Boxoffice - Feb. 17, 2014

: February
I
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Judge Walker Has an
Answer for Allied
Cole Explains Moral
Side of Neely Bill
n A IIL IIL A %
I Continued from page 68)
Crim at Kilgore and through that connection
moved to Shreveport.
(Continued from page 68)
contract with one of the big companies for a
is block of pictures what he going to get. He
knows from his books just what average he can
for pay that company's block of pictures and
come out with a profit at the end of the year.
He knows there will be boxoffice attractions,
program pictures, some westerns and some pictures
he would rather not play. He further
knows that he can pay for these pictures that
he does not want to play, which are always
allocated at a low price, and oft'times in the
end of the season, he can trade out for pictures
in the new contract. This has been a current
practice for years, and before Myers, with his
suit stopped arbitration and the film board of
trade, was a very common practice. The exhibitor
knows he can not run outstanding pictures
every day any more than the baker can sell
cake every day instead of bread. Our business
is different in from any other business that we
is only line" have "one and that pictures. When
we buy a block of pictures we are getting the
line we have to have for our business. When a
orders barrel of merchant a apples he knows
there will be some ^ood. some bad, and some
medium; but that the profit on the good will
make up for the loss on the bad. There is no
business hi.a
that does not have to depend upon
wholesaler's reputation for a block order, and
every line of business must depend upon producers
and the wholesalers, as we do.
This word juggler says, "If selling a number
then wholesaling WILL, BE LAWFUL, and will
continue under the bill." What does he mean?
First he says "one conducting a wholesale busibuying
v-holesale,
etc'
nferi
but
Competition
I do not know just what he is driving
There are
in all
5.000. towns of over and towns less with one
show usually run four or five pictures a week
—and you will see we little fellows usually have
I
to a chance run ALL THE BIG PICTURES.
will admit it is terrible for the "aged and infirm
and juveniles" to have to travel all over
my town looking for my show but if they will
just go three or four blocks from home to the
square and look around, they will be able to see
my lights.
Again he says, "The tact is that the distributors
now sell and lease pictures singly and in
groups less than the entire block whenever it
is to their advantage to do so," and yet he
Bill wants the Neely make them do this, as
to
says, to. he because they refuse "Oh, that mine
enemy write a book!" "We are fortunate that
this of "Moses" the industry wrote his "White
Book" because in following his reasoning we
meet him coming back at every turn.
This reference to single shot selling of road
is shows by him the strongest argument we can
it offer against single picture buying because can
it easily be seen that under we cannot keep
out playing time covered and buy that way.
Mr. Exhibitor, do you want to buy the boxoffice
attractions each year, one at a time—make
a contract for each one and then pick out one
by one your program or mid-week pictures and
one by one the Saturday pictures, and under this
kind of buying try to keep your playing time
filled? I do not.
Sharing the Profits
Now this is fine, but the trouble with the
bill is proponents of the that they want to chisel
in some way and "share the profits" without
making any investment, regardless of how many
small theatre owners they ruin.
Every exhibitor in the business has made money
if he uses his head for anything more than a
hatrack. A system that has. through the efforts
of producers and distributors, brought the
Projectors and Sound for the Largest
and Smallest Theatre
ANo Portable 16 and 3r> mm equipment.
HOLMES PROIECTOR THEATRE
SUPPLY
H.V 3473
1R20 Wyandotte St. Knnms City, Mo.
Dallas— "I did make the statement that
block booking did not force immoral or
obscene films on the exhibitor, as the word
immoral is customarily used, but it does
force many objectionable pictures," Col.
H. A. Cole, national Allied president, declared
this week on his return from the
east. In reference to the Neely bill debate
he had with Felix Jenkins, 20th Century-Fox
attorney, recently at Montclair,
N. J., Cole added that "the moral issue is
a part, but not the only issue involved in
the bm."
Cole said the Montclair PTA invited him
to talk on the affirmative side of the bill
against Jenkins who already was "booked"
to speak before the group. It was merely
an impromptu affair and only the high
points of the bill were touched, he said.
Cole's trip east was in connection with
a new changeable letter sign in which W.
W. Hays and A. W. Lilly of Greenville and
himself are interested, and also on Allied
business. He attended a national director's
meeting in Washington where he was
re-elected president. Cole said he conferred
with department of justice representatives
while in the capital.
Frank Merntt Acquires
Site in Birmingham
Birmingham, Ala. — Purchase of the
building at 2014 Second Ave., north, by
Frank V. Merritt, theatre operator, for
$65,000 has been announced.
The purchased property, with a front
of 25 feet on Second Ave., adjoins the
Royal, owned by Mrs. Marvin Wise, sister
of Mr. Merritt.
fro the din
side street modern wall" to the show- of
today: has permitted me in my town of
that
2.700 give my people the same pictures with
to
the same conveniences in every way, the same
sound equipment used in the big often
cities,
permitting me to run boxoffice attractions ahead
No. Mr. General Counsel,
ngle sug-
gestion for the improvement of the measure has
been offered." because the Neely Bill is a
"bungling and misguided attempt of some selfish
minority to meddle disastrously with a great
of the big town and give all this to my patrons
at half the price that is charged in the big city,
IS NOT WRONG. It may have its weak spots
but it has made money for us and we certainly
are against this legislation and "all legislation"
no way benefit the public and on
the other hand, r
industry." The only remedy that can possibly
it it it be offered for is to kill every time sticks
uji it's slimy head.
Ninety per cent of the theatre owners in Texas
feel they are fully competent to do their own
buying and booking without the help of a government
board. You and your lawsuits put us
the Film Board and we certainly do not wa_nt
you to finish the job with this Neely Bill which
,\ou yourself can not explain.
I appeal to all exhibitors to wake up and help
end this racket that can have hut one end if
the bill is passed— the closing of the small town
BUFFALO COOLING EQUIPMENT
1026 SANTA FE BLDG. BUFFALO ENGINEERING CO., INC. Dallas. Texas
Wallace Walthall, manager of National.
Screen Service, has been busy with the
consolidation of film advertising accessories
of several companies under the National
bamier and with the transfer of
Trailer-Made Service to the National
Screen exchange, which, he says, is now
being made.
Horace Falls, the assistant general manager
of Griffith Amusement Co., Oklahoma
City, with Mrs. Falls, has been spending a
few days in Mineral Wells.
Among other visitors was C. W. Niece,.
Crystal, at Hubbard.
After an extended run with the flu, S. L.'
Oakley, manager of the Dallas office of
Jefferson Amusement Co., is back on the
job. He said this was the first time he
has been off his feet since taking his Dallas
assignment several years ago.
Leslie Wilkes, well-known Texas film
man, is back in town after working for
RKO in the St. Louis territory and a
sojourn up into the New England states,,
then down the Atlantic seaboard intot
Dallas.
R. P. Condron, operating the Star at
Forney, said he was the only Texas exhibi-,
tor who made money during the recent 13
straight days of near zero weather with
ice. He closed the house tight during thatj
time and went visiting in the Rio Grande'
Valley.
Hollis Boren of Memphis drove in Mon^^
day and did business both unth equipment;
'
houses and exchanges.
J, F. Willingham, M-G-M manager in|
Memphis, paid Filmrow a visit this week'
primarily to confer with C. V. Jones of the
R&R Circuit on bookings for the Little
Rock area. Willingham is a former Dallas -
film man and old timers will recall him
as booker and salesman when all film companies
were doing business on Commerce -.
street.
, .^^
V. A. "Buddy" Walker, a partner with ,,
L. M. Threet in the new theatre almost' M
ready to open at College Station, was on
the Roiv this week in connection with that
enterprise. He hails from Norman, Okla..
where he attended OU several years ago.
He has previously operated theatres in east
Texas.
Leroy Bickel, Dallas branch manager for
M-G-M, is steadily improving after hos- ;
pital confinement, dictating letters from
his desk at the DaUas exchange and soon --_
will be out in the territory calling on TexaS'
exhibitors.
L. B. Brown, Regal and Ritz at Gatesville,
and a good fisherman, visited DalUU,
Monday. He said there has been no excitement
in his town, but that you never can
tell.
Mrs. Earl Jones. Brownfield. successfully'
operating the "3 R circuit there"— the
(Continued on page 70 -D)
BOXOFFICE :
17, 1940
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