Business & Finance: Cinema

Warner Brothers Pictures Inc (Vitaphone sound pictures) last week arranged to buy Stanley Co. of America (exhibitors with more than 3.000 cinema houses under control). The absorption is a $100,000,000 affair.

The deal is of vital importance to Warner Brothers. They were the pioneers in the production of sound-pictures, which this year have given a new spurt to the U. S. amusement industry. But Warner Brothers have had very few houses of their own. While their sound picture rival, Fox Film (with Movietone) has customers in the allied Fox Theatres, Warner Brothers have been obliged to depend upon the demand, insistent although it was, of strange and jealous exhibitors. With Stanley Co. it can stand shoulder to shoulder with other great amusement sellers− Paramount-Famous-Lasky, Loew, Fox.