Slump

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, you are sitting in and watching the death of a great industry--THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY. An industry that's gradually, but surely, passing on to lower levels each and every week in public estimation and patronage, because of bad leadership and a general incompetency among those leaders who are sitting in on the death watch with hardly a prescription to administer to the patient.

This editorial mouthful from the cinema's weightiest daily trade organ, Hollywood Reporter, was the U.S. motion-picture exhibitor's favorite theme-song for June--month of brides and of annual exchanges of good will between producers and exhibitors. Coming from a publication which seldom prints anything but sticky praise about Hollywood it was strong evidence that the post-Easter box-office slump had got under Hollywood's skin.

Worse than seasonal, cinema's slump was attributed by producers to nearly everything (the draft, war worry, etc.). Its most likely cause: the paucity of good pictures recently coming out of Hollywood.

The disturbed times have made the conventional product of many fictional media publicly unacceptable. Broadway had fewest plays in its modern history. Magazine fiction was hard to write and hard to buy.

What the Hollywood slump meant to exhibitors was loudly brayed by loud Harry ("Box-Office Poison") Brandt, head of New York's Independent Theatre Owners Association. His outburst, a double-truck ad in the Reporter, proceeded to document the publication's indictment. Excerpts:

Questions: Why are bowling alleys, race tracks, baseball and other forms of amusement doing great business while the movies are doing their worst?

Why haven't producers and directors tried to raise pictures above their mediocre level of recent months . . .?

Why don't they do something about eliminating the extravagant waste in Hollywood ?

Why don't they start cutting down the fabulous salaries?

Why do they refuse to face the facts . . . instead of hiding in their plush offices?

Answers: Because the present crop of big brains doesn't know what the public wants.

Because the $3,000-and $5,000-a-week executives, who should be trying to cure this industry . . . are lethargic. . . .

Because they are afraid of any change that might upset their heretofore pleasant routine.

Because double features are giving audiences movie indigestion.

Conclusion: This is our swan song. . . . The big fellows now will either do something about conditions to help themselves ... or some other big fellows will be doing it for them.

The Big Fellows kept mum.

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