When the earthquake struck Los Angeles last month, the cinema industry was already concerned with an earthquake of its own. Producers, driven to final desperation by the bank holiday, declared a 50% salary cut, to last for three or four weeks while they thought up more effective ways to save their business. By last week, most major studios had resumed paying full salaries to contract employes. After a week of producers' conferences, presided over by Tsar Will Hays, it became possible to see the two main results of the salary cuts and the condition that had produced them.
Service Bureau. One reason for high cinema producing costs is the fact that writers, actors and directors, employed on contract by individual studios, are frequently paid for doing nothing. Producers have often made plans to lend their employes to each other but nothing much has come of it. To facilitate exchange of talent, also of expensive "story material'' bought by producers but never used, an Artists' Service Bureau was formed last week, headed by Col. Jason Joy, Fox studio executive and onetime inter-studio relations supervisor for the Hays organization. Another purpose of the Bureau, to be "owned and operated on a co-operative basis by the industry as a whole," was to make it possible for producers to hire talent without competitive bidding. Actors, writers, directors and especially agents were against the proposal. Organized opposition came from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which has supported studio employes in their demand for an audit of studio books as a preliminary to the wage cut. After a stormy meeting of the Academy's directors Cinemactor Conrad Nagel, the Academy's president, resigned last week. Cinema writers got a union organizer to help them reform the Screen Writers' Guild. Its 312 members agreed to have no dealings with the Bureau, planned to prevent producers from buying material from non-Guild members.
Zanuck. When employes agreed to accept the 50% cut last month, they did so on condition that the Academy, after conferring with producers, should set a date for full salaries to be resumed. Only studio which did not keep the bargain was Warner Brothers. President Harry Warner said the company could not resume the old scale until April 17, a week later than the day set by the Academy. The production chief of Warner Brothers' studio, Darryl Francis Zanuck, found himself in an awkward position. He had persuaded Warners' indignant employes to take the cut in the first place. He resigned (TIME, April 24) without demanding a settlement for his contract which had 4½ years to run, soon announced plans to form an independent producing company with Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists, for his partner. After the resignation, Warner Brothers changed their minds, agreed to pay salaries in full from April 10.