GET ME BUDAPEST!

Radio Record, 18 March 1938, Page 17

GET ME BUDAPEST!

Is This Why Hollywood Goes Doom-mongering ? Special to the "Record"

by

GORDON

MIRAMS

AMUEL GOLDWYN, we read in the newspapers, is predicting the doom of Hollywood. At the same time there is a campaign of sorts being conducted by some producers to tell the world just how much the cost of film-making has increased in the past year or so. Harry Hunter, managing director of Paramount in Australia and New Zealand, who has just been visiting this country, quoted some facts and figures during his visit, which were widely reported. Hollywood, said Mr. Hunter, is seriously up against this question of soaring production costs. Adolph Zukor had estimated that the cost of materials and labour had increased 35 per cent. over last year. Just about every part of the industry was becoming organised in unions and guilds, it was stated, this resulting in a big increase in salaries. Coupled with this was the constant and ever-increasing demand of the public for better pictures. And Paramount, said Mr. Hunter. would nro-

duce them: this year they had budgeted for 22 pictures costing a total of 22,000,000 dollars. It has not been expressly mentioned, but the inference is there for all to see -that if Hollywood is not going to lower its standard of production somebody has got to foot the bill of rising eosts. This is not a matter that affects New Zealand more than any other part of the world, for .pictures shown throughout the world are paid for throughout the world. But that’s just the point, that’s just what

makes this a matter of general public interest-for obviously, in the last resort, it’s the public who pays, RDINARILY, I believe, the picture-going public gets pretty good value for its money. So good that it has ceased to be grateful. There are comparatively few pictures not worth a bob to see, and a good many which are relatively worth at least 10 times that amount, when you consider the talent in them, the settings and costumes, and all the research involved. Yet, if you’re lucky, you can see them all for the same price. So, come to think of it, if perhaps we may have to pay a little more for our pictures, because of rising costs in a booming world, perhaps we shouldn’t kick .too much about it. (I should talk! I haven’t paid to see a picture show in 10 years!)

Still, in that case, I do suggest we have a right to know where our money goes. We want the best possible value for it. That is where the shoe pinches a little. HOLLYWOOD ‘seems most inclined to blame Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal and the trade unions for its present financial problem. The argument would sound rather more convincing if Hollywood itself wasn’t such a notorious waster of money. It’s Hollywood’s own fault if we’ve got that impression. Reckless extravagance is part of the legend of Huliywood. Spendthrifts always make good uews, and the Hollywood publicity machine has been working for yeurs deliberately creating the impression that mouey is no object with film producers. When it comes to spending money, Hollywood is second only to Mr. Chamberlain when he is rearming. Az 7] env. if full value

for this reckless spending were passed on to the pnblic who pays, we couldn’t complain, But does this always happen ? For instance, take fue typical example of a. ‘est-, selling book that they want to make into a film Ureducer Joe Fincklebaum ‘ids, say, 70,000 dollars, aud that’s a pretty good price and just about what the rights to the book are worth. Then along comes Alf Suortz and he says, ‘I’ raise you ten grand" And fingily into the market comes Rube Goldmeyer, und he plonks down another 20,900

and then they. decide the deal is closed. All very nice for the author, of course, but from the point of view of the public who pays, what has happened is that 100,000 dollars has been paid for a story that is worth, in entertainment value, 70,000. The extra 30,000 dollars is not passed on to the public. But that’s Competition, The same sort of thing happens every week, not only with stories, but with stars’ contracts, and directors’ salaries and rights to this and that. And, every time it happens, the winning producer takes good care to tell us all ubout it, because that’s good publicity for bim. It’s not such good publicity for Hollywood’s complaint that it’s getting hard up. Sam. Goldwyn had probably got one (Cont. on p. 38.)

f AS week, Sam Goldwyn (who is clever at getting his name in the paper) was cabled round the world as predicting the doom of Hollywood. Doomed that is, says Mr. Goldwyn (who produces only very big and expensive pictures) unless it ceases manufacturing second-rate movies in wholesale lots. "lt is qa serious situation," he said, ‘‘when almost anyone able to write his own name can earn 1000 dollars a week as a scenario writer..."

.- Get Me Budapest! (Continued from page 17).

eye on the publicity machine himself when he predicted the doom of Hollywood; but, although the cable message wasn’t very full, I received the impression that he was partly concerned about this very subject of Hollywood’s extravagance when he mentioned how easy it is to become a writer or producer. Unorganised, uneconomie spending of this nature has been at the root of the trouble in the British film industry. Goldwyn apparently believes that Hollywood is headed the same way. Yet I seem to remember that Goldwyn himself once made a pretty wasteful investment on a girl called Anna Sten. Take another recent example. One studio thought it would be nice to have a real live English earl on its paysheet. It offered £1000 a week to the Earl of Warwick to come to Hollywood and make a picture. He stayed with them for several months-at £1000 a week-without making a single appearance on the screen, and then went off to another studio. What yalue did the public receive from the first studio's expenditure on its earl? ON the other hand, while in New | Zealand, Harry Hunter, of Paramount, assured us that rising costs of film production had already prompted the introduction of economies at the source, but not in such a way as to endanger the quality of pictures, I should like to think that these economies did not come into force until after the production of a "trailer" I saw the other aay. In this trailer we were shown Cecil B. DeMille reviewing some Continental films. In one of them he sees a Hun: garian actress, Franciska Gaal, who attracts him most favourably. "Stop the film," says B. DeMille, and then, turning to his secretary, he raps out: "Get me Budapest!" Just like that. Just as you or I might order a cup of coffee-only more politely, I hope. In about two minutes, Mr. DeMille has "got Budapest" on the phone, and is talking to Franciska Gaal, rosy with the make-up of slumber, and offering her a fat contract to come to Hollywood and star in "The Buccaneer," "Now, I don’t know whether the public is expected to take that "trailer" seriously or not. Personally, I had the best laugh for weeks when Dr. DeMille rapped out "Get me Budapest." If it is meant to be taken seriousiy, then one can’t help thinking that Mr. DeMille must have rather more money than sense to wake up a girl in the middle of the night with a telephone call from Hollywood to Budapest when ke could, for a fraction of the cost, have sent a cable which would have been waiting for her when she woke up in the morning. Of course, it didn’t really happen (thongh from all one hearg it’s just the kind of thing DeMille might do). It was a piece of publicity for DeMille’s next picture. That’s the way the film people will argue. The point I make, however, is that if Hollywood wants us to be sympathetic toward its plea-probably quite justified-of rising costs, it shouldn't, for its own sake, supply us with suck evidence of wasteful internal extravagance,