Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1949)

4 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW, December 24, 1949 EXHIBITION 'Twas the night before Chris'tmas and all through the house Not a creature was a stirring not even a mouse . . . These lines from Moore's rhymes, canonized by repetition over the years, fell with a truthful but sour note on many an exhibitor ear this season, as the worst preChristmas business period made itself felt with such effect that many more houses than usual were closed on Christmas eve. The situation was highlighted dramatically in Columbus, Ohio, where the number of neighborhood theatres which closed, not for the "night before Christmas" but for an entire week, rose to 28. However, some alert showmen who wanted to go after the trade, found that they got somewhere. In San Francisco the Golden Gate Circuit came up with a novel idea where one group of houses sold organizations the thought to hire the theatre for their Christmas parties, pointing out that they could get a feature and a cartoon for entertainment, have a place to party — and wouldn't have to clean up afterward! The general outlook for business, too, was improving, with exhibitors seeing better product on the way and a little more oomph being noticed with exploitation, this side of the picture being dramatized by the circussy opening of "Samson and Delilah" in both the New York Paramount and Rivoli after a giant ballyhoo campaign. And the exhibitor front continued active this week, with Paramount's new organizational set up, which takes place Jan. 1 as a result of a consent decree which splits exhibition from distribution-production, — alone accounting for a great deal of movement. Officers of the new United Paramount Theatres, it will surprise no one to learn, will be President Leonard H. Goldenson, Vice-President Walter Gross, Secretary-treasurer Robert H. O'Brien. Meanwhile out in Arizona, Paramount Arizona Theatres, which takes over the houses Paramount receives as a result of the Paramount-Nace split, another consent decree action got under way headed by President George H. Aureiius, with Jesse Chinich as head booker-buyer. United Artists Theatres, on the other hand, was busy expanding, taking: over a half interest in United California Theatres (Mike Naify enterprises). In Connecticut, exhibitors had to give up New Year's Eve shows because tney would run over into the hourson Sunday when the state says movies can't. In Los Angeles, National Theatres President Spyros Skouras, discounting reports that he had abandoned the idea of theatre television network which would bring attractions to Fox West Coast theatres through a proposed microwave relay system, was unable to say when the set-up would get under way (since it requires Federal Communications Commission approval). Skouras, back from Europe, said the British situation would not improve until Great Britain lightened her amusement tax. And in the east, an exhibitor was telling a producer what to do about pictures and a distributor was telling an exhibitor what to do about building stars. Exhibitor Sidney Lust, Washington, D. C, circuit operator, wants better films, lower prod uction costs and more exploitation assistance for neighborhood theatres, Distributor Vice-President William A. Scully (Universal) was telling exhibitors how important stars were at the box-office, how producers were trying to build new faces and when they did the exhibitor had to get on the job on the local level and help sell the public on said new faces. DISTRIBUTION Paramount will introduce a new sales plan in Chicago, Jan. 1 — when it divorces production and distribution from exhibition— which will open up product to bidding but which apparently will not open the bids to those who bid and will not require Paramount to accept the highest bid. The plan divides the town into 16 zones, the first of which is the Loop, where any house may bid for first-run and where only one first-run will be granted. First-runs in the other 16 are open to bids, again with only one first-run granted, while subsequent runs can be either bid or sold by other methods on a multiple run basis, {p. 4) Universal moved Charles J. Feldman from the post of western sales manager to that of eastern sales manager to replace Fred Meyers, resigned, and promoted District Manager Foster Blake to western sales manager, throwing Blake's former district into that of Portland District Manager Bai'ney Ross. Columbia opened a new department to handle foreign films under direction of Morris Goodman. LITIGATION The Tennessee Supreme Court this week ruled in the celebrated "Curley" censor suit, upholding the lower court on the point that Producer Hal Roach and Distributor United Artists, being out of state corporations which had not complied with Tennessee law were not entitled to sue the Shelby County Censor board and the city of Memphis over a censor ban on the picture. The court further ruled that since both plaintiffs were not exhibitors, their freedom of speech rights (a point made by them under the federal constitutional provisions) were not violated, and bluntly told Memphis Censor Lloyd T. Binford that he had no right to ban a picture because there were Negroes in the cast. (P. 5) The Justice Department this week asked the Oklahoma federal court to compel the Griffith circuit to divest itself of 93 of its 224 theatres within three years and for an order which would limit its operations. (P. 6) In Philadelphia federal court Masterpiece Productions sued United Artists for $750,000, claiming that it had not received an accounting on 38 pictures which it had purchased for distribution. TAXATION The taxation committee of the Committee of Motion Picture Organizations Tuesday elected Abram F. Myers its permanent chairman and settled down to a long fight for the repeal of federal amusement taxes with a campaign expected to arouse interest at local levels and another expected to gain support of the House Ways and Means Committee, which enacts budget legislation. Bidding a Must In Paramount^s New Chicago Plan Paramount's new sales plan for the Chicago area, which goes into elTect Jan. 1, calls for competitive bidding in each of the 16 zones which comprise that territory but apparently does not require Paramount to accept the highest bid or to make its bids public, trade sources indicated this week. While Paramount oificials in New York were not available for comment on these phases of the new set-up, it was further learned that all of Chicago's 13 Loop theatres have been grouped in one zone, and that any of them may bid for first-run in that zone though only one first-run will be granted The other 15 zones, which include the neighboring communities of Gary and Hammond, will have a first zone run and subsequent runs. Any theatre may bid for first-run in the zone where again only one such run will be granted, while all subsequent-runs will be on a multiple-run basis, also subject to bid. Though Paramount has made up a list of theatres it believes eligible for first-runs, this apparently does not preclude any other house in the same zone from entering the bidding. The basis of acceptance apparently will not be the highest bid but the bid which Paramount considers will offer the greatest revenue. The plan, which starts off concurrently with Paramount's divorce of its exhibition interests in accordance with the consent decree, is said to be experimental. First pictures to be offered will be "The Heiress" for Loop first-run and "The Great Trover" for first-run in the other 15 zones. NLRB Orders Publicists' Vote The National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D. C. this week ordered an election to be held in the major studios to determine whether the publicists are to be represented by the Screen Publicists Guild, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes' Motion Picture Publicists Association, Local 818, or neither. The board rejected a petition by the Guild that the election should apply to independent producers and limited it to members of the Association of Motion Picture Producers (Johnston office). The reason appears to be that while bargaining relations between unions and an association have been recognized in Hollywood, there has been no such bargaining between the union, and more than one employer association acting as a unit. Fire Damages Gem Fire of undetermined origin which occurred after the theatre had closed, this week destroyed the projection room and damaged the Gem at Covington, Tenn., 50 miles north of Memphis. INDEX TO DEPARTMENTS Advance Data 35 Audience Classifications 22 Box-Office Slants 22 Feature Booking Guide 30 Feature Guide Title Index 30 Holiywood 27 Newsreel Synopses 26 Pictures Started Last Week 35 Selling the Picture 14 Shorts Booking Guide 37 Theatre Management 24 Views on New Shorts 29