Business & Finance: Cinema

Warner Brothers Pictures Inc. (Vitaphone sound-pictures) a fortnight ago bought control of Stanley Co. of America's 255 cinema theatres. Last week Warner Brothers finished buying control of First National Pictures' 3,000 first run houses everywhere in the country. The deals make a $100,000,000 merger.

The merger 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. Whereas their sound-picture rival Fox Film (with Movietone) has steady customers in the allied Fox Theatres, Warner Brothers have been obliged to depend upon the demand, insistent although it has been, of strange and invidious exhibitors. With Stanley Co. and First National Pictures it can stand shoulder to shoulder with other great amusement sellers—Paramount-Famous-Lasky, Loew, Fox.