Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, November 12, ,5(9 n No Trust Action The Motion Picture Association of America has apparently taken no open steps to bring about the decrease of antitrust suits, which it seems to regard as bad pubhc relations for the industry, it was learned in New York last Friday. Queried on this subject. President Eric Johnston reminded the press that he had been abroad and referred the question to MPAA Vice-President Francis Harmon. "No," Harmon replied to the question, "I don't know that there has been any spicific moves in the last 60 days." Asked if a plan to eliminate such suits would be part of the all-industry public relations programs, Harmon replied that it was not. Asked further if arbitration had been considered, he replied that the "committee has not had any discussion of that to date." War Amendment Looms As Weapon to Fight Censors Right to Look Upheld in Co-op Buying Suit Federal Judge Paul Jones this week granted the G&P Amusement Company the right to inspect all records of transactions between a buying combine— Co-Operative Theatres ^ of Ohio— its theatre clients, and the following distributors— 20th Century-Fox, Warner Bros., Columbia and Universal. The judge's order, granted over opposition in what is said to be the first anti-trust suit against a buying outfit, sweepingly covers an 11-year period from Sept. 1, 1937 to April, 1949, when G&P, operators of the Moreland, a Cleveland, neighborhood house, filed suit. Buying Power Monopoly? The action for $525,000 damages names as defendants Co-Operative. the four distributors and Paul Gusdanovic, head of the Regent Theatre, a Co-Operative client and a competitor of the Moreland. It charges that the Moreland has been unable to get suitable product since 1939 when Co-Operative was organized; that through buying power, CoOperative has created an illegal monopoly, and that all the defendants have "aided and abetted in the use and abuse of this monopoly power." According to the petition, Exhibitor Defendant Gusdanovic of the Regent acquired the Moreland in 1930 and closed it. When the owners refused to renew the Gusdanovic lease, G&P took over the house in late 1937 and operated it on a full-time basis. Product difficulties then developed, it is claimed. Attorney Samuel T. Gaines represents G&P ; Milton Mooney heads Co-Operative. That the post Civil War Fourteenth .\inendnient, enacted to insure the rights of Negroes, might be invoked in an effort to free films from censorship, was likely this week as it became known that Producer Louis deRochemont had retained Judge Ben Rosenmann to fight the Atlanta censor bah on "Lost Boundaries." Judge Rosenmann's office, confirming the engagement of the veteran attorney, said he will attack the Atlanta censor action on the grounds that it banned the picture before it was shown and as such violated guarantees of free speech and "due process of law" clauses of the constitutional amendment. The attorney is said to plan his attack under the various U. S. Supreme Court rulings which have grown up around the 14th Amendment, which, it is said, makes applicable to the states the same civil rights guarantees that the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution impose upon the U. S. Government. A previous challenge to motion picture censorship, based on the First Amendment (free press and free speech), met with defeat several years Warners Appeal In K-B Action Warner Bros. Stanley Company this week asked the U. S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D. C., to reverse the federal district court and allow its "counter-claim" against the Kogod-Burka, a partner, in the long-standing MacArthur Theatre battle. The appeal added another page to a case which finds none of the interested parties satisfied with what the lower court did. When it bacame evident as a result of the Government anti-trust suit that the Warner Bros, subsidiary had to give up its joint ownership with (Continued on Page 14) ago in the U. S. Supreme Court. However, this was in the days of silent picture^ and that the Supreme Court has somewhat different views today may be gleaned from the remarks it made during a ruling in the anti-trust suit. Here Justice Douglas said in passing: "We have no doubt that moving pictures, like newspapers and radio, are included in the press whose freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment." Film Classics was reliably reported this week as joining Producer Louis deRochemont in the fight. Before that FC President Joseph Bernhard had disapproved going to law over the ruling, apparently believing that once the Atlanta censors saw how the film was received elsewhere in the South, the ban on "Lost Boundaries" would be removed. This opinion was apparently strengthened when the censor approved "Pinky." However, when she proved adamant on the Film Classics picture, he_ decided to take off his coat and fight, reliable sources said. Rank Halts Hollywood Competition As Net Loss Reaches $2,090,891.60 J. Arthur Rank's organization Monday called a halt to any effort to compete with Hollywood in mass production of motion pictures for world markets as the company's financial report for what Rank himself termed an "unliappy" year revealed a net loss of 746.747 pounds ($2,090,891.60.) The actual production loss for the year, which ended June 25, 1949, reached 3,360',000 pounds ($9,390,000) but income from the theatres and other sources brought this down to a net loss of $2,090,891.60. In addition the Rank bank loans and overdrafts increased from 13,589,858 pounds ($38,051,602.40) for 1948 to 16,286,581 pounds ( $45,602,426.80) for 1949. Tn a report to his stockholders Rank revealed that the company would make six to 10 pictures in the six months ending June, 1950, and that production in the future, would seek "fewer films of better quality." The directors, he declared, had considered abandoning production altogether but had rejected this proposal in view of the dollar situation which made it "unreasonable" to assume that we could relv almost entirely on American films for our theatres." Rank blamed the loss, which is in contrast to a profit last year of 4,175,732 pounds ($11,692,049.60) on several factors, including the British policy on the ad valorem tax, amusement taxes, decrease in theatre attendance, and his own product much of which he termed "not of the quality to ensure even reasonable returns." In placing part of the blame for his company's position on the ad valorem tax policy, Rank pointed out that after the tax had been imposed, the -\merican industry quit sending films over to Britain thereby throwing the entire burden of providing product for British theatres, including the 559 of the Rank chain, upon British production. Then after the British went into mass production, he continued, the ad valorem tax was repealed through the Anglo-American agreement and British production was subjected to a flood of competition from American product. "Even if all our films had been of the quality we had hoped, this usually strong competition," Rank remarked, "would have made it difficult (Continited on Page 13) Boston Pilgrim to Televise Four Notre Dame Games The American Theatres' Pilgrim in Boston, one of the first theatres to present the World Series over large-screen television, was scheduled to take another pioneering step Nov. 12 when it was to present the Notre Dame-North Carolina game which takes place in the Yankee Stadium, New York. The pickup will be made from the DnMont network Station WNAC in Boston. The large-screen instantaneous broadcast, the first to be held of any major football event in the country, is one of a series of four involving Notre Dame. The others include the Irish versus Iowa, Nov. 19, at Iowa; Southern California, Nov. 26 at Notre Dame, and Southern Methodist at Southern Methodist, Dec. 3. Boston, which reportedly is cool to the football shiggings of its own Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern, is hot for Notre Dame, presumably because of its large Irish and Catholic population. Hub sources said. Bosfon Price Cut In a move to aid Boston theatre business in the forenoons and afternoons the Pilgrim, key theatre here of the American Theatres Corporation, has slashed prices. Forenoon prices have been dropped from 44 cents to a new lowr of 25 cents; after 1 o'clock and until 6 o'clock the prices, which have been 50 cents, have been slashed to 35 cents. Prices for the evening shows remain at the former level of 55 and 65 cents. The Pilgrim is located in the heart of Boston's theatre district.