Variety (Jun 1930)

48 VARIETY EDITORIAL Wednesday, June H, 1930 ■Trade Mark Reclstered FubllAhrd Weekly bF VARIBTT, Ine. Slme SHvermao. President IE4 Weal 46tb Street New Tork Citjr 15 YEARS AGO iFrom Variety ana Clipper.) Early film business operation Is reported resembling what later be- came the system o£ group booking. General Film controlled the Charlie Chaplin output newly acquired by Kssanay, one of the old General Film licensees. G. F. Proposed to grab off ehibitor business b refusing to book the Chaplins unless the house in question took other General Film product on a blanket arrange- ment. Variety learned that the New York Edison Co., was after the 14th street property occupied by the Acad- emy of Music.Tammany Hall and the Olympia theatre (old Pastor's). (Ultimately Consolidated Gas got the property, Consolidated Gas be- ing now practically Identical with N. Y. Edison Co.). Independent picture exhibitors, all stirred up, held a mass meeting in New York t* protest that they were petting a bad break. Contention was that all-year picture places were discriminated against in favor of vaudeville houses that abandoned winter vaudfllm programs to install «^rind Qlms for the summer. (There were enough indie exhibitors in 191:0 to carry 'some weight). A stockholders' meeting was scheduled by Mutual Film Co. and Harry Aitkcn was opposed for the presidency by John R. Freuler. (Aitken obviously won for it was after this that the big Mutual-Key- stone merger was framed that ended when the sheriff stepped in.) Fastern show business gasped in surprise when ■ the San Francisco Panama-Pacific exposition paid John Philip Sousa $70,000 for nine weeks and then played him as a free attraction, at the same time offering as opposition within the grounds the Boston Symphony Orchestra at an admission. 50 YEARS AGO (From Clipper) Jos Goss, English veteran ring champion, was defeated by the younger Paddy Ryan, Irish, in bout for the American title that wet\t 87 rounds In West Virginia, Goss' seconds declined to let him continue as the last round was called. Men fought for a purse of $2,000 and the West Virginia au- thorities threatened to arrest both principals after the fight. Hotel keepers and railroads of the district contributed $2,000 for a rowing match on the Potomac not far from Washington, which brought together the champion Hanlon and JoHeph H. Riley. Match was so easy for Hanlon that he stopped no less than seven times during the four miles to bathe his face. Troy club of the baseball league was threatened with, expulsion be- cause it defaulted a postponed game with Providence -Defense was that If the Troy team had remained in Providence to play the second game It might have missed its engagement at the home ground. Defense was accepted and the rule.s changed to iteover the case. . Inside Stuif-Pictiires Belief seems to be growing in the Industry that the best way of avoiding any possible Governnriental difficulty over extensive circuit operations and control Is to split tip the country by states or divisions as the Rockefeller Interests have with Standard Oil. The Warners move for incorporation in various states is regarded as the first of several similar possible moves in this direction. Through organization of separate entities in various States or groups of states, it is averred, chances of . trouble In Washington are consid- erably lessened If not removed entirely. The Rockefellers, when ordered by the Government to break up the Standard Oil trust, greatest of its kind at the time, merely reorganized operation by Incorporating in various territories although generally known to be one and the same organization. Standard OH o£ New York, of New Jersey, of Indiana, etc., resulted and Is still spoken off, occasionally In official Washington, as one of the greatest coups ever to avoid the an ti-trust regulations. Providence team of the baseball league played a 10-lnning game to a tie with Chicago, score ending at 1-1. Contest described as tlie "game of the season." Gross pitched for Providence and Flint for Chicago So intense was the feeling of show people in the case of James Currie, Texan, who, was charged with tht unprovoked murder of an actor, IJefi Porter, that a move was on to raise a fund to pay expenses of Malurlce Barrymore to attend the trial as a witness, Barrymore hav- ing been present at the killing and t^laiselC wounded In the same affray. That Radio-Fox-Loew story keeps circulating In the best quarters. It is that R-K-O will buy or control Loew's (which Includes Metro) through purchase of the Fox control' stock of Loew's, Radio men seem fairly sanguine this will come to p^s, tomorrow, next week, sometime, surely. Fox. men are more positive it will not. The Fox people say there Is not' the least Intention oC disposing of Loew's or any other of the Fox assets. Yet right on top of that repeat to a Radio adherent, a reply will come that Fox, too, may be Included. The angles to either of the deals could use up the remainder of this page. With the Radio group apparently so certain that in some sections of that "family" future events are being shaped for the protwibility of Loew's being linked with Radio. Just how R-K-O could absorb Loew's and IJox itself not directly handle the same" company it now stock-control's. Is soitiething for the lawyers to ponder over. Talking for publication and the authentic record are In entirely dif- ferent classes. By such explanation. It Is learned, M. A. Schlessinger appeased the wrath of Dr. De Forest, and at "the same time recorded as 30 much hooey the statement, he made at Wilmington and later here to a Variety reporter that he will give things away if he gets the de- cision agiinst Western Electric. Counting the eggs in the basket. Dr. De Forest burned over the ideai that any part of the "potential" dough should be deliberately allowed to slip, for philanthropic or other purposes, from a battle which for him has meant lean years. Schlessinger, who has repeatedly made statements which checking in his own office and developments proved wrong steers, recently made the statement printsd in Variety that if he wins he has the idea of deeding talker rights to the film industry, everybody to share but Western Electric. He said it in all seriousness, expressing himself- as willing to be quoted. The Dr. seeing this article rushed into Schlessinger'a office demand- ing an explanation. "Lysistrata" is said to have been censored in Philadelphia but the deletions appeared to have concerned only a few lines. Dr. Frederick Poole, Philly's censor, was in a peculiar spot because of the flock; of society patronesses of the Philadelphia Theatre Association behind the Greek comedy. No doubt that the Aristophanes play is primarily a sex affair. About the only way "Lysistrata" could have censored was to have stopped it. ' When Dr. H. H. Furness, who headed the producing group, died, J. Howard Reber stepped in. Reber was in a quandary too. He offered a number of suggestions which were ignored and he .finally resigned. "Lysistrata" is being presented under the management of Robert Sparks, acting for the Philly crowd. David Wallace Is the press repre- sentative and between them they steered the ancient play Into the lime- light. Special Fox footage on its coast convention Is now up to three reels, part of which may be included In the spools for the Embassy, New York, the newsrecl house. Whether the air 3hots.,of the Western avenue and Movietone City plants will be included on the regular Movietone reel for all houses Is not known, the main purpose being to send this two or three-rceler to all Fox exchanges here and abroad. Vic Shapiro, studio publicity head, had charge of the undertaking, which Includes closeups of executives, amongst which Is one of Winnie Sheehan waving goodbye to Jimmy Grainger and saying, "Come back to the climate." The Fox bunch corralled about every motorcycle cop In Los Angeles for the sendoff and let the boys cut loose with their •sirens for the big closing sound effect. / What is said to be the first film successfully shot in kotacolor, under artificial lights, of a major operation (Caesarian), which was taken t>y Clifford Howcroft, former staff photographer of the "Knickerbocker Press" and Albany (N. Y.) "Evening News," is being screened for doctors at meetings of medical societies. Subject labeled "An Experiment In Color Motion Picture." It was photographed by Howcroft, now in the photo and photographic supply business in Albany, with the assistance of Dr. Harold A. Peck, obstetrician, and Charles M. Page. Officials of Eastman Kodak Company have ^pronounced the film« the first successful one of Its kind taken under artificial lights. Indie exhibs who tore their hair when sound asserted itself and wept when the wide screen looked threatening are now trying to laugh off Television's potentialities. Sam Sonin, riow one of the leading spokesmen pinch-hitting for the candy manufacturing Charlie O'Reilly at the Theatre Owners' Chamber of Commerce, says: "There was an exhibitor who had a sick wife. . Each day he told friends she was getting better. Finally, when she passed on one night he said the next morning: 'She died of improvement." . . "That is what will happen to the picture business. It will die of im- provement. The public is not going to meet these advances in prices much longer, regardless what is offered." Terms of the deal on between Columbia and A. C. Blumenthal are that 13lumonthal pay the Columbia's trio of partners, J;ick and Harry Cohn and Joe Brandt $157 a share for their stock. The three Col men have 70% of the entire outstanding 100,000 shares of Columbl.-jL between them. On this basis Columbia is valued at $5,700,000. Bankers and public hold the other 30%. Price of $57 a share was arrived at on the day the deal really started, it is said, by an offer from Blumenthal to pay the partners $10 per share over the market price. That day Col Closed at $47. Since then it has gone to $5C. On Monday this week it was in the lower 40's. A supi)lomontal agreement on preferential financing exists between Halsey, Stuart and Co.. and the present Fox regime, in addition to the IC-year contract over which much of the fuss was made by the Fox bankers when efforts wore made to put through the Bancamerica-Blair plan last fall at the time of the William Pox difficulties. That contract was' for preferential banking and grew out of Halsey, Stuart's loan to Fox several years ago for the purchase of the Fox-West Coast circuit. The supplemental agreement on financing, giving Halsey, Stuart first Inside Stuff—Vaude Baby Rose Marie, five-year-old radio star, la going to play R-K-O vaude, but not in New York, due to her age. The "baby" coupled with the Ipana Troubadors, appearing on the vair for NBC. opens her vaude tour of five weeks at Proctor's Newark, June 21. All of her time will be near New York, so that she, is well as the Ipanas, can fill radio dates. Wesley Eddy, former m. c. at Penn, Pittsburgh, and a favorite there, stopped off last week to spend a day of his vacation there. He went around to the theatre and Benny Davia, whose unit Is at the the,atre brought Eddy out of the wings to sing a song. ' His reception was so good Eddy- was persuaded to .stay over and work with Davis for the entire week. Net result: one week less of vact- tion, but more bucks in the pocket. "Two street musicians gave Anatole Friedland the up shoulder when he offered them a job at $35 each, in his new act. One was a fiddler and the other a clarionetist. They were on the street below Anatole's apartment when he took a look to see the noise makers. In the act is a dummy orchestra and the producer thought he saw a perfect spot; Lamming downward, he interviewed the backyard stars Without believing a declination possible and figuring how to evade the kiss his offer would get him, Anatole outlined^ the proposition and said $30 ea^ch a week. "Temperament, eh, even here?" thought Anatole as he detected the chill. "Well, $35 then," he added. "Listen, bo," answered one, "this racket is plenty good. We make around $175 a week, and next week we to go Pittsburgh, then Detroit, Vaudeville ain't so hot. Our friends in it tell us so. So we will just stick along." All booking oflflces should instruct agents booking through them not to stall or deceive acts. Especially new acts or old acts with new nriaterlal. This stalling aiid allbing generally leaves the booking office as the goat. When the turn eventually discovers it can't get time in thirt or that office, the blame is easily shifted by the agent upon the book- ing office. The agent knew In the first place the act wouldn't do, needed more work or better material. The agent should be oblliged to inform his acts immediately, saving time, grief and explanations. This is needed more so In booking offices with franchised agents, such as R-K-O and Loew, but It should be made a mandatory order for agents -In all booking clearing houses. -Some acts are stalled for weeks, buoyed up by false hopes and wrong information by their agents, to be suddenly let down. A few agents have the right.Idea, of telling their acts at once what is the trouble and insisting it be rectified. These are the agents who develop stage acts. "When their acts are eventually set to show, they have something and stand a chance of booking shot on any underwriting or financing, is not for any limited period of time, it is understood. Funny angle over the lapse in the Pathe office througth whicti a few Pathe preferred stockholders .<»tarted quite a vain rumpus over control, is that $16,000, paying one quarter's dividend on the $800,000 of tho entire issue would have stopped all proceedings. That Is, if it had been made even on the last eighth quarter when the two year term with no division paid, expired. : The neglect caused quite some trade talk and some advertising by the beligerent stockholders who finally appeared at the Monday (9) meeting with slightly over one-tenth of the total proffered stock proxieA. The Pathe control held the other nine^tenths. Nelson Bell in Washington finally switched his picture reviews froia Monday to Sunday. Fox going to a Friday opening did it. Bell con-* tinuing to hold' all reviews for the one issue while other four paperii publish them as caught. In contrast to reviews- as handled by the Washington dailies, the- atres are trying to outsmart each other in breaking their big spreads on different days so as to get the break. This being much different than in trie old days when everybody was in on Sunday. Paramount Publix is not sending any publicity through its regular channels on Par Business Pictures, subsidiary making commercial pic- tures for distribution in the P-P houses. Attitude so far as publicizing this phaze of P-P operations seems to be that the less said about the commercial product to the public the better. When the industrial films play the P-P houses they will be similarly passed by in press stuff and exploitation, it is understood, to avoid any possibility of fan resent- ment against paying to see pictures which P-P have been paid to make Metro, in its annual season's, colored In.sert (announcement) for tho film trade papers prefaces it with a giant figure In black and white, of a man and calling the figure the Giant. Entire illustration and wording quickly recall the "Tilan," created and established by Hy Daab through costly advertising over a long period, as a trade mark symbol for Radio Pictures. Daab is the head of Radio's publicity and advertising, with Howard Dietz occupying a similar position with Metro, A sales subject filmed from tiie air showing all buildings and outdoor sets of the Fox studios is part of a six reel convention picture made on. the Coast during the recent Fox sales convention. Balance of the fea- ture shows intimate close-ups of Pox players, and operations of the various departments. Feature may be edited as an educational subject on how pictures are made as soon as the Fox salesmen get through showing it to their customers. Old time character actors wno abandoned the stage a number of year.-t ago and are now classified as old screen timber are finding heavy com- petition with the influx of many new character actors fresh from tho New York stage. Casters prefer the newcomer to the seasoned screen character actor because of the recent stage experience. This gives many of the veteran screen character men one .alteniativo; Go back on the stage or drop out of the picture. A Coa.st newspaper publisher prevailed upon the executives of a major .studio to look at a test oC a boy prodigy who he thought had great po.-.- sjbillties for screen work. The test went through the routine of studio operation with the ca.stmg. director not knowing anything about the* boy. . The boy unforfuh.ately m.ade the test with a beautiful girl, and the girl got the contract. In question of talker films in Spanish it Is curious to note (low the Spanish newspapers deal with the subject. They are never satisfied with anything. If a Spanish company attempts to do anything, it badly criticized. If a foreign firm contracts artists, their films are found to be had, if they contract Spanish actors they say they have no con- ditions. It will be very difficult for the American companies to give satisfaction to the Spanish cinema critics. "Blood and Sand" with the late' Valentino, with sound added and -some dialog dubbed, In aatd to bo « atrone .dra'Wln^r reissue abroad.