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Arnall's New Target
FLLIS ARNALL, president of the Society
of Independent Motion Picture Producers,
is now gunning for booking combines
and local monopolies, and when he
starts gunning something usually happens.
He loves a controversy, he is not averse to
publicity for himself, he has an outstanding
talent for dramatic statements, and
he pops into the halls of Congress and
the offices of government departments so
fast newspapermen can't keep up with him.
Now he says the Department of Justice
should go to work on these two problems.
This is a neat little state of affairs that
Allied has sidestepped during all the long
years it has been fighting distributors inside
the courts and out. Several prominent
Allied leaders are heads of booking combines.
Because the antitrust decrees require picture-by-picture
selling and because Arnall
is a former attorney general of Georgia
his moves will bear watching.
Many industry leaders active in the public
relations movement would like to see litigation
reduced, or eliminated, but Arnall
and some of the SIMPP members are not
among them.
TV Progress Swiit
JJOW
the pace of theatre television development
has speeded up in recent
months was demonstrated dramatically at
the Theatre Owners of America convention.
Paramount's apparatus for transferring
television pictures to film in a theatre
booth has been speeded up so the
operation can be done by one man in 20
seconds, which is 46 seconds faster than it
was a few months ago. What's more, the
cost has been reduced.
With the new arrangement, an electronic
shutter on the television receiver takes care
of the difference in speed between the 24
frames-per-second standard film and the 30
pictures-per-second used in television.
Any day now "WBKB, Chicago, and KTLA
in Los Angeles will have filmed television
programs ready for fast syndication to theatres
or to other stations.
British Unions Agitated
IXITrH one-third of their number idle
and financing so difficult for producers
that more curtailment is in sight,
film union leaders are getting into a panic
in Great Britain. They still oppose a cut
in the 45 per cent quota in spite of the fact
that it can't be filled and was in itself a
major cause of the production slump. They
foresee much of the British production financed
by U.S. frozen funds, and they are
worried about the rumors that the quota
might be dropped.
Some of the talk is just talk—a manifestation
of the general jitters.
Community Newsreels
HMONG the interesting possibilities of
future theatre television mentioned in
the 20th Century-Pox brief submitted to
18
By JAMES M. JERAULD
the Federal Communications commission
are community newsreels.
During the course of the years many
enterprising exhibitors have supplemented
the national newsreels with 16mm films
made by themselves on local events and
have found them a boxoffice stimulant.
The fresher they were, the stronger they
were as attractions. How these things will
work out in practice will be demonstrated
on the coast in a 24-theatre hookup soon
after wave lengths have been allocated.
Showmanship
^OWN at Nantucket there is a theatre
which uses a Boston buying service. It
gets the very latest releases—practically
all top attractions from all the major companies—plays
them two nights as a rule,
two shows per night. Often the owner
doesn't know what films are coming.
The exploitation consists of pasting up
three six-sheets for a week's attractions
on the front of the house. If a six-sheet
fails to arrive, the janitor paints the name
of the attraction on white paper.
The first show is supposed to start at
7:30 p. m. If the house fills up before that
time—and it usually does during the summer—the
doors are closed and the program
starts.
It's a great life—like the days during the
war when all'the manager had to do was
get out of the way of the crowds as he
unlocked the door.
Altec Service Sales Drive
Mark 12th Anniversary
NEW YORK—Altec Service Corp. opened
its 12th anniversary sales drive September
12 and it will run 12
weeks, according to
H. M. Bessey, executive
vice-president. It
is the first all-serviceall-products
drive to be
organized on a national
scale by the
company. Cash prizes
are offered competing
sales representatives,
including inspectors,
field and business
L. D. Ntetter jr.
managers and division
chiefs.
L. D. Netter jr., national sales representative,
is drive captain and the drive committee,
which will allocate the prizes in each
sales territory, is headed by Paul Thomas,
treasurer. Before joining Altec in 1947, Netter
was manager ot the nontheatrical department
of Eagle Lion.
To Attend Allied Confab
MINNEAPOLIS—Acceptances ot invitations
to attend National Allied States convention
here October 24-26 were received this week
from W. F. Rodgers, MOM sales manager;
George Murphy, president of the Screen Actors
Guild and screen star, and Chill Wills,
film actor. The Chicago delegation alone
will number 40.
Public Relations Idea
Clicks in
Rural Area
HAYTI, MO.—A way of doing an industry
public relations job in a rural area
has been demonstrated
here by J. C.
Mohrstadt, owner of
the Joy Theatre in
this 2,000-population
community. So successful
was the experiment
that Allied
States Ass'n, of which
Mohrstadt is a member,
is recommending
J. C. Mohrstadt the idea as "just
about as sound and constructive a plan
that has come along for public relations
at the local level."
Mohrstadt called a meeting to be held
at his theatre to present some of the
trade problems to his community. Realizing
that not every small town can have
its own public relations meetings, with
representatives of film companies and
advance screenings as an attraction, he
invited exhibitors from nearby small
towns to be present, and to bring along
some of their civic leaders.
As a result, when the session opened,
the auditorium of the Joy Theatre was
filled with mayors, councilmen, the
clergy, professional men and other representative
residents of a half dozen communities.
The branch and district managers
of three distributing companies
came in for the trip and three film salesmen
and the manager of a theatre supply
company were present. For the first time,