Universal Weekly (1927-1930)

99 Universal Weekly August 17, 1929 Harry Taylor Gets Important Universal Home Office Post Installed as Assistant General Sales Manager by M. Van Praag, General Sales Manager — To Have Jurisdiction Over Western U. S., Including 18 Exchanges. HARRY TAYLOR, popular Kansas City motion picture sales executive, who has been Midwest Division manager for Universal for the past year, has been made an Assistant General Sales Manager for the Laemmle organization, with headquarters in New York, M. VanPraag, General Sales Manager of Universal, announced recently. Under Van Praag, Taylor will have jurisdiction over the Western half of the United States, including 18 Universal exchange territories. The eastern half of the U. S., including 22 exchange territories, remains under the jurisdiction of Ted Schlanger, the other Assistant General Sales Manager for Universal. The Canadian offices, under the general management of Clair Hague, in Toronto, are included in Schlanger’s jurisdiction. Taylor has been with Universal since 1924, when he took over the management of the Kansas City office. He was made Midwest Division Manager in 1928. He has been in the motion picture business for 21 years, starting as an exhibitor in association Harry Taylor with his father, Samuel Taylor, remembered as the owner of two succesful surburban houses in Kansas City. After ten years with his father, young Taylor, in 1917, entered the picture selling end of the business with Pathe in Kansas City. Two years later he was made K. C. manager for Pathe. Four years later he resigned and entered the States Right field. Later he was in Real Estate. He re-entered the motion picture game in Kansas City office of the Producers Distributing Corporation, thence transferring to Universal Pictures Corporation. The establishment of a Western sales executive in New York, a new move for Universal, has been brought about, it is explained by Mr. Van Praag, by the great increase in the number of important situations and chains throughout the West for which the booking and buying is done in New York. Taylor will be in contact with these buyers in New York for all of the territory from Chicago to the west coast. Taylor’s new office is in accordance with Universal’s policy of promotion within the ranks. Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Five More Newspapers Added To Syndicate For “U” Newsreel FJ. McCONNELL, Universal Short Subjects Sales Manager, • who has just returned from a tour of several of the largest cities of the United States and Canada, has signed up five more newspapers on the Universal newsreel contract, according to the announcement made today by Van Praag, General Sales Manager. This makes a total of 44 dailes upto-date which have entered into the combination with Universal to produce a newspaper newsreel to be known by the name of the paper and Universal in the various territories which the papers cover. The combined circulation of these papers is more than 5,000,000, with a reading public of more than 20,000,000. The latest papers to enter the combination are The Chicago Daily News, The Milwaukee Journal, The Cincinnati Times-Star, The St. Louis PostDispatch and The Toronto Star. The Chicago Daily News, which has had its own newreel for four years, in joining forces with Universal, now has the most comprehensive newsreel ever issued in that territory. The staffs of the two newsreel organizations have combined so that Chicago, besides having all the local news of its own territory, now has the Universal general news of national and international events. James Murray to Play Opposite Mary Nolan JAMES MURRAY has been selected by Carl Laemmle, Jr., general manager of the Universal Picture Studio, to play the leading role with Mary Nolan in her forthcoming starring picture titled “The Shanghai Lady.” This is an adaptation by Houston Branch and Winifred Eaton Reeve, who also collaborated on the dialogue, of the popular play of that name by John Colton. John Robertson has been signed to direct this all-talking picture, and production will start on Monday. Wheeler Oakman has also been selected for an important role. Murray made “The Shakedown’’ for Universal and added to the popularity he had already gained in “The Crowd” and “The Little Wildcat.”