Panic in Paradise

Hollywood is in the dreadful predicament of a pauperized nabob suddenly reduced to four limousines. Oldtimers are telling newtimers that the town has never been so scared. Chief apparent reason: the new "confiscatory" British tax, which would rob Hollywood of its comfortable profit margin (TIME, Aug. 18).

The studios are concentrating on "cheap" million-dollar pictures. Costs are being cut, shooting schedules reduced. Metro's If Winter Comes (Deborah Kerr and Walter Pidgeon), which would normally have taken 70 days to shoot, has been finished after only 57. Fox canceled the expensive costume piece, The Black Rose, and plans to bear down on the Louis de Rochemont type of "realism," shot on location. Universal-International dropped Song of Norway, which would have been a big draw on the foreign markets. Expensive musicals generally are giving way to cheap, lucrative little comedies about domestic love.

Writers are getting orders to double up on scenes--i.e., instead of having one scene in the living room and one in the bedroom, play both in the bedroom. Directors are beginning to rehearse scenes before shooting them.

For much of the real blood, bone and brain of Hollywood, the situation is far from funny. The trades have been full of stories about wholesale firings; panicky studios have cut salaries of office slaveys and minor employees. Big stars, on the other hand, can demand, and get, better prices than ever; for big names are still the best box-office insurance.

Despite a slump of several months and despite the low, mournful howls of exhibitors, the 1947 box office has continued at a better rate than record-breaking 1946. August favorites, according to Variety:

1) Welcome Stranger (Paramount) and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (RKO Radio)

2) I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (20th Century-Fox)

3) Dear Ruth (Paramount)

4) The Hucksters (MGM)

5) Brute Force (Mark Hellinger; Universal-International).

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