Cinema

A dinky little white-haired man trotted into the stockholders' meeting of the Famous Players-Lasky Corp. last week in Manhattan, slapped many a friend on the back, invited one and sundry to come and visit him at his country estate out-side of Manhattan. He was Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players-Lasky.

Then the rather small group hurried through a business transaction. They voted themselves a 2% stock dividend, voted also to increase their common capital stock from 450,000 shares to an even 1,000,000. They ordered officers to sell $20,000,000 of stock at once, so they might purchase control of the scores of cinema theatres Balaban & Katz own or control throughout the middle west. Thus they were subtly evading the Federal Trade Commission's wish that theatre and exhibition interests be separated from production and distribution. But then, Famous Players-Lasky Corp. is a holding company of many diverse possessions worth millions.

Last week too Jesse L. Lasky's original barn studio in Hollywood, Calif., was torn down. It gave him --a onetime San Francisco newspaperman, Alaskan goldhunter, Hawaiian bandsman--his great opportunity towards wealth 12 years ago.

Will Hays consented to remain president of the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America for another ten years, until 1938. His yearly salary, when last announced, was $100,000.