He Can Add

Hollywood Producer Leonard Goldstein received a telegram that surprised many people in the film colony when the news got around. Goldstein had got word that his newest picture, Battle at Apache Pass, was No. 1 in Variety's weekly poll of box-office hits. Apache Pass is an Indian picture that is merely a slight variation on the old theme of good guy v. bad guy among guns, horses and dust. But the film, which cost a piddling $681,000, is topping such gaudy epics as The Greatest Show on Earth ($3,000,000) and Quo Vadis ($6,500,000). Goldstein, 48, who is Hollywood's top moneymaking producer, was not at all surprised to hear the news. Said he: "I don't write, I don't direct, I don't shoot for awards. But hell, I can add."

Who Digs Whimsy? Such pictures as the Ma & Pa Kettle series (starring Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride) and the Francis (the talking mule) films are typical of Goldstein's successes. In all his major efforts, the gags are fast and broad, the chases wild and merry. As Goldstein himself puts it: "Nobody likes my pictures but the public." For the more mature trade, Goldstein has turned out such pictures as The Egg and I and numerous westerns. But he avoids sophisticated comedy. Once, turning down a script, he explained to Writer Don McGuire: "Don, you dig whimsy. I dig whimsy. But does the public dig whimsy? Not with a clam shovel!"

The average Hollywood producer makes about two pictures a year, but last year Goldstein made 19. He runs his projects at Universal-International studios like a factory. He approves the basic script idea, buys the production tools, then lets his workmen bring out the product. Often he will give his writer the summary of an idea. Then, "We start tomorrow," he will say, pulling on his long cigar. "I'll see you at the preview."

Play the Strength. Some of the Goldstein rules for making "Hershey Bar" pictures--i.e., movies that sell lots of candy and popcorn too: 1) never make a war picture unless it is a comedy (e.g., (Up Front and its sequel, Willie and Joe Back at the Front); 2) play the strength --if fantasy pictures are making money, turn out fantasy pictures until moviegoers are tired of them; 3) avoid "downbeat" pictures--nobody ever bought tickets to watch inmates of a mental institution; 4) adults are grown-up children, and should be entertained as such.

"The audience," Goldstein says, "has to feel superior. Like in a quiz show, if the audience knows the answer and the guy misses it, they feel good. So your comic has to be somebody not as smart as the guy watching it. You can't laugh at somebody who's smarter than you. Hollywood wouldn't believe it, but every so often you see a Ma & Pa Kettle coming out of a theater, laughing at themselves."

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