Evening star., 1946-08-11
Another International War Is Being Waged Right Nov
Battle for the Worlds Dollars With Getting
Competition MoreE Elaborate Photoplays
By CorIe Hodge

NE w 4 oIkA,
Americas motion picture industry
quietly is preparing for battle so
big that even Hollywood's glib pub
licists might lack words to describe
it's scope 1t is the race for the world
movie market.
| The chief contenders are United
States and British picture makers.
and the prize is hundreds of millions
of dollars in box Office cash The
| fight is not new, but war and then
| transport bottlenecks stalled it for
more than six years. And in the re-
newed bout, the United States will
face tougher competition.
The contest to get films on screens
from Timbuctoo to Trafalgar
Square is not the type of rough -tum-
BILE scrap that scenario writers de-
pict. 1t concerns global finance and
audience reaction and international
dollar exchange.
It's outcome could effect every
American moviegoer.
United States box Offices gross a
billion dollars year and United
States movie fans are 65 per cent of
| the world audience Still. Hollywood
needs the $125 100000 earned from
foreign markets to turn out the lush,
costly productions for which it Is
| famed.
| The market is ripe Continental
Europe, an Associated Press survey
shows, is crying wolf in one breath
Charging that American film in
terests employ monopolistic distri-
button methods-and pleading in
the next for more of Clark Gable,
Ingrid Bergman and Mickey Mouse.
In England, four of every five thea
ter marques boast American made
pictures and movie-house queues are
longer than every before.
1t is a -Briton, thin-faced, Sum-
day school teaching Yorkshireman
named Joseph Arthur Rank who
promises Hollywood it's keenest COM
petition.
Invaded New York.
Rank owns go per cent OF Eng
lands theaters and controls lions S
share of the empires production IA
cilities. He runs movie houses in Ire
land, Australia and North Africa and
has a half-interest in Canada S
Odeon circuit.
Last year he visited the United
States to set up company to dis
tribute his English-made pictures
here and to rent New York's solid,
old Winter Garden Theater as a
showcase" for them. He also had a
f1rst-hand look at United States pro-
duction methods and techniques.
Rank would like to make more
tWo-sided the exchange of U. S.
and English films The amount of
money made in England by u. S.
producers he says, is too much
without some corresponding con-
tribution on the other side of the
ledger"
In a splurge of polished, Holly
Woodlike salesmanship, Rank now
is turning out expensive superpic-
lures, sharp departure from
Britain's usual movie-making meth.
DDS. Rank knows that, to meet COM
petition. he must offer product as
attractive as his competitors
Caesar and Cleopatra" which
stars Vivien Leigh and is being re-
leased in America this summer. cost
him five million dollars. BY compari-
son, Hollywood's Gone With the
Wind" in which Miss Leigh made
her U. S. debut, cost three and
three-quarter million dollars.
To End Criticism.
In the forefront of the u. S. cam
paign abroad will be eight members
of the Motion Picture Association of
America (the Eric Johnston Office
who have formed the Motion Pic
ture Export Association to distribute
their wares jointly-and presum-
ably. more effectiyely-in Japan
Korea and Continental Europe.
/ The eight are Columbia. Metro
iGoldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, RKO
goth Century-Fox, United Artists
Universal and Warner Bros.
The associations first move. al
ready underway, aims to end the
storm Of European criticism against
U. S. film interests.
Europeans, especially the out