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28. THE FILM RENTER & MOVING PICTURE NEWS.
January 6, 1923.
STOLL FILM COMPANY LIMITED.
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Sir Oswald Stoll on Problems or Kinema Industry
IR OSWALD STOLL (Chairman) presided at the Fourth Ordinary General Meeting of the Stoll Film. Company. Limited, held at the Stofl Picture Theatre, London, on December 28, and, in moving the adoption of the report and accounts, he said:
The results are not so good as those shown in last year's accounts. They are, nevertheless, satisfactory. Generally speaking, business in the kinema industry nas been bad, and no other company like ours has published better results. The state of our finances may be considered good. The assets accord with the nature of the business. We have a large cash balance. That helps us to acquire emergency films in accordance with the demands of the market. Our investments assist us in obtaining a regular supply of films in accordance with any regular demand. The other assets of moneys due and expended in advance, represent incomings and outgoings in the stream of activities of which our business consists. In the course of that business we have a, margin of incomings over and above the amount necessary to keep the stream well up to the level of safety. It is a tribute to the soundness of this company’s methods that the percentage of bad debts incurred is remarkably small. With one, or perhaps two exceptions, no large amounts have ever been in doubt. In these doubtful cases the uncertainty of the debt is only a reflection of the uncertainty of the policy pursued by the debtors in regard to their business. They appear to disregard their own natural good sense and to succumb by fits and starts to the methods of a few astute American speculators whose whole activities are, as it were, a huge gamble performed to a joud and continuous advertising scream. Such managements should note the effect of those American methods in America. There is to be litigation between two large companies there which will bring many interesting facts to light if it should not increase the misgivings of the American people with regard to the picture methods of those who carry on the trade in their midst. Although there are 14,000 theatres in the United States, it is stated with authority that only about one-third of those theatres are open continuously -for six days in each week. It would be interesting to know if British cxhibitors wish to reach the same predicament. This position is not due lo excessive competition. Over 7,000 theatres have no opposition from any other theatre in close proximity to them. The cause is said to be that exhibitors are being ‘deliberately
‘ deprived of the use of films that would enable them to keep their theatres open and that this is part of a plot to close down all theatres outside the requirements of a limited producing ring. Exhibitors in this country who are doped with stories of pictures that they do not get, into booking pictures which have nothing in common with these masterpieces, and who, consequently, pour their money into American pockets, spending little of it on British features for their programs, are inviting the same fate as that which is rapidly overtaking two-thirds of the American exhibitors. The policy which is going to be challenged in the American Law Courts is rotten to the core. No producing ring can corner the general public. Pictures are not a necessary of life. They are one of the con
veniences and should be so recognised—a convenience for those who might otherwise be wandering about aimlessly, as well as an agreeable form of amusement. The general public cannot be cornered into a few theatres by a comparatively few pictures which are the outcome of a very few sources of American production established by strategy into a monopoly. Genuine merit and legitimate value must alone dictate the supply, and exhibitors who cater for British people with British ideas and tastes must not be cajoled into purely American notions of merit and value. They must not enccurage attempts to corner the British public by American manceuvres. Otherwise they will wake up sooner or Jater to find the bulk of the picture industry destroyed. ‘The policy of this company is to offer films which contain reasons why the British public will like them. We offer pictures that are British and others that are not British. But always for the same reason, namely, because they, contain reasons why the British public will like them. Tkere may be foreigners or peopie with private axes to grind amongst the spectators, who will criticise those pictures, but if an exhibitor in this country is catering only for that class, then he has a very small chance of success. The British industry has critics enough of its own. Amongst the difficulties of the industry there are signs of more and more interference by certain public authorities. There is a tendency to restrict audiences in respect of particular films. Different local authorities have different ideas, -and the confusion tends to embarrass both renters and exhibitors. As these encroachments develop the difficulties may become insurmountable. It is a pity that the question of the censorship of films is not left to the uniformity of the trade censorship, with offences against that censorship left to the police. It is certain that both public and semi-public offences in the exhibition of undesirable films are more a matter for summary action by the police than by licensing authorities. Whatever action is taken, if interference is necessary, should be such as can be uniformly applied throughout the country. In that way only can the industry as a whole know where it stands. Different acts of different authorities which ‘affect the same industry in different ways at different places cannot be too strongly protested against. I beg formally to move: That the directors” report, balance-sheet and proftt and loss account for the year ended October “31, 1922, now. submitted, be approved and adopted, and that the balance of £34,388 1os. 7d. at the credit of profit and loss account be disposed of as follows: (1) In increasing the reserve account to £51,000 by transferrin; £20,000 thereto; (2) in paying a dividend of 15 per cent. (less tax) on the Ordinary shares for the past vear and the proportion payable on the founders’ shares as provided in the Articles of Association of the company, together absorbing £4,435 19s. 5d. gross; and (3) in carrying forward to the current year’s account the balance of £9,952 11s. 2d. Mr. Jeffrey Bernerd, our worthy managing director, will second the motion.
The report and accounts were adopted and Mr. H. J. Thomas was re-elected director. ‘The auditors, Messrs. Allan, Charlesworth and Company, were also re-elected.
FOUR HORSEMEN ”’ IN LIVERPOOL.
S O extensive was the demand expected to be on the part of ~
people anxious to see the film, ‘‘ The Four Horsemen of
the Apocalypse,’’ on the occasion of its initial presentation in Liverpool, which is taking place at the Futurist, that it was <leemed desirable on the part of the management to provide increased opportunities~for its exhibition. .
With that end in view application was made on Thursday week to the Liverpool magistrates by Mr. Herbort J. Davis, who «emphasised the desirability of increased opportunities being pr>-. vided for the public to witness this great production. His clients, he added, desired to ask the magistrates to consent to the extension of the hours of opening of the Futurist during the
engagement of the film. They wanted permission to open the establishment at one o'clock on the Wednesdays and Saturdays cf the weeks during which the film will be screened. The Bench aceeeded to the application.
An invitation performance of the film was given on Friday morning week, when there was a large and distinguished company present, including the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Liverpool, and many of the leading magistrates, doctors, ministers of religion and local' University men.
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It is expected that the engagement of ‘' The Four Horsemen ° at the Futurist will extend over several weeks. The orchestra has been specially augmented. for the vecasion, and wonderfully
“yealistic effects are introduced, Three exhibitions of the filn
are advertised for. Mondays, Tuesdays, ‘Thuredays and Fridays, and four for Wednesdays and Saturdays.
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