The New York herald., 1921-09-18
COL LOSSUS GROWS FROM PIGMY IN YEARS
All Branches, Produc-
ton, Distribution and
The atre Owning,
Combined in Great
Go n c e r MS t e p $
Read Like Romance

is not a civilized nation on the globe in
which Paramount-Artcraft pictures are not
known and shown regularly"
And yet the common stock of the Fa-
nous Players-Lasky, which has sold on
Change as high as 1913, was quoted last
month around 4S. What is the matter with
the ostensible octopus? Well, that query is
answered down in Wall Street according to
the bull or the bear predictions of the
speaker or the particular interests Of the
circular advisers
Comment on Dividend Payment
Made In Market Letter
On Thursday August 25 the common
stock closed at $685. On that day M. 8.
Wolfe & Co.'S Financial Forecast, COM
menting upon the announcement that the
Famous Players -Lasky would pay a regular
quarterly dividend of 50 per share the
common issue, payable October l. said:
The report of the Famous Players-Lasky
Corporation, according to our way OF think
ing, has two important features. One is the
meagreness of the information given out
and the other Is the apparent effort to cre-
ate optimism by including earnings of sub
sdary companies. thus pushing up the per
share earnings for the first half of the year.
Reading between the lines, we get the I'M
preston that perhaps all Is not as rosy as
it seems. If the earnings of the company
were running at a satisfactory rate, why
should 1t be necessary to pad out the report
by including earnings Of subsidiaries which
have not been included in previous reports?
We also observe that the market for the
shares did not respond promptly to the
glowing report on earnings. Knowing the
keen Judgment Of the people who are back
of this corporation. we fail to see why they
did not take advantage of the strengthened
position of the corporation in the way OF
earnings by prompt accumulation Of the
shares In other words, II everything is as
satisfactory claimed. why should this
stock be selling on basis to yield approx
mately IA per cent?
And finally here is the explanation of
fered by w. W. Hodkinson, the man who
created Paramount only to lose 1t to what
now is colloquially known as "the motion
picture trust:
80 thoroughly fed up has the public be-
come with second rate pictures resulting
from the factory system of production. that
the lack of quality alone is keeping people
out OF the theatres. This coupled with the
existing money shortage and the fact that
censorship and th reformers are forcing
general elimination of the sensational, which
has had short popularity at the box office,
has brought about a crisis. The short
unwilling to admit this, much less to take
proper steps to meet 1t.
There is no denying that while there
have been many worthy pictures produced,
the productions generally have been of an
inferior quality. This is due to what have
called the factory system of production.
The motion picture industry is divided into
three separate and distinct branches--the
production of pictures the distribution of
pictures and the exhibition of pictures.
Under the present system the larger or
ganizations within the industry to-day are
trying to control all three of those branches.
They make pictures, they distribute them
and then. in trying to insure market for
their poor product, which naturally suffers
by comparison with pictures more carefully
and more thoughtfully produced, they buy
theatres.
THUS is created an endless chain. the pur-
poses of which is to boost the sale of low
grade photopays. The entire idea is false
and unsound. They go on making poor pic
lures, distributing poor pictures and either
compelling the exhibitors to show these poor
pictures in their houses or buying theatres
which they can control. And i'm either event
the poor pictures are forced upon the pub
lc."