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THE PUBLIC AND MOTION PICTURES
Wm. a. Johnston*
THE SUBJECT I have selected is such a broad and ever changing one that several books might be based upon it — and then more books. In this brief paper I can only refer to some present phases of pictures and their public appeal.
The basic fault in our industry today, so far as the contact between pictures and the public is concerned, is lack of segregation — segregation in the making of product, the distribution of product, and the exhibition of product. As one man tersely expressed the situation to me recently: "We try to sell Fifth Avenue jewelry over on Third Avenue." And, of course, it doesn't work.
For the past ten years almost every producing company has tried to do just what every other producing company was doing. All have gone after the same books, stories, and plays, the same stars, the same directors. The inevitable result, of course, has been that the prices for these materials in picture manufacture — raw materials we may call them^shot skyward and have stayed there. But that wasn't the worst of the situation. The other consequence was that most of our manufacturers have been trying to furnish pretty much the same grade of product to purchasers of varying tastes and pocketbooks. That in itself is inadvisable, because some people are quite as keen about calico as others are about silk and this preference is not merely a question of price, either. The manufacture of any kind of merchandise must be geared to fill a certain market. It is not possible to fill several diverse kinds of demand and fill them well and establish thereby trade-mark values. And it also follows that the distributor has got to specialize, too. And as we ail know the retailer must and does specialize.
I do not want to give the impression that the industry today is altogether chaotic. I can remember the time when all theatres tried to })C)()k the same class of product. Today we have our varying grades of theatres; the super type of the downtown section of the )>ig cities, the large and small types .of neighborhood houses, the small rural theatres, etc. Just now there is a movement on foot to establish in 11 If large cities a moderate sized theatre to house long runs at two
* Editor of "Motion Picfuro News," New York City
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