Variety (Jan 1935)

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Taesdasr, Januarj ly 1935 PIC T ES YABIBTr «9P= Foreigii Films iii XJ* S; I By WpUd Kwjfnuui PMi yewr wu a freaky on* for iBiporteni In the United States/ It'i 'pw yVKf 'trben flffures can be shown prove how little lierurea. mean. On ithii faoe of It, Occordlngr to the llg:- qrea, derman fliine made a coma> iback. "Which, isn't true.; And ao> jeordlng to the flffurea, Ehgllish plo- .'tureis picked: up a ,Jlttle. "Which isn't true In a dlftertnt way, be- eause it's an .uiiderstatement. : . Actually the year will g6 down iii the books as the one in whlpli Brlt- ish flhnx-: Btnick put on their own— and made good. ■ They*ve las^^ at the XT. S. market before; this is the flrst; time they hit .what they aimed at. . ^lit most of the push tome^owai-ds the -end of the year, so that It will be: the figures of next .year that will really tell the story. : ;The three year chart appended •hows a curious transition. In 1932 the German Alms werei sitting on top of the pile. Then came' Hitler^ and thiy began tumbling. Tea;!- 1933 was a'pain to Importers all the way around, largely because of the Ger- : man trouble. No one wanted .Ger- man fllma, seemingly. Exhibitors all , •teered,:awaV. But custpniers' also- steered away from other langniage Ulihs. It seemed like a chance for tl»e Frenchmen. to, come vialong and pick up ah . established jnarket, biit they didn't have productlpni Btrehgth enough. They slipped fight along with the rest of the meb.: Arid they ; .<>'pntinued_ slipping during ■ _19^4/ which' ieems to, hayeT"Beeri tt^ bo- nanza year for the British and the Spanish. - . iSpanish boom Is remarkable, al- most. Classiflcatlon la slightly ai mishomer. It consists to a great percentag e, of Mexican illms, more so, actually^ than "Spanish. rBut air fipanlsh language productions: are Included, that taking in also a few : made In Hollywood In that language and released here. Durlng'the two years pfeylpus producers in Holly- wood thought so little of the SpsLn- ' ish language market in the U. S. that they shipped talkers. in tha.t tongu.ie out and didn't even trjr for dates within the gates. Now they're eh'owing the pictures and picking up enough small change to intike the bookkeeping worth while. 'German pictures etiU lead imports ■ nutnerically. Analysis, however, flliowis that this means very little.. More .than half of the fllma brought in apd siiown. were played in only one: or two houses. They were most- ly cheap indies-brought In by des- perate two-penny exhibs on straight percentage.; If they could pick up . any 110-120 dates they took them. If they made coffee riioneyi that was something, If any, profit, the GJer- man producers got paid oft in per- centage; If riot, no one much cared. TPmrri ^lift Qpirm mi gtanHpninf It's —-^olKtyr—because—it -means— peddrig away at a once prbsperous market that might yet reopen. And the (Jerman goverrihient, of course,^ approves for propaganda purposes, Itiingarlan, Swedish and a rew other languages like that are okay for smaH money manipulation on a roaclsh owr, basis. Means a lot of Making a Pie (Continued from page 40) preview. Here will come: your, aii- preme satisfaction. Tou've created something. Tou will. remember Rembrandt, . Cellini and Rodin. Tou'U\go to the theatre with chin high arid a uprightly gait, for after all ypu are now the artist. The audience won't like your picture but don't let that bother you. After all^ Instead of making a set of porch f umlturei" you beearite a creative artist, produced on. celluloid spme- thing for posterity. .Tou can then sell your picture to some releasing orgarilzatlbn or if ypu prefer you. can keep, bri pro- viewing it, day after day, year after year. Some fine pictures play only the preview circuit and every time they are shown you can get a new thrill. After all, it's your picture. Tou can do with it wiuit you will. . If it's good, take aU the credit names off and substitute yours. If •it's bad/' add more names to the credits. Say, your lawyer or doc- tor or some person you dp not like. Posterity can record both good and bad. .' British Produclioii ZiOndoB, Deb. tl. The most important devAlopment in the BrlUsh field during 1934 waa the entry of Qaumont British, whlph had already established it- self aa the Number One producer on this old island. Into the Ameri- can ..niarket. ...";:;;■■'■■.■' It meant that for the first time the .pictures from the factories in the Iiondon fog-belt beceme some- thing more than amateurish . at- tempts to emulate Hollywood. And it meant that the biggest of all the film industries had, at last, a rIvaL This, whether or not G.. B. suc- ceeds in keeping up the pace, ia to the good of all pu>tle8» Internally, British ■ fUriu en- trenched- themselves in their own markets very nicely during the year. There was nothing particu- larly sensational, no Trlvate Xlfe'of Henry VIII,* nothing in the out- standing class. G. B. spent 1660,000 oh 'Jew Suss,' and emerged with an elaborate, arid at times dreary, epic. Also sank only 60 grand less on PICTURES IN PARIS careful handling and a lot of pa- tience—^and very little money. Even the little men are mostly not Inter- "■ested._ ,; ; v Iliisslans seemed tp"h op- ■ -poiHunity to-go places last year be- cause of the Russo-American diplo^ matlc. accord, but they simply didn't • have the product. Amkinb,' Russian film distrib In New Tork, was in a funny spot. Had a few pictures . which were a bit top propagalndistlc ~ In nature under the new conditions, BO shipped them back, Couldn't overdo the selling of the films from a straight Bolshy standpoint, for the same reason, so laid low and made plans most of the year, although —s till ma - nagirig"to roloabo a few pics- By Bob Stern ; ..'" Paris, Dec. 21. Film business here would yodel .with_rellef.^at...the_pa8slrig_ot.Jl9.84,. only it has a huncit that 1986 is going to be Just as bad.- : Tear started. with rioting, contin- ued with bankruptcies ~ and closed with vanishing grosses. . For 1936 there's no rioting on the'caxds Tight' away, but. It's still in the ofDng. There may very well be more bank- ruptbles, and as for the grosses, who can tell ? : : Country Is at a low ebb econom- ically right now, and program for Flandln government is to flz up some way of getting things moving. If it succeeds, films will be one of the first' businesses to: profit. Right at the beginning of 1984 trouble started fbr pictures, along with every other branch of show business, except maybe radio. ^Irst big sock in the eye was the taxi strike, which started Jan, 81 and seemed never to end. Previously the Stavlsky scandal had led to demonstrations of young men in the streets. They smashed kiosks, held \up buses and^ stroet cars arid rinade general riuiiarices pf themselves. Police, while being nice, were forced to do a little club- bing, and all that kept the rilce quiet fllm-golrig public at home. Grpsses-started-thelr flrst^nose -dive, of the year. Taxi Strike ■ Then the taxi drivers went out, and at the same time' the rioting became more Intense, cumulating in the battle of Feb. 6 at the Con- corde, In which scores were killed .arid— thousands—^wounded.- It-took- some days after that for things to ciiiiet, down enough for people to want to go out. After a while the taxis went; back on. the_ Job, ._and things began to^ look up again. But meanwhile the financial organization of a couple of big French film concerns began to feel the strain. First important house to go by the t)oard was that of Jacques Haik, with a chain pf big boulevard and Champs Elysees houses. Halk had recently put up the. 4,000-seater Rex on the atmos- pheric plan on the Boulevard Pols- sonlere, and' opened it with Francis Marigan stage shows ■ that cost plenty. . They drew, all rig h t,-but - comriilssions investigated and tried to see what could be done to prevent a crash, but finally it was decided . that f>ankrui;>tcy was the only way out._ Reason was that a number of combines wanted to buy the business arid there was no way of getting together with them on a price until formal liquidation had been gone through. ; ■■'.:' Liquidation.. - .This iiquldirtion-is-stinngoing-Dnr and so are the dickers for the pur- chase of the concern. It's so com- plicated, with so many fine points of French law Involved, that no one can see alriy daylight; in the affair yet. Meanwhile the Gaumont and Haik theatres" are being operated , by the: receivers, and recently have picked up a bit, particularly the Rex. This house slumped way down . early in the year, but later on, with some pretty good films and fairly attrac- tive vaude programs, began getting the business again—although of course on a reduced scale, like everything else here now. .Another important liquidation of the season was that of the.Qsso pro- ducing concern. Osso remained in the business as a distributor and recently lias become increasingly active, putting out sbrixe good' films. Haik also is said to be about to try to coriie foaclg . but it Is not cleeir how nor when. Continued rumors were rife, about the c ondit ion of Pathe-Natan. now: the only big producer left In the country. ■ Concern also distributes and has a chain of its' own theatres^ plus a booking combine.. Natan Vindicated ■ Bernard Natan succeeded In proving at the stockholders' meet- ing that he was ampiy~8bTvent7nariir all the talk about his going under proved to be Just chatter. American companies here have shared closely this Ujpis and^dbwris. .They: are.-blosply: tied up Iwlth the French business, because the pro- portion of American films distribut- ed here is large, enough to be a big weight in the trade balance. ■ , The Tanks finish the year in pretty gloomy • state, Safe to say that only two of the majors with their own distributing organizations here are getting out In the black. They iare the ones who have made the. least fuss apd given the fewest gala openingct. but just kept quietly s el li ng fl l ni s. ; Th e- y a r e- a . l a o - th e pn e& when the rioting was going on, and as soon as the town quieted down the reslgriattoris began. First it was Ike Blumenthal, previously in chaise of Paramount Interests tteoughout"" the ~ Continent" " He finally reconsidered his resignation and remained to handle the Par^^ aniourit studios in JolnviUe, which, had previously been Us charge, and Fred Lange came over to take' care of the. Continent. > One of his first actS~Wg8 tgTinnre'GSMaagTieadii^Qai*r|T>laudlts than is good f bi ters from Berlin to Paris. Lange's appointment provoked the resigna- tion of David Souhamt, Paramount's French boss, who went cut with a lot of noise and started a lawsuit for his indemnity.. Souhami is now an independeni .distributor hiere. His former assistants Heiiri Klarsfeld, was stepped up into his Job.' A pop- ular man with the organization and a. salesman who knpws. the French trade from the ground up, Klarsfeld has put new pep into Par here. Two of the majors whose main European offices are In Iiondon con- sollda,ted their positions in Paris during the past year—Radio and Columbia. Early in the year Joe Seldelman, Columbia export chief, was over, and made a hookup with a local cpncern to handle his prod- uct Phil Relsman of Radio had ideas .of opening, a -local distributing, branch of his own, but didn't go through with them. Local office under Harry Leaslm, however, started releasing original versions, going over with a bang with 'Little -Women' - as-Ita-flrst tA— deal- was finally made with Tobls to handle •the dubbed product fbr general French release. The quota flghit In 1934 was tougher than ever. With business on the downgrade and the inde pendents getting closer on the trail -of-the-onljr-rYench-maJor-producer- left—Pathe-Natan-^Natan and his friends In the Chambre Syndlcale determined to make a big stab to eliminate foreign, competition. They put on a plan to stop all Importj for six. ritbri'th's arid at the'^ erid of that time to place so high a ta;rlft on for- eign films that the Americans would about have to fold. Scrap was pretty hot in the spring. Exhibitors, who saw the Natan combine getting a full Nelson on them, Joined with the Independents and the Importers In a row to prevent the' government frorii putting the embargo into effect. They won, and the old quota system was renewed in June for another six monthSj with tlie announcement that *Tlie bt>a DaW tlie Arllaai flla. Mil will no doubt aaaka a hsCU pile €> spare ooln. .'"■■. Actually,- the surprise oC the yeaiv speaking internally, has been th*; rise of British Intematibrial, prod- uct of. which, after taking a. deep nose dive in .'88, rose to epnsi'derable heights in '84. ' Largely due to the foresight of oertain. ra^n in its studios. B.I.P, dropped its policy of making quickios for small profit and tried to make films of a higher grade. ■ Averaging perhaps |16'0,000 each the B. L output probably did a pro- portionately bigger grpss in Eng- land than that of any other com- pany. It was a policy carrying an equal lirie between the quickie policy, and the Q. B. idea, which was to spend really higli sums' onv pictures and gamble on them being good. .-.■ •.■';:': No records were broken during the year from the British angle; . not on the recPlving. side, anyway. More money was spent than. ever previously, but this was largely due to the determination of G. B. arid Alexander Korda to make nothing but the finest, -..i "'' ■'■} Doubtful, though, whether . any- new gross records were set up. It is still almost Impossible to gross a British film to more than 1500,000 In ,the home market alorie, and with the exception of the men who haid a ready-made.; Ariaerlcan , release, iriost-bf:.the. Lbndon bbys^were-con- - tent to skate well Inside the safety zone. Still Room. :y In handing out the bouquets to the local producers, and thbse boys have been getting probably morp therir- locally, one mustn't lose sight of the .fact that there's much room for . improvement, for while the quality of local product has risen, the standard it is setting itself has gone up proportionately. - : Far too many films, !even among the larger pf the British compianles, get shot off the cuff by second- raters who think they have genius enough to put Lubitsch in his place if they once get a chance. Script writing is the crying heed of the British studios. At present It's aln)ost impossible to point to a single man with real flair in this direction. Secondly, the locals badly need production '. supervisors. The wise men—and there are some—realize this. Mycroft, studio head of B.l'.'P., has been' Ipoklng round to flnd a cPrp's' "of' men" who ' coiild "coriio In' and take complete responsibility for so riiariy pictures a year, in the. Hollywood fashion. Man Power . Theitrouble-onlthis .slde-ls to-find.. men who could take such Jobs. Maurice Elvey has been suggested as one, and he's certainly orie of the few Ukelys. ' Until British producers gat (a) script writers and (b) production supervisors, they'll still spend |200,- : OOP on PL film and bo mildly sur- prised when they only. see $80,000 of It on the screen. There's been a tendency here lately to get ■ away from Imitation o^ the Hollywood formula, which* kep^f 'lhTlp^calS back'WheM^ they were: embryonic. . As to the futvre, Indications are that the number of local films to be made In 193" will approximate 200. The number last year, sched- • uled at about that figure, never I came anywhere near It. It's doubtful whether more than 100 British filriis worth talking about were made in the country during the year. This figure ex- cludes the Innumerable quota here and there to keep In the swing _w hilt! waiti ng for the much-talked-of 'now* product. That la Just begin- ning to come over. Last mpnth of the year brought :fojcth ■ the ;pnly , fprelgh .film.; that eecmed In the money class, 'The Battle,' a lyench lndle, Made Iri an English yer'slpri, picture got good re- views on Broadway and an Ameri- can major distribution. No films in foreign tongues actually clicked to any real coin. . Boiled down to essences, it was all British. Alex Korda started it, Gaumont-Brltlsh carried it through. Latter company Is now making a bold stand and getting results. Brit- ish International, other Important British. company,^ burned its fingers pretty badly iri the.U. S. some, years back. So it is sitting balck and watching. No' BIP pictures of im- portance came over during the year pt got important aittention. the. expense was too heavy to keep .up.: And. ..wJifin_the.^blg. programs stopped, the gross fell pit. Haik had worked a.lot on credit, arid the blow finally fell. Other Haik houses are the.-Colisee and the Olympia;: . All were taken over by Gaumont- Franco-Fllni-Aubert to operate ■ In behalf of the creditors, and they were consolidated for exploitation purposes with the big Gaumorit- Palace and the rest of the GFFA chain. '. ;V:' (Saumont wasn't' so strong itself at the time. It had been Involved financially Iri the bank crash pf the Banque National© de Credit, and the Bank of. France; cPriiing to the rescue of that Institution, also had to throw a life preserver to Gau- mont. Liquidation of the GFFA was stalled oft as long as possible,, with the debt mounting and no chance ; of a payo/f, Government with the oldest organizations here, headed by riien who know Europe thoroughly through long experience, and who keeps expenses down even in good times. ..Two Amerjcari: concerns which, started the year with European headquarters.ln. Paris are. npw .b.cinig: handled from London, with only .French or Continental brandies here.' They are United Artists and Universal. U. A. seems, to have suf- fered from overquick expansion in France and exaggerated overhead, largely due to the peculiar condition 6t the cpuntryl : Universal never got well started. It brought its chief layout from Berlin when the Nazis got going there, and the French proved inhospitable, too. Walter Frlediand, U!s European chief, then moved to London. ...PaP.Rw.rfl . ... .:: - ^ Paramount started -the year- with ructions. John W. Hlcke was here during that six months the French trade would be, reorganized on a -sort of- NRA-~basla; and then—the New Deal would come here. Those who thought this, could be done! Ip six months iri i^rance reck- oned without the Ibisal propensity for -wrangling. Nothing was settled in 1934, "arid 'gbyernriient ' cPm slons, abetted by trade bodies, are still huddling, Meanwhile a second attempt of the Natan-Delac crowd to- put.oyer an embargo was defeat- ed, and the old quota arrangement was renewed for another six months, beginning January. In 1935 the Americans, led princi- pally by Ernest Koenig of Warners, Alan Byre of Metro, Carlo Bayetta of Fox and Henri Klarsfeld (a natu- ralized Frenchman) of Paramount, are taking a, big part in local trade a5tlvUles,;and,w;in of any benefits (that njay cofrte from a reorganization. quickies, strips of Junk footage which get thrown out at about two bucks a foot and then get placed on a rilce dusty shelf to comply with quota law. Alexander Kordi. Is starting-:work on a,big unit at Elstree, taking a. large frontage on the. main , arterial , road out of London. BaoH Dean's unit Associated Talkies, has built two more stages. Julius Hagen, liveliest of the -independents; who in the last year made 25 films, most of them of quite good standard, has added another stage. B.I.P, still holds the stage record, with' eight floors.' , Gautnont-British Is now putting up a new lot on the Great West, Road, about three miles from Its existing pldnt Intended for ex- terior woi:k, but rumors are that the company . already- tied up with a shortage of floor space,; ■will" run a ' st.ige or. two in. - V' . :