Variety (January 1957)

PICTURES Fifty-flrit PBrjETy Anniversary Wednesday, January 9, 1957 WHY LIMIT ‘SELL’ TO STARS? Producers, Director , Writers Could Have B.O. Draw, Too By JERRY WALD Hollywood. That beguiling siren known as television has, in recent months, just about pulled out all her stops, what with Spectaculars, Big Names, Broadway Shows and the Best Old Mov¬ ies. I think it is safe to assume, there¬ fore, that, as a source of theatre com¬ petition, mat¬ ters can’t get worse — only better. Most Jerry Wald of the people who have found their free home entertain¬ ment too fascinating to permit them time to go to the movies may now, if only to escape the sheer presence of the ubiquitous, lumi¬ nous tube, go out again and seek the broader and more refreshing vistas that are offered in their local theatre. At least, it doesn’t eeem unreasonable to expect them to do this, especially if we give them a little prodding. It is this “little prodding’’ that I would like to talk about. Motion picture makers have many things in their favor, some of which I think they are inclined to forget. They have a medium at their dis¬ posal that is second to none in its expressive capabilities. It is im¬ pressive visually and aurally, and provides an audience with the group emotional catharsis that has been the goal of drama since its inception some 2,000 years ago. They have the exclusive services of a number of stars who do not appear in any other medium (and who, I might add, have an enor¬ mous popularity with the public). They do not have to please adver¬ tisers and the wives and mothersin-law of advertisers. And they have an almost unlimited interna¬ tional audience eager to see good films. Forget The Past Perhaps the reason some of these Important virtues are forgotten is because we waste time bemoaning the fact that our situation is no longer as it was a year ago, or five years ago, or during the lush ana dream-like days when all produc¬ tion was a “sure thing’’ (whenever that was). But if the risk has in¬ creased, the challenge and the pos¬ sible rewards have increased also. I have many times pointed out that tl\e biggest majority of top boxoffice pictures have been made since the advent of television. Since we have a great medium and a demonstrably huge potential audience, we have only to bring them together. To do this, we must make use of all our resources, some of which are too often neglected. If we are to lure people out of their homes and into the theatres again, we must offer attractive t>ait — bait that glitters and scin¬ tillates, that offers a great deal and then fulfills its promise. In other words, I don’t mean false aex advertising, which only too often seems to be the only gim¬ mick that ever occurs these days to our advertising campaigners. 1 mean really to offer people their money’s worth, and let them know about it As we all know, there are a num¬ ber of elements that go into the making of every film. The most Important of these elements to an audience, whether they are con¬ sciously aware of it or not (and part of ou„ job must be to make them conscitusly aware), are the various creative contributions that go into the making of a film. These are the contributions of the pro¬ ducer, writer, director, performer and, also, the set designer, the cinematographer and the costume designer. Sell All Credits What I should like to ask is: do we get our full value from all of these contributions — not in the creative sense for it may be as¬ sumed that these creative talents, In the making of a film, have done the best job of which' they are capable as artists and professionals — but In the sense of selling these contributions to the public? The star system has for many years now been our basic and most obvious form of “box-office insur¬ ance.” Films are often financed on the strength of a’ star name or two. We know that people often speak of seeing “the latest Crawford,” or “the new John Wayne movie.” We know that a certain number of people will see any film so long as it has their favorite in it. For a certain number of others the star name will at least be a very defi¬ nite attraction for them, even if they do ultimately inquire, before deciding definitely to go, the name of the picture. Where we fall down, however, is not in our use of star names, but in our use of the names of the other creative talents that go into film making-producers, directors, writers, etc. There could be boxoffice gold in such names, but we rarely make enough of an effort to dig it out. It is an effort, I think, that we should make more thoroughly. _ Directors With S. A. You can just about name on the fingers of one hand the directors whose names mean anything to the American public. Yet in France, for instance, “tin film de” followed by the director’s name often achieves billing above the star names. At the least, it always re¬ ceives prominent billing. When Otto Preminger used this method of presenting his name as the di¬ rector of “The Man With the Gold¬ en Arm” (which was a good at¬ tempt to establish the kind of value I am speaking of), he was criticized severely for taking too much personal credit. However, he was merely following a European custom that has given commercial value added significance to an im¬ portant creative talent in the mak¬ ing of films. The directors’ names that have been established in our country have acquired, significantly, almost as much marquee value as any star name. There is, most outstanding¬ ly, Alfred Hitchcock, a director whose name, in fact, has more magic than his stars, even though he almost always uses top perform¬ ers. People don’t say: have you seen the new X . . . picture? They say: have you seen the new Hitch¬ cock picture with X . . .? A number of other directors have acquired a glow of star dust around their names, like George Stevens, Cecil B. DeMille, John Huston and the aforementioned Otto Preminger, to name a few, but for each of these there are sev¬ eral who might as well be anon¬ ymous as far as the public is con¬ cerned. It’s not necessary here to put the finger of blame for this on anyone. I’m only trying to suggest an opportunity and a direction ,in which to create more star value for our films, and so make them just that much more attractive to the public. Another important name that should always be established in the mind of the public is that of the producer. The names of Sam Goldwyn, David Selznick, Darryl Zanuck, Pan Berman, Arthur Freed, Buddy Adler, Sam Zimbalist, for instance, are firmly implanted in the public consciousness as synon¬ ymous with fine screen entertain¬ ment. And certainly there are a good number of others who are known to the public, and to whose pictures the public may always look for an assurance of excellence. But here again, we can make a still more concentrated effort to give these names the marquee value that they deserve. In the same way, I don't believe we get as much worth as we can out of the contributions made by our writers. Has anyone ever made the simple observation that books sell to a very wide public and yet only boast one “star” name — the name of the author? Why not cap¬ italize to the greatest possible ex¬ tent on our writers’ names? Movie makers have done this with Hem¬ ingway Steinbeck, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin and perhaps one or two others. But there are innumerable other writ¬ ers who, as writers, have had a very respectable amount of pub¬ licity and that are. therefore known to a pretty large public. Yet we hardly ever make adequate use of this fact. Actually, there seems to be al¬ most a reticence to take pride in the full range of creative talents that contribute to the making of our films. Our attitude is almost similar — and as short-sighted — to that of a manufacturer who makes no effort to promote his brand name. Yet one of the sure ways to have a constant and extended merchandising success is to estab¬ lish a brand name in the minds of the public, and make that name synonymous with quality and de¬ pendability. It is important today to impress the public with the superiority of screen entertainment in every way that we can. People are inevitably becoming bored with the unin¬ spired sameness of what they are offered as daily fare in the home. They want to.be surprised in their entertainment. Each day they flip their television dial restlessly, and scan their newspapers surveying the ads. This is a situation that we must take advantage of by offer¬ ing freshness and quality in our motion pictures. One of the ways to convey the worth of what we have to offer is to attach full value to the fine creative talents thai have contributed to it. In our con¬ certed effort to prod and pry the public out of the easy chair and into the theatres of the nation we must use all of our strength — not just a part of it. The above is only one of many sources of potential strength at our disposal. With our showmanship instincts to guide us, let's make the most of it! How Not To Write == By JERRY D. LEWS = It’s difficult to stop writing once . you’ve started a script, so obvious¬ ly the point of greatest danger is putting that first sheet of blank paper in the typewriter. Even if you’ve gone that far, though, all is not yet lost. Before it’s too late, grab the small ribboncolor indicator, put it on the white dot, and start typing “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” In that way, you’ll clean the keys so when you do get started, you’ll be writing with a clean typewriter. Every action which keeps you from starting the script must be similarly constructive. Anyone can keep, from writing indefinitely, for example, by mashing his port¬ able with a fire ax, but that kind of delay wins you no points. , Sharpening your pencils, reading Variety, Daily and Weekly, sort¬ ing paper clips (and unlinking them) are amateur examples of shopworn methods of delaying work. No professional can be proud of using them, even in un¬ usual circumstances. It takes talent to come up with new ideas on how to avoid writing 'FADE IN,” but we are in a cre¬ ative field. At least one original evasion of this writer’s is so simple it borders on genius. It has been under writers’ noses for hundreds of years, and not to be immodest, we feel the entire membership of the Writers Guild of America, East and West, owes us a debt of gratitude it will never be able to repay for making this public, and available to all writers without royalty pay¬ ment. and keep a three-hole punch ma¬ chine handy at the office. This en¬ ables you to kill almost as much time as you like punching the holes in your stock. One delightful friend can kill hours, but there are purists who claim he’s cheating. He punches holes in one sheet at a time, and buys his paper by the ream. If you first write on a pad before using the typewriter, always use a pen instead of a pencil. This may seem trivial, so far as killing time is concerned, but there are unex¬ pected, delightful dividends when you least expect them. For in¬ stance, your pen might run dry in the middle of a scene. Now, in¬ stead of merely killing a few sec¬ onds sharpening a pencil, you’ve got to go out and find a refill for your pen. If you’re at all con¬ scientious about it, you can mur¬ der the better part of a morning finding the right kind of refill. A Real Dilly The Foreign Flank The trick, when all other meth¬ ods of delay have failed, is: Count your carbon paper. You can get approximately 10 pages from each sheet of carbon paper. Have you enough to get through the script? Make sure be¬ fore you start. This is a hydra-Iieaded weapon, and is really a double delay in one, a magnificent achievement virtual¬ ly unmatched in the history of procrastination. When you get through counting the carbon papei(which must be done slowly, so you don’t wrinkle the sheets), you sim¬ ply have to get up and wash your hands. Obviously, you can’t write with dirty hands. One of the dividends of this clever move is that on the way to the room where you’re going to wash your hands, you may meet someone whose conversation will kill another 10 minutes. That de¬ lay is, of course, 10 minutes of pure gravy. Having made certain of your supply of carbon paper, you may now glance at your stock of white paper. Do you have enough? Before going on, one important point about paper should be made. Always buy paper without the three staple holes along the side, The true professional, of course, drives a Jaguar, uses an Olivetti typewriter, and a foreign made pen. The subtle reason behind it all is that it takes so much longer to repair any of them, since re¬ placement parts, fortunately, are not as available as for the domestic products. Do you have any notion of the sheer delight, for instance, of not being able to get to the office be¬ cause your local Jaguar dealer is out of points for the electric fuel pump? Writing this kind of guest col¬ umn for nothing is, of course, an¬ other brilliant method of not start¬ ing a script, but you have to be lucky enough to be asked to con¬ tribute, so I guess this isn’t avail¬ able to everyone. Besides, the Variety Annual comes so seldom this doesn’t really count as a timekiller, However, there must be hundreds of letters-to-the-editors you’re dying to write. One or two a day will kill an hour every morn¬ ing, since even if they’re short let¬ ters, you can polish and repolish every paragraph. We’d like to hear from other writers about their favorite time consumers. For the most novel suggestion, we’ll offer a valuable prizze — an office clock that doesn’t work. Can you imagine how much time you can kill trying to fix that? BOMB SCARE HALTS ‘DOLL’ IN NEW HAVEN New Haven. Following a tip to police that a bomb had been planted in the Roger Sherman Theatre here, man¬ ager Irving Heilman cleared the house for an hour. So as to avoid possible panic, he told the audi¬ ence that the projection equipment had ceased working and the per¬ formance of “Baby Doll” had to be interrupted. An hour’s search proved the bomb tip to be a fake and the theatre was reopened. SOURCE MATERIAL OF FEATURE-LENGTH PICTURES APPROVED BY PRODUCTION CODE ADMINISTRATION YEAR ORIGINAL SCREEN STORIES STAGE PLAYS NOVELS BIOGRAPHIES SHORT STORIES SOURCE UNKNOWN MISCEL LANEOUSt Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent Num¬ ber Per Cent 1935*. . 244 . 47.0 41 7.9 142 27.4 3 .6 37 7.1 28 5.4 24 4.6 1936* . 371 67.8 38 7.0 92 16.8 2 .4 39 7.1 5 .9 1937. . . 391 64.3 39 6.4 102 16.8 12 2.0 46 7.6 11 1.8 7 1.1 1938. . 316 58.0 30 5.5 140 25.7 2 .4 54 9.9 3 .5 1939. . 329 56.3 34 5.8 127 21.8 17 2.9 59 10.1 io 1.7 8 1.4 1940., ... 323 61.8 5i 9.8 109 20.8 8 1.5 21 4.0 11 2.1 1941. . 358 63.0 57 10.0 58 10.2 4 .7 82 14.5 5 .9 4 .7 1942 . . 401 73.4 31 5.7 57 10.4 7 1.3 29 5.3 8 1.5 13 2.4 1943. . 312 74.8 23 5.5 42 10.0 2 .5 6 1.4 16 3.9 16 3.9 1944. . 321 72.6 28 6.3 . 48 10.9 2 ;5 10 2.3 9 2.0 24 5.4 1945. . . 251 64.5 26 6.7 59 15.2 10 N V 2.6 2 .5 41 10.5 1946. . . 259 60.9 22 5.2 65 15.3 ”i ‘.2 10 1.2 63 14.8 1947.. . 233 . 57.7 17 4.2 87 21.5 5 1.2\ ^ 10 2.5 52 12,9 1948.. . 244 56.1 26 6.0 76 17.5 2 ’*.4 23 5.3 10 2.3 54 12,4 1949. . . 285 68.0 18 4.3 76 18.1 4 1.0 16 3.8 20 4.8 1950. . . 315 73.4 18 4.2 67 15.6 3 .7 10 2.4 16 3.7 1951. . . 291 67.3 25 5.8 70 16.2 2 .5 25 5.8 19 4,4 1952. . . 246 66.9 17 4.6 64 17.4 21 5.7 . . • 20 5.4 1953.. . 227 64.1 19 5.4 72 20.3 3 ".9 17 4.8 • . . 16 4.5 1954. . . 177 58.4 11 3.7 61 20.1 1 .3 12 4.0 • • • 41 13;5 1955. . . 158 51.8 23 7.5 73 24:0 4 1.3 28 9.2 19 6.2 1935-55 6052 63.3 594 6.2 1687 17.6 79 .8 560 . 5.9 114 1.2 476 5.0 • Data for this year includes pictures approved in Hollywood only. t Including such sources as comic strips, radio and television programs, non-fiction, travelogues, poems, etc. (Source: Motion Picture Assn, of America)