons, are the old-time children shows that in the pre-war period accounted for many an extra dollar in the till. We can go back some twenty years to the days when we tied up with the local dancing school for kiddie revues that packed the theatres for several performances several times a year. There is plenty of gold in these kiddie shows and a wide variety of them to choose from or revamp to suit your own ideas of what is best in your community. So don't sleep too long on this one, boys, it is too good to pass up. Ail of a sudden the "quiet" member of the Skouras Clan, George, pops into print. Within several days the news reports say that he has acquired control of the F & M chain in St. Louis, and is also involved in the United Artists Theatre Circuit deal for the west coast's Golden State Circuit. Still water runs deep or so the saying goes. Let's all make a pretty bow in the direction of Cooperstown, N. Y., where is located the office and home of William C. Smalley. Bill is celebrating his 34th anniversary in show business and there have been well-merited bouquets tossed his way by the people, the newspapers and local business concerns in towns where the Smalley theatres operate. Seasoned and possessed of plenty of savvy. Bill Smalley came up the ladder the right way — working at the job of being a showman in various capacities as a theatre employe. Ted Gamble's statement to the press this week that the American public is doing a good job of "censoring movies through their patronage," seems to us a neat bit of hitting the nail on the head. We can only hope that someday so-called leaders, as well as politicians, will give the American people credit for just half of the sense they possess for then there'll be an end to this censorship bosh. Far be it from us to pass along a corny pun but there may have been some truth in the rumor that the quarter million dollar fire on the 20th-Fox lot icas caused by the close proximity of a print of "Amber" Two opposite views: One producer claims that production cost can be cut up to fifty per cent. Another says that it can't be cut at all without murdering the "artistic qualities" of the pictures. We'll go along with the first one because it is based upon good, common, business sense. The other is pure and unadulterated tripe spouted by one who simply cannot understand that you have to adjust your costs to current revenue potentials or go broke. If anyone thinks this business should go broke being artistic, he ought to have his head examined. And while we're pointing, we wonder if the writers of some of the current laments about how Hollywood is getting the smear treatment happen to remember that warning about anti-Hollywood propaganda which appeared on this page in the issue of June 8, 1946 under the title "Danger Signals." —CHICK LEWIS