Variety (October 1954)

Wednesday, October 6, 1954 PSxi&Tr ricTUBES s \ “Popcorn, candy, ice cream and soda" may sound like a barker’s chant at a ballpark, but to theatremen they’re, subjects for dis- cussion at the Concessions forum: of Theatre Owners of America and the International Popcorn Assn, at the TOA combined trade show and convention in Chicago, Oct. 31-Nov. 4. Forum, which will climax the 1954 TOA confab v will be moderated by Bert Nathan of the Theatre Popcorn Vending Corp,, Brooklyn, Experts in all fields of theatre concessions Will, offer advice and answer questions from the floor. By the way, a concession subject not in a barker’s lexicon will also be discuSsed--“drive-in operations.” jack A. Farr, newly elected Prez ar the Texas Drive-In Theatre Owners Assn., has asked the membership of the organ- ization to forward, to. him de- tailed complaint when any film distributor says it cannot book a pic on the proper availability for that house. Farr intends to assemble this in- formation to present to a directors meeting Of the organization to be held in December for permission to submit the findings to the Sen- ate Small Business^ Committee and other branches of the Federal gov- ernment; Tiie request for the information followed at blast at the distributors whom Farr accused of showing favoritism to the indoor houses to the dertiment of the ozoners. “Sales policies,” he stated, “have always favored the indoor theatre yet drive-ins continue to attract more patrons to the box office and today drive in revenue to the. film companies amounts to 40%.’’ Farr called .upon the distributors to publish full information on the number of prints earmarked for each attraction, and the number of prints for each exchange area, He stated . that the “phony print shortage*' is killing the incem tive of Owners to build new thea- tres or to modernize their present holdings. Status of Joseph I. Breen, the Production Code administrator, will be discussed'on the Coast by Eric Johnston and the Motion Pic- ture Producers Assn, board, the MPAA prexy disclosed yesterday (TuesJ, just prior to departing for the Coast. . Johnston said no changes were imminent and that even after the matter had been settled on the Coast, he would still have to bring It up with the board in N. Y. He acknowledged that there had been discussions regarding a retirement fund for Breen, but said the Code topper hadn’t indicated any def- inite date when he wanted to hand over his job to Geoffrey Shurlock, now the^Code’s second in com- mand. ' ALLIED TO SEE MANCO Extruded Aluminum Screen Touted For Drive-Ins A new drive-in Screen, said to give 300% more light as compared to freshly painted white screen, will be demonstrated at the Allied States Assn, convention in. Milwau- kee Oct. 12-14. Drive-in operators Will be invited to view the screen at the Victory Drive-In Theatre in Milwakee. It’s the first screen of Its type to be installed in an ozoner. Known as the Manco-Vision ex- truded aluminum screen, the unit is said to be a development which followed two years of research’ by the Motion Picture Research Coun- cil. The extrusions for the. screen are manufactured by the Alumi- num Corp. of America and finished by the’Manco Plating Co. of Los Angeles.. TRICKING THEIR INTEREST Exhibs Preview Only Filins They Anticipate as Personal Fun Columbia is putting together a special 30-minute trailer depicting clips from a, number of its up- coming films. Plan is to call ex- hibitor attention to the product via screening of the trailer at trade association meetings and the like. Cob like other companies, has long since found that, while trade show- ings of pix are a legail must, they're only attended by theatremen if the films are outstanding. Excerpts from this lineup Of new pix. will be incorporated in the trailer: “Phfft,” “End of the Affair,” “Tight Spot,” “Black Knight,” “Prize of Gold,” “Three for the Show” “Violent Men,” “Long Gray Line,” “Joseph and His Brethren” and “Man from Laramie.” The multi-pic trailer idea has been, put to use sporadically in past by various companies. Columbia board at a N; Y. meet- ing yesterday (Tues.) declared a walloping common stock dividend of $1 per share in cash plus a 2V£ stock divvy. Last year the payoff to stockholder was 25c in cash and a;;stock divvy of 2V2%. At the same time the company announced net earnings of.$3,595;- 000 for the year ended June 26, equal to $4.41 per common share. This compares with a profit of $942,000, or 90c per share, in 1953. Roard also declared the regular divvy of $1.0614 oh the $4.25 cumulative preferred stock issue. ALLIED EXHIBS BREAK RANKS ON ‘CAINE’ 50% Minneapolis, Oct. 5. Although its president Bennie Berger refuses to concede it, the. industry here feels that .North Cen- tral Allied took a jolt when seven of the 11 independent Subsequent run local theatres in. the earliest 28-day clearance slot — most of them NCA members — lost no time in booking and playing “The Caine Mutiny”, day. and date on a 50% deal and now; also, that the later runs, are grabbing it off. Allied had employed two pickets to march in front of the Columbia exchange carrying, banners ' accus- ing the company of being “unfair to independent theatreowners” be- cause, bf the “Caine Mutiny” terms and because of Columbia sales manager’s alleged ‘‘arrogant” treat- ment of a National Allied commit- tee that called on him for film ren- tal relief And Berger had ex- pressed the hope that no indepen-, dent exhibitor . would cross the picket line to buy or book any Columbia picture. But Berger says now that'the ac- tion of “these particular members” isn’t making any dent in his or*' ganization’s “fight against Colum- bia.” By HY HOLLINGER Allied States Assn., in its usual fighting mood, convenes for its an- nual convention starting Tuesday (12) at the Schroeder Hotel in Mil- waukee. The 25th anni session of the exhibitor organization will be preceded by a board meeting be- ginning Sunday (10). The upcoming meeting, as pre- vious Allied palavers, is expected to touch off a. barrage of fireworks aimed, at distributor policies in the selling of pictures. Allied is billing the meeting as one of the most important in its history and is in- timating that in the decisions made at the confab will rest the future of many theatres associated with Allied. The product situation,, including the shortage, of films, the cost of available pictures, and the “artifi- cial” print shortage, will be the foremost topic of discussion. Allied has termed the get-together a ‘‘product convention,” and the. agenda of the meeting will: “ sider the strongest possible action" in backing the stand of the nation- al board. In a meeting at White Sulphur Springs, W. Va„ the board issued a “declaration of emergen- cy” and considered the possibility of Government intervention. It has been charged that the distribs by demanding higher film rental* f° r pictures are confiscating the" bene- fits of the recent tax relief which, it’s claimed, Congress specifically granted to aid the smalltown ex- hibitor. Myers’ Keynotes Board chairman Abram F. My-, ers, who will deliver the keynote address of the convention, has Com- pleted the draft of a hill to regu- late interstate commerce in films." He will ..present the bill for con- sideration to the national conven- tion. Drafting of the bill was au- thorized by the board at the White Sulphur Springs meeting, in Au- (Continued on page 20) SI FABIAN'S LAURELS New Jersey Honor Oct. 12— New York Salute Nov. 12 S. H. (Si) Fabian, prexy of Fabian Enterprises and the Stanley War- ner Corp., is down for dual honors. First, Paterson, N. J., his homer town, will pay “a community’s trib- ute to a favorite son on his 40th anniversary in show business” on Oct. 12. Then on Nov. 12, at the 16th annual showmanship dinner, of the Motion Picture Pioneers, Fabian will be kudosed the “Pioneer of 1954” at the Hotel As- tor, N. Y. It was in Paterson, that Fabian’s father, Jacob, launched the family in exhibition with the opening of the Regent Theatre in 1914. Charges of an allegedly deliber- ate print Shortage are being used by exhibs as “a convenient qlub” since this is where it’s very difficult to prove anything, a company sales topper complained in N, Y. last week, He termed as “silly” any allega- tions that distribs would cut down on print, orders as a means of up- setting availabilities and added that it was, after all, as much in the interest of the distributor as of the exhibitor to get a picture played off. “Our print orders are way up,” he declared. “Sometimes we get stuck and have a lot of expensive prints sitting oh the shelf. At. other times, w;e’ve got trouble get- ting enough prints to play off all the. contracts. But it’s never a mat- ter of deliberately going out to de- 'SHORTAGE' BY-PRODUCT Eric Johnston Office Faces Problem Of Shrinkage of Fees Possible need for raising the fees charged producers for Produc- tion Code services was seen in 'N. Y. last week by Motion Picture Assn, of America prez Eric John- ston, now on the Coast. Johnston* acknowledged that the. sharp drop in Hollywood produc- tion activity had affected the Code administration’s budget and .that this would be one of the problems he would, discuss with the pro- ducers. He said he couldn’t tell to what extent, the Code fee would have to be increased; Code now charges on the basis of negative costs. While the latter have generally gone up, they’re not so much higher that they’d make up fof the loss of volume. MPA A prexy also acknowledged that he’d be concerned with prob- lems of Academy Awards financing,' a recurring headache which was solved last year, when Oldsmobile sponsored the Awards telecast, Johnston said it was his under- standing it hadn’t saved any coin on the arrangement. ‘B’ For ‘Barefoot’ In Legion’s Book “The Barefoot Contessa,” Ava Gar d ner-Humphrey Bogart costar- rer which was written arid directed by Joseph L, Mankiewicz, has drawn.a “B” rating from the Na- tional Legion of Decency. While resentful of the film on many counts, the Catholic reviewing group’s reps said these were not sufficient to make the film - demnable.” Legion’s “B” classification means a film in morally objectionable in part, but is otherwise not given a spotlight, whereas a “C” (for “condemned”) usually sends a pic into a storm of Controversy, such as that encountered by “The Moon Is Blue,” Legion said “Contessa” is un- suitable as entertainment for the. general public because of its moral tone, its “fatalism” and its “mis- representation” of Church prac- tices. Last point refers to the sequence Wherein, a male character enters marriage despite his ,im- .potency. prive anyone of their right to a picture/’ He opined that some exhib lead- ers Were latching on to the print shortage question as a convenient issue to rouse their membership “since it’s 6ne of those things where it’s very easy to fling charges' without having to be too specific. Exhibitors don’t seem in the. least concerned, over our problem with .prints, and they ,either can't—-or don’t want to—understand that there’s something like an eco- nomic ‘point of no return’ on print orders.” Policy adopted by his company; he said, was to. order: a normal vol- ume of prints and to increase it gradually in line with the perform- ance of the. picture in the field. Problem is that the labs aren’t al- ways in a position to make, imme- diate delivery of tint prints. By HERMAN LOWE Washington, Oct. 5, Disclosure that Allied States As- sociation has prepared a bill for Government regulation of moti picture films in interstate com- merce, has caused considerable eyebrow-lifting among: Federal of- ficials here who see no wisdom to such controls. One official, with background in the film, business, has this to say: “While I understand -that the purpose of such a bill would be to put a ceiling on prices charged by distributors, I wonder if these exhibitors have thought through on the implications of government control. I wonder if they realize why industries almost never seek such control, including the small business men of those industries. “Assuming that such a bill could pass Congress, it would hardly get through in the form submitted by one group with a specific axe to grind for its own benefit; It would be changed to provide protection not only to small, independent exr hibitors but also to large theatre I chains, and even to the companies, which produce and distribute the movies; “Such legislation could very well clamp controls on the theatres, themselves, which could prove onerous to the theatre owners who are now protesting. “Where would such controls stop? In telling a theatre the ceil- ing it should pay for a picture, it might also dictate the floor prices and these could be higher than they are today. What is to stop government regulation from spreading to control of the stories (Continued on page 66) Film ; industry is trending toward longer and longer pictures. With the new accent on bigness, running time of two hours is becoming com- monplace and films of greater length are no longer rare. Warners’ “A Star Is Born” goes slightly over three hours. Walt Disney’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” upon final editing likely will be another in the same mara- thon league. Nearly all major com- panies.have at least one long-dis- tance epic on their future sched- ules Other entries tunning long, com- pared with the onetime Average of 90 minutes for an “A” pie, include “Caine Mutiny,” 125 minutes; “High and the Mighty,” 147; “King Richard and the. Crusaders,” 113; “Rear Window," 112; “Sabrina,” 113, and “White Christmas,” 120. Especially unusual because it’s an independent production is Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “Barefoot Con- tessa'’ at 128 minutes. Record holder is David 0. S.elz- ,nick’s “Gone With The Wind,” which fakes 222/minutes to unreel. - important trade angle in the number of longer films is the.likely effect they’ll have on double fea- ture programming. Obviously, ex- hibitors will have a kingsize head- ache in trying to squeeze a second pic into a three-hour. show When, the first pic is two hours or more. It’s already apparent that the cur- rent trend has cut dowri oh dual policies in some areas. Toasting Chas. Boasberg Numerous exhibitors and film company execs are slated to joi in” a testimonial luncheon, for Charles Boasberg, sales v,p; of Dis- tributors Corp. of America, at the Hotel Astor, N. Y., Oct. 21. He re- cently switched from the top dis- tribution spot at RKO. Luncheon chairmen are circuit operators Walter Reade Jr., Sam* Uel Rinzler and Joseph Seider. Call Exhib Leaders Tricky in Playing Up Idea of Any ‘Plot’ to Upset Availabilities