Lewis Allen — There’s an Auctioneering Slant in Picture-Making (1950) 🇺🇸
Lewis*Allen, veteran director, offers a different approach to some problems of production and selling
by Paul Manning
There are many lads of 16 who quit school to seek adventure but not many wind up as top film directors in Hollywood. Lewis Allen, who has put his monicker on many of filmland’s hit attractions, quit school at 16, entered the British merchant service, and sailed the seven seas, which eventually brought him to New York and Hollywood.
One of the commercial enterprises which I believe stood Allen in good stead when he hit Hollywood for the pot of gold was his experience as an auctioneer. He had worked at this occupation with an uncle who had taught the ambitious lad all the tricks of that active trade. Auctioneering, I remarked, is not far removed from selling screen entertainment to the public. Allen confirmed this idea. He has always regarded his pictures as pieces of goods to be auctioned off to the paying public. There is, however, a great advantage which a film director or producer can cash in on. The standard auctioneer, offering cold material properties for sale, usually has to sell the goods brought to him. He has no part whatsoever in the careful fashioning of the merchandise so as to be specially pointed to the appeal of the type of customers to whom the sale will be directed.
Says Lewis Allen, in an exclusive Exhibitor interview: “I have always regarded the original bare story idea when first presented to me with the same consideration that I accord highly touted and artistic triumphs. To me, as a film director, it boils down simply to a piece of entertainment which must be auctioned off via the distributor and exhibitor route. These distributors and exhibitors are the auctioneers, they and their ad campaigns and selling techniques. We are the producers of articles of auction, and it remains our firm duty to put into their hands merchandise which can be offered to the average movie patron with success.
“A funny thing about auctions is that when people find that they get a good buy from some particular auction parlor, they continue to return. Even if on one of these return trips, they do make a sour bargain, they would rather prefer to blame themselves for being hasty, and making a bad bargain, than place the blame on the auctioneer. It is practically the same with making and selling motion pictures. Give the average moviegoer three or four good picture buys, and he will forgive you the occasional flop, but when you take lazy liberties, and slip him three Mickeys in a row, he is bound to take his entertainment dollar somewhere else. Today, this means usually to television, the sporting events, or the corner cocktail bar.”
I found this intriguing, and decided to draw him out further. “But,” I asked, “I’ve seen many beautiful, valuable items offered and sold for only a scant portion of their actual worth by sluggish and tired auctioneers who appear to be just working in a monotone of interest. How do you propose to remedy this lack of showmanship and follow through at the selling end of this business? In other words, what about the exhibitor who prostitutes a high-grade piece of film entertainment by lazy and dreary selling habits?”
Allen’s answer will be well worth remembering. He said, “Any real-spirited exhibitor has never been guilty of selling a good picture down the river. It is only the misfits among them, the opportunists who hopped on the gravy train with no knowledge whatsoever of show business who are guilty of this disservice. With the present market so sensitive, I believe that these misfits are now cutting their own throats. It is simply a question of the public themselves separating the wheat from the chaff. The theatre operator who takes a keen interest in the likes and dislikes of his patron, keeps his house clean and fresh, arranges his programs with intelligence, and, above all, trains his staff to make the patron feel right at home in the theatre will always be a stalwart and thriving member of any community. The others are bound, sooner or later, to fall by the wayside.”
Allen, though just past 40, has directed such hits as The Uninvited, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, The Unseen, Those Endearing Young Charms, The Imperfect Lady, So Evil My Love, Chicago Deadline, United States Mail [Appointment with Danger (1950)], and others. Hollywood regards him as an actor’s director, a distinction due to his easy manner in which he negotiates the delicate nuances of screen emphasis. Allen has found that the camera has given him a huge scope of interpretation which the stage has never afforded.
“For instance,” explains Allen, “Imagine yourself in the audience of any legitimate stage attraction. You are out there either in the front row, the 15th row, or the last row. Your position is solid and stationary. You cannot be changed throughout the entire performance. It takes a great show with great performers to make a stage success. The director can call for none of those almost imperceptible movements which hit with such devastating impact on the screen.
“With the audience placed squarely behind the motion picture camera, the director can then put everyone in the best possible position to enjoy the full meaning of every word and every gesture. Sometimes they are in front of the actors, sometimes to the side, sometimes above, or behind, or clear off the stage with only the words being heard.
“The film director with imagination can work miracles with the camera. I have found the cinematographers (cameramen to you) wonderfully resourceful creators who work right along with the director in bringing new and effective camera art to the screen.
“So,” concluded Allen, “our job is to select from out of your story material chat idea which is worth putting on the auction block, to cast it with an eye to not only marquee luster, but also to character fitting roles, to give it your top production values, and then turn it over to honest, sincere, and hard working selling agents, or rather as we have put forth here, the auctioneers of Hollywood’s product.”
Who would deny the strength of Allen’s viewpoint? — P. M.
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Macdonald Carey visited Alan Ladd and director Allen on the set of Chicago Deadline at Paramount while taking a respite from shooting.
Allen lines up a big Technicolor camera for a scene in RKO’s adventure drama, Sons of the Musketeers, to be released within the year.
Collection: Exhibitor Magazine (Studio Survey), September 1950