Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

WMAT'S NEWS In the FUm I»4u5l«y This Week SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, December 10, 1949 EXHIBITION In Toledo, Balaban and Katz's Princess employed two members of the local lATSE projectionists' union and two non-members. Result: A labor squabble which came before the Cleveland labor board which in turn referred it to the National Labor Relations Board. Importance: When the NLRB takes over a case it presupposes that the industry involved is in interstate commerce. Such a designation opens the possibility that a single theatre operation comes under interstate commerce regulations, such as minimum wages and hours. Up to now the NLRB reportedly has kept out of theatre labor squabbles on the ground that they did not involve anything crossing state lines, but the NLRB attorneys are arguing that the makeup of distribution and exhibition involves a film traveling from one state to another and hence exhibition is an interstate operation in effect. Meanwhile divorce and divestiture was proceeding as the result of the government anti-trust suit. In the northwest, HamrickEvergreen split with Hamrick taking over four houses while Evergreen, in which 20th Century-Fox is interested, takes over the remainder. In the south, Paramount gained full ownership of various WilbyKincey corporations for $7,700,000 and some theatre swapping, acquiring all told around 104 theatres under outright ownership, all but 54 of which it must resell under the terms of the consent decree. Recent Paramount information indicates that United Paramount Theatres, the twin born of the consent decree, which is to be wholly independent of the new Paramount Pictures Corporation, will have some 508 wholly-owned theatres which it is allowed to keep under the consent decree. United Paramount takes over the circuit Jan. 1, 1950. Meanwhile the new Video Independent Theatres, composed largely of former Griffith employes, and under the leadership of President Henry S. Grifiing, bought 47 Oklahoma and Texas theatres from the Griffith circuit and immediately installed an employe benefit program. In Toronto the lATSE local was opposing, along with many a citizen, the possibility of Sunday movies. In Indiana Attorney General Robert L. Larson was telling county attorneys to be sure that bank night was being operated in accordance with the state supreme court ruling which is: You don't have to buy a ticket to participate. Meanwhile Iowa-Nebraska Allied was urging distributors to spread their magazine advertising over a longer period and to include farm journals so that rural areas and late subsequent-runs could get the benefit of the lift this type of ballyhoo gives a picture. Iowa Nebraska Allied was complaining over holdups on product through "test" runs. Gulf States Allied, which elected Don George president, closed its convention with an appeal to national Allied to talk over bidding and dating problems with distributor chiefs, and Allied of "Western Pennsylvania elected Morris Finkel president and commissioned a committee to draft a new constitution. Out in the Northwest, James M. Hone was reelected secretary of Washington, Idaho and Alaska Independent Theatre Owners and presented with an "oscar" and a check for faithful service, and from Denver Rocky Mountain Allied was complaining about "Jolson" rent terms. This complaint was echoed in Indiana where the picture has had but two bookings to date and in Memphis where exhibitors claim that bookings for "Jolson" subsequent-runs are not being taken. Meanwhile the Justice Department acknowledged that it was investigating exhibitor complaints over the charge, denied by Columbia, that advanced admissions were being demanded for the picture. DISTRIBUTION The New Paramount Pictures Company will have the services of Barney Balaban as president at $2,000, instead of $3,000 a week, plus expenses. United Artists has sold "Henry V" to the Cliff City, Calif., Studio Drive-in at advanced admissions for a midweek date. Eagle Lion has added 22 Jack Schwartz features and eight westerns and Astor has added "The Bachelor's Daughters," "Delightfully Dangerous," "Bedside Manner," "Christmas Eve" — all reissues — to its books. LITIGATION The U. S. Supreme Court Monday rejected a plea for rehearing on the Park-In ramp patents, presumably thereby upholding invalidation of these patents by a circuit court of appeals. The high court also rejected the Fitth and Walnut appeal on its $2,100,000 suit against seven majors and two circuits in Louisville. In federal court at Phoenix, Partnership Theatres and R. E. Griffith were asking an accounting of Louis F. Long on funds in connection with theatres he owned jointly with the plaintifl^s. In St. Louis the federal court turned down a request from Mrs. Beulah Watcher, suing Loew's for $290,000 over the picture "They Were Expendable" to set aside the order granting a new trial. Mrs. Watcher had won the verdict in the first trial when she claimed the character "Peggy" represented her. GENERAL First of the public relations shorts — "Let's Go to the Movies — will be made available to schools, etc., on 16-mm., on March 1 in a move to get the widest possible dissemination for this industry propaganda. Meanwhile the all-industry public relations conference committee meets in Washington Monday and Tuesday with the question of fund-raising and administration facing it. In New York the major distributors', who have been supporting arbitration, dropped their financial support of the system at present at present and the American Arbitration Association was ready to close its motion picture offices across the United States. Financial: Paramount, "pro forma" financial report indicates that if the present Paramount had divorced exhibition from distribution and production Jan. 1, 1949 instead of Jan. 1, 1950, the new theatre company would have earned a net profit before capital gains of $7,501,000 and the new production company would have netted a profit, before gains, of $2,370,000. The report is made for purposes of comparative study. Arbitration Ass^n Closes Film Offices | The American Arbitration Association announced Thursday that it would close the offices ! of the Motion Picture Arbitration System, opened to provide arbitration under the terms of the original consent decree in the Government anti-trust suit. The announcement indicated clearly that the major distributors have abandoned arbitration if only temporarily. The reason for this apparent abandonment seems to be twofold. First is cost. Arbitration cost $300,000 a year. During 1949 only seven cases were brought to arbitrators with five of the cases settled by the distributors before they came up and two pending. The second is that arbitration was not pre-; venting the exhibitors from filing anti-trust suits. The AAA made it plain, however that, this'did not mean it would desert the field of film arbitration and that it stood ready to return; to it when the Government anti-trust suit was finally settled and there was a decree establishing trade practices under which arbitration might be set up. The future of such a set-up is problematical. The Big 3 — Warner Bros., 20th Century-Fox. Loew's (MGM) have spoken for arbitration at one time or another, with Warners taking the lead. But the Big 3 in their objections to "new proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusion i at Law" submitted by the Government, make it plain that if they do not object to the clause' on arbitration they do not wish such failure' to object as binding them to submit to arbitra-, tion. The Little 3 — Columbia, Universial and Uni-|; ted Artists— and the Government, have not objected to voluntary arbitration proposals. Meanwhile the AAA, announced through the President Spruille Braden, that it was making a move to establish strategic arbitration office; i which would cover all branches of industry anc' ' trade. Some of these new offices will be locatei in the offices formerly used for motion picturt arbitration. Public Relations Plans ^ Mulled Before Meeting ° -Approximately half a dozen plans on fund' raising and operating an all-industry public relations program were reported to have beer, mulled over this week by the Motion Picture; Association of America's Francis S. Harmorj and several may be presented next week to th^ movement's conference committee which meets behind closed doors at the Shoreham Hotel ir; Washington on Dec. 12-13. INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS Advance Dafa 3S Audience Classifications 32 Box-Office Slants 32 Feature Booking Guide 34 Feature Guide Title Index 34 Hollywood 30 Newsreel Synopses 33 Pictures Started Last Week 39 Selling the Picture 17 Shorts Booking Guide.. 41 Theatre Management 26 The Motion Picture Theatre Equipment and Maintenance Begins Opposite Page 26 Views on New Shorts 33