Items For Theatre-Goers HOLLYWOOD THINKS THAT 1949 WILL BE SIGNIFICANT YEAR

Wanganui Chronicle, 18 February 1949, Page 7

Items For Theatre-Goers HOLLYWOOD THINKS THAT 1949 WILL BE SIGNIFICANT YEAR

It has been predicted that 1949 will be Hollywood’s most significant year. The optimism of the guiding minds in the celluloid city has been so infectious that others are starting to take notice.

“I believe that 1949 will be one of the most intersting years in the history of the motion picture industry,” Darryl F. Zanuck of 20th Century Fox said recently. Producers were spurring all their creative forces to meet the challenge of what was definitely a “buyer’s market,” he said. It had taken the industry about a year to adapt itself to this condition. To meet it, films were being made of diversified subject matter and by going all over the world in search of matter.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Dore Schary believes that the quality of the product is what will count. “ We must get good pictures first of all,” he said. All other problems would resolve themselves. There was a greate r audience today for better films than ever before. “The job at hand is to see that an even flow of excellent productions go into the threatres. If we do that everything else will adjust itself normally. 1949 does look promisiig for me.” Difficulties during 1948 caused a re-examination of American methods, according to Samuel Goldwyn of Goldwyn Productions. There had been a new consolidation of Hollywood’s resources of artistry and ingenuity. The change would be seen in the improved quality of pictures to come from every studio during this year, he said.

Henry Ginsberg of Paramount said his studios were planning to produce more pictures in 1949 than during 1948.

Warners Bros, expect the year to be a good one, according to Jack L. Warner. "We anticipate exceptional returns for good pictures and my brothers and I enter the new year with the strongest entertainment programme in our history scheduled for production.” Probably the most pertinent comment on 1949 prospects came from David O. Selznick of Vanguard. Fie said: "While these are sade times in Hollywood, it’s also time that Hollywood got its fighting spirit back.” Mr. Selznick made rather a startling admission for a Holywood man. “We’ve all been wasteful,” he said, “but there’s enugh coming in to the box office to pay the artists ana to pay a profit—yet we’re not getting it.” The trouble was only partially in Hollywood. Distribution and exhibition were points about which too little was known. The armchair experts in New York had veiled those two points in a shroud of mystery. “For every 10 million dollars that comes into the box office, only two million dollars returns to Hollywood,” he said. He suggested that a committee should investigate the economies of the industry. That’s what the top men in Hollywood think. If their optimism is justified then critics might be able to colour their columns with superlatives when making their end-of-year reviews. Chances are they won’t, though.