An Exhibitor's Problems in 1926

A year ago when addressing your body, I confined myself to the problems which were uppermost in my mind, having the idea that, sitting back a year later and taking stock, I should probably find other problems awaiting solution. This year I have only two subjects on my mind. The first is the problem of selecting the feature.

For the three houses which we operate we buy about 200 feature pictures. Add another hundred, which are sent to us to be used if we want them, and you have about six pictures for every one which the Eastman Theater needs. Screening features is lazy work, but an awful lot hangs by it. When I started it, I was advised by an oldtime picture man to beware of second thoughts in deciding on pictures. It is the first impression which is important in trying to gauge what the public will like. I have found this very sound advice.

This past year I have become convinced that it is dangerous to be self-reliant in selecting pictures. My personal likes and dislikes, however I may try to sink them, are bound to influence my judgment. With this thought in mind we have in operation a plan by which all members of the Theater Staff who are present at the screening of a feature picture are obliged to submit immediately on the conclusion of the picture their individual opinions concerning it. Screening Room Rules are that those present may laugh and cry as much as they like but that no discussion of the picture will be permitted until all the slips are in. The opinions are later tabulated on the screening report. The final decision must necessarily rest in my hands. To date this plan has worked very well. We played certain pictures which I personally would have turned down The Volga Boatman, for instance, annoyed me unspeakably; yet it played to a shade better than average business.

We have had much argument as to where to begin in screening pictures, I mentioned last year that we were screening pictures beginning with the fourth reel, but, finding that my associates did not agree with this practice I decided to insist on it only in the case of features exceeding eight reels in length. We are still arguing among ourselves whether we should screen pictures under the best possible conditions or under the worst possible conditions. My belief is that we should try to know the worst. Circumstances in the screening room rob us of the atmosphere in the show. We have no music; no audience reaction is obtainable. Consequently I believe we should screen a picture with the eyes of the audience that arrives late, doing this for the same reason that I sit in the worst part of our house in judging a show. If it gets over to me there, I know it will satisfy others.

More recently for our mutual benefit I have been arranging a guessing game with the picture buyer. Each of us makes an estimate at the time the picture is booked. It is a good thing to pin down one's thoughts, and we have already found some valuable results. For example, when considering prospective business on the latest Keaton picture we made an analysis of business done at the Eastman on feature comedies. Setting aside Harold Lloyd, who is clearly an exception, we find that farce comedies as a whole have not been successful. This is true presumably for the same reason that producers of farce comedies on the legitimate stage prefer small houses. It is hard to play farce successfully if there are many empty seats.

I am still convinced, as, I was last year, that most feature pictures running over eighty minutes hurt the chances of success by their length. The past year has seen some improvement in economy of footage, but the relative position of the three major companies remains unchanged. Metro-Goldwyn and Famous Players are still in the lead in this respect, and First National is still far behind, particularly in the product of their own studios. The past year has also seen a reduction in the amount of enforced cutting. The Volga Boatman coming to us 10,600 feet long had of necessity to be shortened unless we were to sacrifice our overture and weekly film news. This I am unwilling to do for any picture. Meantime another problem in this regard has forced itself on us. Several pictures produced in roadshow length of two-and-one-half-hour performance have been released for regular motion picture presentations. As the two-hour show is standard with most picture houses, the distributors have issued shorter versions. These come to us already cut, and we get blamed by those of our patrons who have seen or heard of sequences exhibited in a roadshow and later eliminated. It is a serious question to which however I can see no answer at the present time.

Ever since The Ten Commandments the use of colored sequences has been the plaything of directors. Outside of The Falcon which did not get a general showing, we have in the last three years, screened but one feature all in color, The Black Pirate. We have had The Wanderer of the Wasteland, which came to us part in color and part tint; also a whole host of features with color sequences. I am not going to get into hot water by talking on color technique. I know little enough about it. For my present purpose, the lack of knowledge is an advantage for I can more easily become the average member of the audience. The number of them interested in color as such is too small to be considered. Personally I do not believe that color helped The Black Pirate. Many of our patrons spoke of recalling only a dark brown taste after having seen it and some even complained of eyestrain. In the case of The Wanderer of the Wasteland, it was interesting to note how the tinted parts seemed to appeal best to the audience. To the exhibitor color at present is no talking point. It does not "get them in." The color sequences in The American Venus, though good, could not save the picture from failure. I believe the fashion show in Irene would have been just as effective in black and white; personally I should have preferred it so. The color sequences in Fig Leaves, as also in Stage Struck, were amusing, but lost their interest after the first two hundred feet or so. To me an ideal use of color is to be found in It Must Be Love where for a brief moment, not over ten feet, Colleen Moore sees her father's delicatessen store through the rose tinted glasses of her lover who is buying the place.

In the discussion following my paper last year, I was asked why certain pictures of outstanding importance were not shown at the Eastman. Two pictures were under question- The Last Laugh and The Street of Forgotten Men. I explained that we had not shown either as we thought that only limited audiences would appreciate them. I added that we had shown The Beggar on Horseback, because we felt we owed it to the industry to sponsor such an unusual picture which, as I said, was five years ahead of the public taste. This picture, coming at the height of the season, held the low record for the year. I have changed my mind. I know now that I was wrong in letting the Eastman take sides with Art against the Public. It was not our business to show a picture which the big public did not care to see.

Every theater has its regular patrons. It is the job of every theater to make those patrons want to come every week and to satisfy them once they are in. A theater like the Eastman has an additional job. It should try to lead its audiences to the appreciation of better things. Now this is a matter to be done with the greatest care. Not one of us likes to be preached at, and our resentment can turn to indignation if we think we are being preached at when we have paid our good money to be entertained. In the theater business it is hard to distinguish indignation from lack of interest. True we get oral comments and letters. Letters come almost every week and we get, either direct or through the President of the University, our full share of fan mail and "nut" letters, but they do not teach anything; they can serve as no guide. No, the trouble is that indignation and lack of interest take the same form; people stay away.

Now frankly, that is what we cannot stand. If we sold season tickets to the Theater shows, as we do in our concert series, and a fixed number would come anyway, it would be different. We should then, as we do with concert artists, book attractions of high artistic though limited appeal knowing that the audiences would appreciate them once they were in or at least would soon get to appreciate them, but there is no use in talking about educating people by presenting high artistic shows if so many of the people just decide that they won't come. While The Beggar on Horseback was being shown, I was stopped by people I did not know who just "Had to tell me that they thought it was a most awful picture," and I realized then that it had shot right over the heads of such of our patrons as had decided to come and see it.

We, like every other large theater, are organized to please the big public. Compare, if you like, the movie business today with current literature. It is clear that we are in a class with "The Saturday Evening Post" and not with publications appealing to limited circulation. The Eastman plays to over two million people a year, and our problem is the same as with the "Post" which sells over two million copies a week. If the showing of an artistic picture means loss of business, its showing at our house cannot be justified. To cater to the tastes of the few while the many stay away is fundamentally wrong. We owe weekly entertainment to our steady movie-going public, and the essential quality of audience appeal must be the foundation of any show we may arrange. To this extent Box Office is King.

Where, then, and how, is our public to be led to appreciate the better things in films? Only by greater subtlety and artistry in the Pictures which our public will anyhow want to. see. Nobody will deny that this is taking place; that pictures are improving in their quality and art. Many pictures with artistic appeal will today succeed where a few years ago they would have failed. The progress is sure but slow. You cannot suddenly get people to appreciate better art. It has taken four years for our theater to establish any liking for the quiet dignified show which most other houses would class as lacking in punch and box office appeal. But it is no less true that it is by the very pictures of limited appeal that the box office successes become more artistic. The picture made in disregard of the box office may fail, but if it has artistic merit it will leave its mark on the box office of the future. It need not necessarily be a box office failure to be influential. For several days after screening Variety the regular product seemed cheap and commonplace. A friend of mine at the screening said, "I wish that every one of our American directors might be innoculated with Herr Dupont's genius." So far as imitation goes, his wish is coming true in double quick time, and I predict in this season's product many instances of this director's influence. But this is an isolated instance and over against this one there must be a dozen or more artistic pictures with limited appeal. For example, let us take the two pictures we discussed last year, or take Moana, or Grass, or Alaskan Adventures. What about them? Are they not to have a showing? The answer is, "Yes," but it should not be in houses like the Eastman. Nanook of the North comes near to holding the Eastman low record, yet it was a fine picture which gave very great pleasure to those who cared to see it. Still I should be wrong to set in another picture of the kind. The fact is that a picture like The Last Laugh or Moana has proved a real problem to us all along. Certainly there is great credit due to the producers who have made them and the distributors who have put them out, and it is our duty to get an adequate showing for them, even though they are obviously not "Saturday Evening Post" pictures.

My point is that it is up to us exhibitors to organize special houses for showing these pictures of limited appeal. Let us divorce our big appeal business from our limited appeal business. Publishing houses have done this and so must we.

The distributors look to us as their steady customers to absorb these Moanas and Grasses. Most exhibitors, to tell the truth, take them with a wry face because they must, if they want the rest of the product. If they cannot afford to shelve them, they will throw them in during some off week where they figure the loss will be least, consoling themselves with the thought that they are keeping up the tone of their house. How much better it would be to have a special place for showing such pictures to the select audience. Profits would then be possible where now there are losses. A different public would be developed without disturbance to the great public. At present there is not a sufficient number of pictures of this kind to supply a theater all the time in a city the size of Rochester, but it is possible to make a beginning. Once this outlet for pictures of high quality is established suitable product will soon be forthcoming in sufficient quantity.

Fired with enthusiasm for what has been done by Mr. Symon Gould through his Film Arts Guild at the Cameo Theater in New York, I intend to make some experiments this coming year, and am beginning in our 500 seat house, Kilbourn Hall, with Alaskan Adventures a few weeks from now. All I know at this moment is that the showings should be two a day, not continuous, so that pictures like The Last Laugh and Beggar on Horseback will not be hampered by the trouble which people had who came in during the run and stayed for the beginning.

I come now to the other problem that I have been harping on for the last year- that is, building the show. The show that we build around the feature is the chief thing that distinguishes us from the house that merely grinds out film. The presentation is the only way we have of improving on the bare product as it comes to us. Anyone seeing shows at straight film houses will recognize the welcome relief of a few minutes in which to sit back and not look before going on. This is the basis of the deluxe house in its elemental form.

I spoke last year about the wide range of audience taste in that one-eighth cross section of the population of Rochester that must come to us every week if we are to keep alive. The best appeal to this audience is through variety in program numbers. I find this audience appreciative of good contrast and variety but not desirous of the independence and incongruity characteristic of the separate numbers in a vaudeville show. From experience such as that of the last Valentino picture around which we built an Italian bill, I find the public appreciative of occasional bills having a national character, but these should come not more than five or six times a year. In general the past season has proved the advantages of a bill containing around seven items where the feature length will permit. This confirms the opinion of Mr. S.L. Rothapfel, father of deluxe presentations.

In making up the bill, the most important thing is to arrange suitable acts. At present the manager who wants acts and has no facilities for getting them up himself can go only to vaudeville or to the concert stage. I have tried all kinds of talent from these two sources. Neither is suitable to a high class deluxe bill. Vaudevillians have their own particular flavor, and at the Eastman we find that they do not make good ingredient in the bill. The concert platform will yield good talent for movie acts if suitably presented in a theatrical setting. As the Eastman Theater is also used for concerts, we have added reason for distinguishing between the two types of entertainment.

I do not believe in big headline acts which rival the feature in their cost. I do believe in a big orchestra and only when that orchestra is away on vacation will I set in big acts. Then I reverse the policy of the house. During the regular season my aim is to build everything up towards the feature- not to overshadow it.

It is impossible at this time to describe the character of the acts which the deluxe presentation needs. In each show that we are arranging we try to get further experience in this direction, and maybe after another year I shall be able to make some more positive generalizations. At the present moment I am using as my guide an aphorism of a modern French writer who says, "The public always wants to understand first and feel afterwards." There is a big home truth in this, and my instructions to those preparing our acts at the Eastman are, "Have in the act a clear reason for its being there, then you may commit the grossest forms of highbrowism." The acts which we want must explain themselves without need for program notes. It is only too true that the tired business man watching a ballet will say to himself, when he sees the apparently aimless prancings, "I don't know what it is all about, but I suppose it must be good, because her name is Pavlowa."

At the present time, no act of ours is permitted to run longer than ten minutes; we find it entirely too easy for our cast to outstay its welcome. Economy of time consequently becomes an all important factor. And to me it is interesting to see how slow by comparison a vaudeville show now seems.

I am further convinced in my objections to prologues. It is, true as I said last year that, "An atmospheric prologue can sometimes be arranged successfully where the aim is to get the audience into the right frame of mind for viewing a feature picture, but there is little sense in presenting an act based on a picture which the audience has not seen." I am almost sure that a contrasting number is in its way as effective as an atmospheric prologue. In arranging the presentation of Variety, we built contrast to the sordid and heavy feature by presenting a ten minute excerpt from "The Pink Lady."

Around the acts, of course, it is necessary to have film; the deluxe show is not a vaudeville show, and the acts should be spaced apart. In looking for this film, the first job has necessarily been to drop comedies. I am sorry for this, but it is unavoidable. If after setting in the overture, weekly film news and comedy, I have twenty minutes, I would rather not give it all to one comedy, but say, to an act of five minutes, to a scenic, cartoon or novelty of eight minutes and to another act of seven minutes. Hence we are faced with the need for one-reel comedies. Unfortunately there is a distinct shortage of them, presumably on account of the extra price which the distributor usually gets for a two-reel subject. So, in the absence of one reelers, the comedy has had to go out of the bill.

Roughly we can divide comedies into two groups- story comedies and nonsense comedies. I noted last year a healthy tendency toward story comedies. Unfortunately such comedies made in two reels cannot readily be cut. Universal Pictures has a plan this season for selling two-reel comedies and delivering them to deluxe houses already cut to 900 feet, but unfortunately the type of comedy which lends itself to such drastic cutting is not often suitable for our needs.

Having few if any comedies to draw upon, our need is for short novelty films. Among these we have found scenics acceptable if we present them with a special musical accompaniment, so that the audience has something to hear as well as to look at. Without such aid a scenic will not get over. We have found the series of Fox Varieties very good. They are convincingly proving that intelligent cutting and continuity work will bring success in a line which many others have tried and failed. We find our audiences get tired quickly of any one brand of cartoons, so we have to space them several weeks apart. Conditions like these leave us continually in need of one-reel and half-reel subjects. In the Eastman I have had no particular success by including as individual items such composite reels as Pathe Review, Searchlight and Reelview. We find them attractive to our audiences if we take out the best shot and include it in the weekly film news.

The weekly film news, as I said last year, is in importance second only to the feature. At the Eastman we have found it best to make it the first film shown on the bill. During the past year we have developed our news in every way possible. Besides taking all four services we have added local news to our weekly. This is a particularly useful addition and can be strongly recommended to other cities. By tying up with the local daily papers we are able to secure the selection of several subjects at the bare cost of the film and the titling.

We do not at the Eastman show the standard jokes issued weekly under the name "Topics of the Day," because we do not consider such issues as really suitable to motion pictures. Many people hold it to be an invasion of a field better covered by periodicals. In our other houses we have found the regular presentations of these Topics to be most successful if they are introduced into the weekly film news, and I am indebted to Mr. Robert C. Bruce for the suggestion that they should be presented without any musical accompaniment. We find that the jokes get over better; not so much from their humor but because there are always people in the audience who read quickly and laugh early or late, also whose laughter is contagious. Music in its capacity as a soothing influence seems to hinder the laughs.

I must close my paper as I did last year with the depressing fact that speeds in weekly film news are as bad as ever. I wish it were possible for the Society of Motion Picture Engineers to conduct an inquiry among camera men as to their manner of cranking. Recently Mr. D.W. Griffith told me that his men were photographing with the idea that the pictures would be exhibited at 90 feet per minute. Among ourselves we believe his productions go best when run nearer 100 feet a minute; but, if only the news reel camera men had in mind an ultimate projection speed of 90 feet per minute we should see a vast improvement.

DISCUSSION

Mr. Richardson: I believe that the particular type of paper presented in Mr. Clarke's inimitable and very excellent way is perhaps of greater practical value to the industry than any of the very excellent papers we have. I only wish every exhibitor in the United States and Canada might have listened to what Mr. Clarke has said. I do hope Mr. Clarke will be induced to present papers at future meetings of the Society. I would suggest one on projection and its possibilities. This week I was called in by the United Artists, which organization has been having trouble with projectionists who do not want to run the "Black Pirate," a production in Technicolor, at the speed recommended. I have had certain scenes screened at different speeds, and I ran into something I am unable to understand, although I think I may have found an answer to it. I found that 80 was about the best speed for the action- probably better than a higher speed, but the speed which the United Artists have recommended does not set up any serious injury to the action. It, however, seemed to be true that the minute the speed is reduced below 85 the colors are not so bright and sharp. I want to ask you if you have noticed any effect of this kind in the projection of color pictures and if so what you idea of the reason is.

Mr. Clarke: You are asking me a question beyond my knowledge personally. The all-color features we have so far shown, also the color in black and white features have been run at twelve minutes per thousand or at a speed of 83 or 85 at the most. We slow down for our color pictures purposely.

Mr. Palmer: What is it that determines the size of the audience? Do people go because of the name of the picture? Was it because the audience on Monday told their friends they did not like the picture that the friends did not come on Tuesday? Was it what they read in the newspapers or what is it that makes people dislike one picture and like another?

Mr. Clarke: When I came to Rochester the stage manager of our theater said to me, "I like Rochester, its size is still such that the majority of shows are made or broken over the washline Mondays." We cannot definitely pin down the thing that induces people to come. I know from personal experience that when the house opens on Sunday the audience somehow knows whether or not it is going to enjoy the picture. Most of the people come from advance information or the attractive sound of the title. The title means a great deal. With Nanook the business opened poor and remained so. With Variety the business started average and increased steadily during the week. But there are only about five weeks in the year, I should say, when that happens. As a rule, the business for the week is divided up over the various days on a fairly constant series of percentages. We have at times tried special advertising campaigns on certain pictures. I don't like doing this at the Eastman because we are playing to the same audience week after week, and I try to keep the advertising on an even keel; it is anyhow hard to prove that special advertising has any real effect. Somehow- the boys at the theater say- the audience smells them out beforehand.

Mr. Peck: What is your opinion on the future of the straight scenic picture and the approximate length most suitable for your theater and perhaps for other theaters and exhibitors?

Mr. Clarke: Do you refer to a scenic picture of feature length?

Mr. Peck: No. The short one-reel subjects.

Mr. Clarke: The straight scenic presenting nothing but outdoor shots is good probably for not over 400 feet. With good continuity and interesting subtitles I should say that the time could run up to 800 feet. The Fox varieties- and they have had greater experience in this- average 750. The pure scenic is of value to us only as the basis for an act presentation. Pictures of water falls projected on the curtain, not on the screen, fading into an act with appropriate music can be used, but there the average film will not run over 200 feet.

Dr. Hickman: I think that one of the main points of Mr. Clarke's paper is that for all time the director's chief problem is the selection of feature plays which will fill his theater. Mr. Clarke occupies an authoritative position in one of the biggest theaters and this fact separates him from his patrons. The films he likes they will not necessarily appreciate. After screening a feature he has to determine whether or not he likes it, and then modify his opinion to suit an audience. He must form an opinion and then make a sort of arithmetical addition or subtraction and announce the result as his patrons' taste. I suggest that there will be a tendency for the breach to widen in Mr. Clarke's mind and cause him to modify his opinion more than is actually warranted. Would it not be possible to admit a quite uninitiated audience to the screening room and note their preferences? Their opinions might be asked of two test films, for instance, Stella Dallas and Variety, and the audience finally compounded of ten who liked the former and two the latter. That would enable public taste to be found first hand at a sufficiently depressed level.

My second point follows from a remark by Mr. Palmer. There is no doubt that many a highbrow picture comes to the public distilling a subtle aroma of failure which dooms it before exhibition. One can almost hear the box office saying, "Exquisite, but too refined for the public nose." I suggest to Mr. Clarke that the higher class pictures never receive the heralding and pre-announcement accorded the lighter and at present more popular material.

Mr. Clarke: The fear that we might, in selecting for our public, play down to a point below what they would accept is a legitimate fear until one realizes that if you do so, you will get left almost immediately. Pictures made with an obvious effort at placating the box office come to us all the time and more often are hopeless failures. Very few pictures that are designed to be box office pictures succeed as such. I am not afraid of any tendency on our part to lose touch with the best side of our audience. Coming to the question of a representative group to screen: It is one of the peculiarities of the business that one gets no average reaction. I spoke in the paper of fan letters and "nut" mail. Exactly what the reaction of the audience is, it is impossible for us to judge. I have tried at various times selecting people to attend screenings, but no matter how large a number I might select, I have concluded that I cannot make it representative. If it were as simple a matter as saying, Did you like Variety better than Stella Dallas?" it would be simple, but few people know their own minds when you ask them such a question. In the second place, the judgment that we would get from the committees would probably lead us wrong as often as it led us right. Perhaps in this paper I have not sufficiently emphasized the problem we are faced with in making these decisions. All I know is that there is a very wide range of personal attitude, and I have found success in consulting the various people connected with us, but have found no success in following the opinions of those who are not living with it. It is a difficult question.

Mr. Peck: What has been your experience on industrial films of one reel length?

Mr. Clarke: I can classify industrial films with scenics. If the subject is one of general interest, I have no hesitation in showing it. I call to mind many varying shades of so-called industrial pictures, running all the way from basic industries down to almost bare-faced advertising of specialties. We had some of the Fox varieties dealing with basic industries- pictures having to do with logging, with gold mining, pictures taken in salt mines in western New York. These are very interesting. The pictures in the more special lines of manufacture are not sufficiently interesting to justify inclusion as a separate item. Pathe Review will have often an industrial subject, and about 150 feet will be as much as we can use at one time.

Original article by Eric T. Clarke, 1926.

Eric T. Clarke, "An Exhibitor's Problems in 1926," in Transactions of Society of Motion Picture Engineers, #27, January 1927. Paper given at conference held October 4-7, 1926.

© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

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