What Kind of a Fellow Is — Lichtman? (1918) 🇺🇸
Being a glance at the real human side of the big men of the picture game caught in action
by William A. Johnston
Wasn’t it only last week we read in Motion Picture News that Al Lichtman, manager of distribution for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, had returned from a week’s business trip with contracts for $1,000,000 worth of bookings tucked away in his vest pocket?
Yes, it was. And the Fates alone know what we might read this week or next.
But you are a skeptic. “Pish! Tush!” you say. The press agent is loose again.”
And so might we — if it were any person other than Al Lichtman mentioned in the story.
But gathering contracts for a million more or less doesn’t strike us as anything extraordinary for Al Lichtman. It seems, to our recollection, that Al Lichtman has been gathering contracts ever since there was a reel of film to contract for.
Today he has the impressive title of “Manager of Distribution for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation,” and when he sells his flanks are guarded by the efficient exchange managers in the different cities visited.
But we remember the time when Al Lichtman went out of New York with the reels of his one feature tucked under his arm — and he got contracts then, too.
That was, if our memory serves us, eight years ago, as measured by the calendar, but about eight centuries if measured by film. The feature was Queen Elizabeth — the star, a certain Sarah Bernhardt. And a certain more or less well-known gentleman by the name of Adolph Zukor was banking much of his hopes for a future in the motion picture business on what happened to Queen Elizabeth.
Looking back now it may seem like a simple task booking Sarah Bernhardt in Queen Elizabeth several years ago. But if ever Al Lichtman walks into your house in search of a contract make him pay for it by telling you some of his experiences as he trudged around from store show to worse trying to convince exhibitors that there was something other than split reels and chases.
Al Lichtman was plugging away several years ahead of the game then. But he was getting the experience that makes him now, in our estimation, one of the best posted film executives in the game. We have never yet asked Al Lichtman for a fact or figure on exhibitors or distribution that we haven’t received an on-the-spot reply. And later results always proved that he was right.
Al Lichtman was still ahead of the game when, some four odd years ago, he formed the Alco Company. Here was a brand new idea — and it was Al Lichtman’s. Alco gave us a form of feature distribution later developed in the Metro idea.
If Dame Fortune hadn’t gone to sleep at the switch many persons who today can’t ever remember that there was an Alco would be speaking of it and Al Lichtman with the same hushed breath that Famous Players-Lasky now gets.
Later we find Al Lichtman attempting the resuscitation of the remnants of United — but “the doctor was too late.” So soon we find that Dame Fortune must have all along intended that Al Lichtman should be back at the right hand of Adolph Zukor, and there he went — first with the Select, that was the forerunner of Artcraft, then with Artcraft, and now with the big combined three-ring show — Famous Players-Lasky.
On the personal side there is little that we can say. So many Broadway film men, so many more exhibitors know and like the personality of Al Lichtman that praise is not needed here.
He is on the under side of thirty and an off-hand meeting is apt to leave his youthful appearance as the most outstanding recollection. He is young in the cheerful smile and pleasant recognition he always has for everyone.
He is young in that — in many years of film wanderings we have never heard a person even whisper a knock on Al Lichtman.
He is old — in knowledge of films and in the staggering roster of Al Lichtman boosters.
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Illustration by: Harry Palmer (Harry Samuel Palmer) (1882–1955)
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United Lines Up Its Features
Announces That First May Be Propaganda Picture, But Details Remain Mystery — More Members Enroll Steadily
Following closely on the heels of the news last week that United Pictures Theatres of America is fast lining up its stars and productions for future release, comes the announcement this week that the first production to be released will likely be a propaganda picture. A great deal of mystery surrounds the statement, in view of the fact that it has just been announced that United has secured The Light of the Western Stars from Harry Sherman, and it was generally understood that this was to be the first feature offered.
In the United announcement it was stated that the first production will “equal in dramatic force and drawing power the biggest successes of the past few months.” It is further said that this picture will provide United exhibitors, executives of that organization believe, with the opportunity for an interesting comparison of the prices which will be asked under the United plan of booking with those which have been paid for special attractions of similar value.
It is the United plan, it is said, to specialize exclusively in attractions of big appeal. By this is meant not so much the length of the subject, but the manner of its handling. The sponsors of the United believe that the reputation and drawing qualities of practically all of the big stars of the present day are due to the manner in which they have been handled. They point to the fact that program companies, where they were given mediocre direction and productions, these same stars had only mediocre drawing power.
The plan of the United, according to J. A. Berst, its president, is to take stars, already big, and make them bigger by providing them with big themes, expert direction and proper settings.
As an illustration of how this policy is to be conducted, it is understood that the first story in which Kitty Gordon will appear, cost $10,000. At the same time Miss Gordon will have the benefit of the direction of a man, considered by many the best director of women in the picture field.
Farnum’s [William Farnum] stories and productions will be of equal calibre. His first offering, Zane Grey’s novel of the Southwest, The Light of Western Stars, is of such widely known popularity as to need little comment. His two succeeding productions, “The Wolf Breed,” by Jackson Gregory, and The Man in the Open, by Roger Peacock, are equally powerful. All three have been selected with the definite view of surpassing the appeal of Farnum’s success, The Virginian.
The United promised its members a few pictures in October. During the first part of August United contracted for nineteen super pictures and other important announcements are soon to follow.
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New Open Market Plan Advanced
Harold Horton Plans Direct Sale of Travel Films to Big Exhibitors and Chains
Harold H. Horton, for many years prominent in the production of travel subjects, has come to the front with a radical step in distribution for the new series of pictures which he will release during the coming year.
Mr. Horton, whose subject, “The Isle of Cuba,” was recently shown by S. L. Rothapfel, and reviewed in last week’s issue of Motion Picture News, announces nothing less than the outright sale of one a month releases to big exhibitors and chain theatres in various sections of the country. The subject then becomes the property of the buyer for unrestricted use in the United States.
The travel pictures will be sold at a price of $100 per reel of one thousand feet, each subject to be simultaneously released and sent by special delivery insured mail from New York.
Speaking of the plan, Mr. Horton declares: “Each new print will assure these leading houses the perfect projection they require, but in addition, a large return may be obtained by the sale or rental of the film to other theatres nearby and not directly competing with the buyers.”
The first release will be The Isle of Cuba, dated for September 19. The foreign rights on the subjects have already been sold for Norway, Denmark, Sweden, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Canada will be handled on the direct to the exhibitor system as in the United States. Other details of the plan wall be found in Mr. Horton’s announcement on page 1289.
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Reed Advances Rapidly
Luther A. Reed, until recently a member of Metro’s scenario staff, has broken all records among draft men for reaching an officers’ training camp. Like the citizen who arrived at Camp Dix one evening and found himself on a transport bound for France the next morning, without even getting a peek at Dix in daytime, Reed, within twenty-four hours after his induction into Upton, was headed for Camp Lee, Va., one of the latest officers’ training camps to be established by Uncle Sam.
Carlyle Robinson, until recently press agent for Charles Chaplin, and who was a member of the Twenty-first Infantry . U. S. Regular Army, at San Diego, Cal, has left for the Officers’ Training School at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Ark., it was reported last week.
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“I await each week’s issue of The News eagerly.” — A. Lorenzo, Strand Theatre, West Branch, Mich.
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Collection: Motion Picture News, 24 August 1918