New Deal in Hollywood

When the earthquake struck Los Angeles last month, the cinema industry was already concerned with an earthquake of its own. Producers, driven to final desperation by the bank holiday, declared a 50% salary cut, to last for three or four weeks while they thought up more effective ways to save their business. By last week, most major studios had resumed paying full salaries to contract employes. After a week of producers' conferences, presided over by Tsar Will Hays, it became possible to see the two main results of the salary cuts and the condition that had produced them.

Service Bureau. One reason for high cinema producing costs is the fact that writers, actors and directors, employed on contract by individual studios, are frequently paid for doing nothing. Producers have often made plans to lend their employes to each other but nothing much has come of it. To facilitate exchange of talent, also of expensive "story material'' bought by producers but never used, an Artists' Service Bureau was formed last week, headed by Col. Jason Joy, Fox studio executive and onetime inter-studio relations supervisor for the Hays organization. Another purpose of the Bureau, to be "owned and operated on a co-operative basis by the industry as a whole," was to make it possible for producers to hire talent without competitive bidding. Actors, writers, directors and especially agents were against the proposal. Organized opposition came from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which has supported studio employes in their demand for an audit of studio books as a preliminary to the wage cut. After a stormy meeting of the Academy's directors Cinemactor Conrad Nagel, the Academy's president, resigned last week. Cinema writers got a union organizer to help them reform the Screen Writers' Guild. Its 312 members agreed to have no dealings with the Bureau, planned to prevent producers from buying material from non-Guild members.

Zanuck. When employes agreed to accept the 50% cut last month, they did so on condition that the Academy, after conferring with producers, should set a date for full salaries to be resumed. Only studio which did not keep the bargain was Warner Brothers. President Harry Warner said the company could not resume the old scale until April 17, a week later than the day set by the Academy. The production chief of Warner Brothers' studio, Darryl Francis Zanuck, found himself in an awkward position. He had persuaded Warners' indignant employes to take the cut in the first place. He resigned (TIME, April 24) without demanding a settlement for his contract which had 4 1/2 years to run, soon announced plans to form an independent producing company with Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists, for his partner. After the resignation, Warner Brothers changed their minds, agreed to pay salaries in full from April 10.

To persons outside the cinema industry, Zanuck is a new name. Within the industry he is celebrated. William R. Wilkerson's Hollywood Reporter, Talmud of the cinema industry, lavishly called him last week "the greatest piece of motion picture property living today. . . ." Born at Wahoo, Neb. of U. S.-Swiss parentage, he ran away from home at 15, enlisted in the Army, chased Pancho Villa in Mexico, went to Los Angeles penniless after the 1918 Armistice. He worked in a box factory, in a shipyard, in the Baker Iron Works, wrote advertising cards for drug store windows, tried being a prizefighter for two fights. He held 18 jobs, lost them all without losing his ambition to become a writer for the cinema. Friends told him the way to do it was to write a book. He wrote a book of short stories in two weeks, paid to have it printed, waved it in producers' faces when asking for a job. He and Director Malcolm St. Clair managed famed Police Dog Rin Tin Tin. They got work with Warner Brothers by acting out their stories, taking turns impersonating Rin Tin Tin. Small, sharp-faced Zanuck quickly progressed to a successful series of boxing stories; in three years he was studio dictator. When Warner Brothers merged with First National, Darryl Zanuck was placed in complete control of both studios. He has proved his ability by keeping average production costs for Warner pictures down to $250,000, producing such hits as The Jazz Singer, Disraeli, Doorway to Hell (which started the gangster cycle), Forty-Second Street (currently reviving the vogue for musical films).

Producer Zanuck is fond of telephones that fall apart, flypaper seats, and of "ribbing" his friends in a high rasping voice. Once at a Hollywood party he was found trying to write a story under a rug. His friend and immediate superior, Vice President Jack Warner, opposed Zanuck's resignation last week. Outsiders wondered whether President Harry Warner, ready to cut off his nose to spite his face, had cut off his head instead. Zanuck plans to produce 12 pictures a year with his new company. He will be paid $4,500 a week, 50% of the profits of his pictures and a $100,000 bonus before he starts work. Supervisor Ray Griffith, Story Editor Howard Smith, Personnel Director William Dover, all from the Warner lot, had already agreed to work with him last week. Backers of the new company were not named.

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