Leaders All — Louis Weiss, Independent Protagonist (1924) 🇺🇸

Leaders All — Louis Weiss

Because through early training as a salesman he acquired a substantial appreciation of the buyer’s viewpoint; because through many years of actual experience as an exhibitor he developed an understanding of the exhibitor’s needs; because his seventeen years of activity have taken him through all departments of the motion picture business, and because he is in the front rank of those who are fighting the battles of the independent producers.

Seventeen years ago the motion picture industry was an infant, lusty enough, but giving little indication of the growth to come. The product, for that day, was surprisingly good, considering the time that had elapsed since the first successful projection, but the “movies” were still in the stage where their very novelty carried them over with the public and serious criticism had hardly been born.

With the men who, in that period of the pictures’ development, foresaw great future possibilities, the hopes and expectations which drew them to and kept them in the business were largely of the vague sort that grow out of contact with any new thing which seems to meet a human need. That motion pictures would furnish entertainment was enough for the pioneers. Just what the exact trend of the business would be was beyond their ken and of relatively little interest.

But they had enough vision to realize that somehow great things ought to come out of the camera as its possibilities should be developed.

It was just seventeen years ago when Louis Weiss, of the Weiss Bros. organization entered the field and, young as he is and looks, the passing of those years in continuous effort connected with this industry definitely puts him in the ranks of the pioneers and classifies him with the small but elect company of those who had the imagination and vision to realize what the future might be expected to bring to an industry that was then groping rather blindly, yet progressing steadily.

Born and raised in New York City, Louis Weiss began his business career as a salesman at the early age of 14 years, when he went on the road with a line of phonographs. Thus he laid his business foundation on the most practical sort of a basis and learned many intensely practical things by hard knocks received while he was still a boy, with a boy’s plastic ability to adapt himself to the needs of his job, and to grow with it.

This early selling experience in the talking machine field was of relatively short duration, for soon after he had demonstrated that he could make his own way as a salesman, he swung over into the film business with his brothers.

They were operating theatres and at one time, early in his motion picture apprenticeship, owned sixteen in New York State, Connecticut and New Jersey. These houses represented one of the largest chains then in existence and the Weiss Brothers, Louis, Max and Adolph, were a consolidated power in the exhibition field.

Eventually, however, the Weiss family became interested in the producing end of the business and most of the theatres were sold. Two of the original chain remain under their ownership, but are leased to exhibitors for operation.

With this transfer of interest to film production, the Weiss activities brought into existence a number of producing units, notably Weiss Bros.’ Artclass Pictures Corporation, making features, Clarion Photoplays, Inc., and two organizations handling production and distribution of the widely known “Tarzan” features and serials. With the development of his interest in production, Louis Weiss early became an active advocate and champion of the cause of independent distribution, in which he believes will be found the industry’s greatest safeguard against monopolistic control and the exhibitor’s chief protection in the enjoyment of the full control over his own business.

A keen student of the economics of the business, Louis Weiss has kept the exhibitor’s viewpoint constantly in mind, a practice that comes most naturally to him in view of his long experience in estimating values on a box office basis. His entry in the producing field was very largely the result of this influence, out of which developed the idea that by injecting more of an exhibitor slant into production it ought to be possible to make pictures which by their straightaway appeal to the popular majority, would prove salable with real profit to the exhibitor and without excessive exploitation effort.

As an advocate of the independents, Mr. Weiss declares that the quality of their product has vastly improved, and that this improvement is steady and tangible. Their methods, he says, must be sound because they have no leverages other than quality and price on which to sell their productions and consequently are forced to exercise to the maximum their creative skill and their ability to get real value for the money they invest in the making of pictures.

It is his belief, too, that the independent producers will be able to provide a large volume of profitable material of all classes if they can count on a reasonable amount of co-operation from exhibitors generally.

This cooperation, he says, the producers must have if they are to continue in business, and it must come in two forms: A reasonable number of bookings and willingness to pay a fair price for good pictures. Given these things, he sees the independents as on the way to greater effort and bigger things.

In the various Weiss organizations, all stock is owned by the three brothers. The corporate lineup is, Max Weiss, president; Louis Weiss, vice president, and Adolph Weiss, secretary and treasurer.

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Collection: Exhibitors Trade Review, 30 August 1924

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