Famine

In Manhattan last week, while weary white wings swept up the last piles of debris from the streets and puffy-eyed barmen went home to catch up on their sleep, the American Legion and its camp-followers scattered to their homes (see p. 12). Manhattan's visitors last week were estimated as high as 500,000, spent about $6,500,000. But when most cinemansion box offices came to count up their receipts they disgustedly found their weekly grosses were not above par but below it. Milling crowds, jammed doorways, the continuous free street show put on by the anticking Legionnaires was the answer.

But if Manhattan's film appetite seemed temporarily queasy, U. S. fans at large were definitely peckish. Though Hollywood had sent out 62 feature pictures since Aug. 1, theatres everywhere were frantically calling for more. Variety, sympathizing with Hollywood's production problems, headlined that the exhibitors were BURNING UP PIX TOO FAST. The paper implied that exhibitors had brought this famine on themselves by insisting on the double-feature, by not holding over hits for longer runs. Fact remained, however, that last week, when the season should normally be well under way, Hollywood released only one Class-A picture and one old-favorite serial sequel (see below).