Cinema: The Good Old Silents

Hollywood is morbidly jealous of TV, and TV broods itself into ulcers over the high costs of production—but Film Distributor Nat Sanders feels fine. Last year Sanders waded through a list of titles in the U.S. Office of Alien Property, found two old German pictures that many a moviegoer still remembers fondly: The Last Laugh (1924), with Emil Jannings, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Sanders made a percentage deal with the Government, added a sound track with music and background noises, and opened his double bill last week in a small Manhattan “art” theater.

Without benefit of reviews from the New York critics, the pictures in the first week coined nearly four times as much money as the theater had been grossing—$4,700, as compared to $1,200. Moreover, Sanders, with Co-Distributor Sam Cummins, found that moviegoers seemed to prefer sure-fire old silent pictures to the latest Hollywood product: the crowds (“Longhairs, the average guys, and Park Ave.,” according to Sanders) were overflowing; they were even applauding.

The reason for the bill’s popularity is The Last Laugh: photographed by Karl Freund, the picture was one of the first movies to drop subtitles, and one of the first to use a mobile camera, boom and dolly shots and miniature sets (shot close up to look like the real thing). Its success was responsible for the Hollywood importation of Jannings, Freund* and Director F. W. Murnau, as well as for the development of several new cinema techniques.

Sanders and Cummins hope that they have hit a minor gold mine. Their current double bill, they figure, might gross more than $1,000,000. It might even hit closer to $2,000,000 if RKO and Loew’s theaters decide to book the pictures for their chains. Says Sanders: “There are about 250 art houses in the U.S., and about 1,000 more that will take good art pictures.” With customers ready & waiting for all the good old silents that he can find, Sanders is content to let Hollywood and TV fight it out. He is now negotiating for Variety (1925), with Emil Jannings.

*Who now films the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz TV show, / Love Lucy.