Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, November 5, 1949 19 It's Winfer Now Ninety per cent of the drive-ins in the Buffalo area closed during the week, thereby officially proclaiming the arrival of winter after a fine Indian summer enabled them to sell tickets right through October. Several under-skyers put on farewell parties in the nature of Halloween shows, with Exhibitors Bill Brett and Bill Rosenow of the Skyway at Athol Springs, giving free cider, apples and popcorn to their patrons. Skouras Defends Daylight Stand Claiming that Daylight Saving Time in California "can't be stopped" because "everyone wants it," National Theatres Chief Charles Skouras this week in San Francisco defended both himself and the adyanced summer time from attacks launched by the Citizens Committee against Daylight Saving Time! The committee, which numbers exhibitors among its members, including drive-in operators, had attacked trailers Skouras was exhibiting in his theatres, terming them "a $12,000 movie trailer dreaming up propaganda virtues for the often defeated law." Skouras, in defending his support for a daylight saving amendment which goes to the voters on Nov. 8, declared this was "the first time in his life that he had answered back charges made against him, and listed the following points which he said favored setting the clock ahead in summer : 1) California is becoming a greater industrial state and industry can use an extra hour of life. 2) The extra daylight will help the state's large tourist trade. 3) Business is stimulated by closer synchonization in time with other national centers of industry. 4) Daylight sa-\>ing time will lessen traffic hazards. 5) With an hour more for children's play, juvenile delinquency will fall. 6) Business conditions for theatres will be generally better under Daylight Saving Time as evidenced by past trials. Drive-lns Affected? Unconfirmed reports from California indicated that some exhibitors with under-roofers, have swung from opposing the change in time to supporting it because they felt it might lessen drive-in competition. This reports gains some credence when it is noted that several of the exhibitors on the Citizens Committee Against Daylight Saving are under-sky operators. Yates Increases British Staff; To Offer Full Release Program Universal to Make 30 'A' Films in 19S0 Universal International this week announced .a production program for 1950 which would consist of 30 "A" pictures, or five more than were produced in 1950. Of these 30, studio chiefs said, 12 would be designed as "extended-run attractions." They are : "Harvey," "Song of Norway," "The World in his Arms," "Up Front with Mauldin," "Desert Legion," "The Milkman," "Frenchie," "Air Cadet,' "I Love Louisa," "Tomahawk," "Winchester 73" and "Deported." The program was announced during conferences held in Hollywood by President Nate Blumberg, Sales Chief W. A. Scully and Production Heads Leo .Spitz and William Goetz. In the belief that Great Britain will offer splendid opportunities for American films in 1950, Republic has added a special staff of 10 representatives to its sales forces in that country and will for the first time in recent years offer its entire current release schedule to British exhibitors. President Herbert Yates revealed this week. This means that Republic will put 32 features, 24 westerns, six serials, six one-reelers in color and possibly some reissues on the British market, whereas in the Herbert Yates past it had held its schedule down to its features and the Roy Rogers specials. Yates based his assumption that business will be good on the belief that British production has sung its swan song and the British quota has collapsed. On the question of quota he says that excepting for the two major circuits — ABC and Rank — exhibitors have practically nullified the system by seeking and receiving exemptions as hardship cases. The 10 special representatives, Yates said, would be headed by C. Bruce Newberry and would work out of the British Lion offices, which would handle Republic in England, but would not be answerable to British Lion and would apparently concentrate on the extra product. Yates said that his company's foreign production plans include the possibility of making two Roy Rogers in Scotland, one film in Egypt with the advice of Orson Welles, another in Italy and a fifth in Switzerland. This would cut down Republic Hollywood production, he said, by approximately five pictures. As to British production, he thought it doomed. "I think it has collapsed already," he remarked. "The production costs are too much. They haven't a world market and I doubt if they could sell them if they had a world market. Two pictures come over and make money and that's it. . . . " Yates estimated Republic's frozen funds in Britain to be around $500,000 and said the company would not distribute any Briti.-h imports in 1950 as past experience had proved its sales force was not equal to the problem. He >-uggested that if Hollywood labor unions, which he said had money, wanted .A.merican companies to cease production abroad, that they buy up the companies' frozen funds and thereby indemnify them against the loss which they might otherwise take if they did not use their frozen funds for foreign production. Yates indicated that he did not like the idea of producing outside the United States, "because it's a headache," but that as long as funds were involved, it would be continued. "I think you're going to see more of it," he remarked of production outside the United States. "Macbeth," he said was now being redubbed and should be ready for the early part of 1950. "It's a good picture," he remarked of a film which has been a Republic problem, "If we could only put a title on it like 'The World's First Gangster' we wouldn't have any trouble with it." ^Popcorn-Conscious South^ Claims Nation^s Theatre Consumption Lead Now it's New Orleans putting in a claim for the south on the crackling subject of popcorn, with two theatre managers of that city contending that more popcorn is sold in theatres of the magnolia and sweet potato and rice area than in any other section of the country. The city of New Orleans itself is no slouch either when it comes to the salty confection sold, it is pointed out. E. A. MacKenna, manager of the first-run Joy explains the claim with the remark, "people are more popcorn conscious in the south." Mr. MacKenna does not attribute this to the gourmet knowledge of a folk accustomed to pompano en papillotte as well as hog and hominy and cold boiled crabs with beer. It is, he thinks, because the southern exhibitor has pushed popcorn sales more vigorously than his brethren in other sections of the country. "They are more aware of the value of the concession business," MacKenna declared. (Angry mutterings from Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Los Angeles are reaching hurricane proportions.) J. V. Dostal, city manager for RKO's Orpheum, also thinks that more popcorn is sold in southern theatres than elsewhere. Mr. Dostal is an exponent of the theory that people like to bite on something besides their lips when a picture gets exciting and that if theatres didn't sell popcorn, the audience would buy it before they went to the movie, a circumstance which might almost mean a calamity in exhibition. New Orleans theatre managers believe that children eat more popcorn than grownups, but not necessarily with more noise and that certain types of pictures affect the popcorn appetites of adults. Action pictures, they say, boost sales. But there is no rumor to the report that one subsequent-run exhibitor went shopping for a Roy Rogers to get his concession counter out of the red. Filmack Buys Plant Filmack this week announced purchase of the quarters it has been occupying during the past 12 years— a 16,000-square foot area building originally built by Paramount as an exchange and boasting of an entrance which is a replica of the entrance to Paramount studios. The purchase price was not disclosed by President Irving Mack in his announcement. Dual-Use Popcorn Believe it or not but popcorn has more uses than one in New Orleans where patrons in the Orpheum, finding that the cooling system was pumping too much cool air up from the floor for the happiness of their feet, seemed to have bought popcorn boxes, chewed up the contents and placed the boxes over the vents to block off the cold air.