by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Previous posts here in the “That’s a Wrap” series highlighting motion picture-related artifacts from the Homestead’s collection have included ones focusing on NOW, the biweekly publication for employees of West Coast Theatres, owned by the William Fox Organization, which bought the theater chain the prior year.
Fox (born Wilhelm Fuchs) quickly amassed an empire based on his studio, which later became 20th Century Fox, as well as a chain of theaters across the country, but he lost it all even faster in 1930 thanks to a hostile takeover and this change in fortune was made far worse when, during a bankruptcy proceeding, he attempted to bribe the judge and served a little more than five years in federal prison.
His acquisition of West Coast included the retention of Harold B. Franklin (born Harold B. Fraynk) as the president of the chain, which was based on Washington Boulevard and Western Avenue at the West Coast Boulevard Theatre. Franklin, whose life was briefly discussed in a prior NOW-based post here, had much experience in vaudeville and movie theater management and came to the Angel City in 1927 to run West Coast.
The editor of the publication was another recent arrival: Maurice Henle (1898-1970), a native of Cincinnati, his mother’s hometown, while his father hailed from Germany. After finishing his schooling in the River City, Henle became a reporter for the Cincinnati Post and, after a couple of years earning his stripes, he decided to seek his journalistic fortune in a bigger city “and flipped a coin to see whether it would be Los Angeles and New York,” according to the Los Angeles Record of 7 July 1928.
The Big Apple was his destination and he wrote for several outlets, including the syndicates United Press International and the Newspaper Enterprise Association, sometimes working two jobs, including with a magazine while he continued honing his craft. At one point earlier in the Roaring Twenties, Henle had a book review, drama and movie column syndicated in some 400 newspapers throughout the nation.
After a short stint working in St. Louis, Henle left journalism to work in New York City for Paramount Pictures and stayed for two years, after which came a disastrous effort to form his own newspaper syndicate which left him broke. He decided to migrate to Hollywood and write film scripts, with one, “The Army of Silent Women,” picked up producer Charles R. Rogers who distributed his films through First National Pictures. though the picture never materialized.
While he worked on the script, he took a position with the West Coast publicity department, including the editing of NOW. Henle, however, resigned in spring 1929 and returned to Cincinnati and the Post before spending nearly three decades as the public information officer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, the important New Deal agency that still brings electricity to a massive area in the South. Franklin had a regular column called “Personal Talks” and this one was an excerpt of a paper read at the meeting in Lake Placid, New York of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers and he observed,
The motion picture is being born all over again. Sound synchronization is bringing to the motion picture theatre a second chapter of progress, not alone because of the great interest shown by the public in sound synchronization but because of the recent interest that it has brought to the entire industry. The advent of sound or talking motion pictures has resulted in the quickening of the pulse of many in every department of motion picture production.
Everyone, he went on, in the industry was reassessing their roles and futures and that the advent of talkies was crucial to “the raising of the level of the silent motion pictures.” He asserted, however, that “the silent motion picture is too well established as a medium of entertainment to vanish because of this new development” and believed that both would coexist—Franklin did not know just how wrong he was in this prognostication!
Sound motion pictures would mean “a new literature will be brought to the screen” as techniques would be geared to “appeal to the ear as well as to the eye” though “a new mode of expression.” Consequently, the theater leader felt that “no one can estimate at this time the far-reaching effect of such a development” as it would also involve “the best practices of the stage as well as the screen” and lead to “an entertainment of the widest possible scope.” Therefore, Franklin felt, “the great motion pictures are still to be produced” and that was very much true.
After getting a little in the weeds with movie industry engineers about proper volume levels and controls in theaters, the West Coast chief executive turned to a new topic concerning his view that “the proper advertising of pictures that have sound is a matter of great importance” when it came to the various systems (Fox’s Movietone, or example). He concluded by noting that “every important theatre throughout the country will be equipped with sound synchronization device[s] within the next twelve months” and that “its progress will depend upon the understanding and effort that we all make.”
The Carthay Circle Theatre in West Los Angeles opened in May 1926 to great fanfare as one of the more unusual “movie palaces” in the Angel City. NOW featured the opening of the Fox production, Mother Knows Best, directed by John Blystone, who had a fifteen-year career though mostly on little-known films albeit with stars like Will Rogers, Spencer Tracy, Janet Gaynor and, in his last two pictures, Laurel and Hardy.
The leads in the film were Louise Dresser, Madge Bellamy and Barry Norton and was Fox’s first picture to incorporate sound with dialogue, though portions were silent. The movie was based on a work by the noted novelist Edna Ferber (1885-1968), several of whose works were made into films, including her Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big, the 1927 hit Show Boat, Best Picture Oscar winner Cimarron and her late stage classic from 1956, Giant, and was a fictional take on the life of vaudeville star Elsie Janis.
The feature in NOW concerned the fact that, it was asserted, “no picture, within the memory of the oldest theatre man, has commanded the spontaneous outbursts . . . by newspaper critics” and “the Los Angeles times, a conservative newspaper, devoted a column and a half to its description of the Carthay Circle program,” mostly focused on the film. The publication added that “the entire program at the Circle is a revelation in talking pictures” and was modestly deemed “the greatest all-around talking picture program ever presented.”
This included Mother Knows Best with its several talking sequences as well as three short subjects which “will find a place sooner or later on the screens of our houses” and include audio of presidential candidate and winner of the ensuing election, Herbert Hoover, as well as the “inimitable, subtle irony” of playwright George Bernard Shaw.
The Times was quoting as effusing that the sound dialogue, comprising a reel of the picture, “is unquestionable history-making” so that the film “is in many respects the most important with sound” since The Jazz Singer, the 1927 production that had the first sound elements. Another note of praise was that no program offered “the new ocular and aural blending of entertainment that has been more consistently interesting” as that at the westside venue. The piece ended with the claim that,
A premiere, brilliant even for the Carthay Circle, noted for its brilliant openings, brought together many notables of the screen world. Every star worthy of the name, every big producer, and scores of directors, writers and studio and theatre executives were present.
An actor highlight was that of comedian Charlie Murray, all but forgotten now, but who began his career in 1912 and appeared in not far below 300 pictures over a quarter century. In this case, however, he was on a tour in, “Hats,” one of the “Ideas” of the prominent team of Fanchon and Marco with NOW commenting that “it is replete with timely tunes, merry maids and scintillating scenery as all of the Ideas are.” Theater managers were exhorted: “you can give Charlie Murray both barrels of your publicity, exploitation and advertising guns. He’s worth it—and he’ll bring returns at the box office.”
There was revenue as an obvious clear concern, but so was cost, especially unnecessary ones and Franklin’s brother, Jack, the Angel City division manager, issued a bulletin to theater managers about the overuse of lighting indoors and out and ordered that stage managers and assistants and janitors were to be warned to ensure that lights “are not kept burning during lunch hours, when nobody is in the office, or during morning hours, and that no lights are in the ladies’ and men’s rest rooms before and after shows.” The result was a level of profit from savings “that will amaze you.”
Staff changes throughout the chain were highlighted, including “a general shake-up in West Coast’s publicity and advertising department. A benefit for victims of hurricane-battered Florida (which resonates now given the terrible swath of destruction in the Southeast, including the Sunshine State, from the recent Hurricane Helene) at the Metropolitan Theatre was hosted on 29 September by the Theatre Managers’ Association of Los Angeles, with Marco, of Fanchon and Marco, arranging the show and Charlie Chaplin tapped to be the master of ceremonies.
Also featured was a star guessing contest promotion throughout the West Coast chain included a star guessing one, while West Coast Scrip in the form of a book for movie fans who used it “as a pass to many hours of wonderful entertainment” was also touted. A recent post here featuring a 1929 edition of The Architectural Digest included some images of the Golden Gate Theater, part of a West Coast “junior circuit” and situated in East Los Angeles and NOW noted the grand opening on 21 September with “scores of screen stars” and company officials present. The 1,700-seat venue had a “de luxe policy” with “stage talent furnished by Fanchon and Marco” and its unusual elements were briefly mentioned.
A little novelty at the Alexander Theatre (now known as the Alex) in Glendale concerned the new Clara Bow vehicle, The Fleet’s In and for which “usherettes donned sailor costumes, giving the house the proper atmosphere for the picture.” Of course, it helped that the gimmick “brought the Alexander some unexpected publicity as large two-columns photos appeared in local papers “with full credit to the house and to the picture.”
A Portland, Oregon marketing effort was also praised as a “battering ram [which] drives through for some outstanding publicity breaks on stage acts and presentations” with a focus on another prominent comedian, Harry Langdon. The effort was called “a clever publicity break that brought prestige to West Coast Theatres” and reader interest to the Portland Telegram newspaper and “is a genuine inspiration for publicity men throughout the circuit.”
Another notable item related to Langdon concerned the establishment of an ostrich-drawn cart, borrowed from Los Angeles Ostrich Farm next to Lincoln Park in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, with a three-dimensional caricature of the star seated in the conveyance and promoting his new flick, Heart Trouble, at the flagship West Coast Boulevard Theatre. Meanwhile, a pair of San Jose employees were lauded for getting two stories for a West Coast theater on the front page of the San Jose News.
As always, the front cover of NOW sports a striking green and white image of a football team of various West Coast departments kicking off with “Capital Investment” holding the pigskin, while a pair of pennants on the goal posts in the background read “October Record” and “Breaking Business.” A caption approving observed that West Coast was “The All-American Team That Always Gets the Business!”
Perusing the eight pages of the publication is always eye-opening in getting a good grounding on the operation of a large-scale motion picture theatre chain during the Roaring Twenties and we have a few more issues in the collection to feature in future editions of “That’s a Wrap,” so keep an eye out for those.