Cinemaelstrom

If Cineman William Fox keeps a diary, last week he had important entries to make. Before doing it he would probably have glanced back through pages telling of his inability to refund $91.000,000 short term notes of Fox Film Corp. and Fox Theatres Corp., his attempted repudiation of a voluntary trusteeship, the entrance of a syndicate composed of Bancamerica-Blair. Lehman Bros, and Dillon, Read into the affair (TIME, Dec. 16. et seq.), and. on the eve of last week's special stockholders' meeting, the desertion of many of his allies to the camp of Halsey, Stuart & Co.. the bankers and co-trustees from whom he was trying to break away. His last week's entries would then have had this gist:

March 5--Right at the start of the meeting we surprised them by having the directors approve the new syndicate plan which, instead of preferred stock, provides for common. Since an increase in common was authorized last September and never effected, the move does not require the approval of 66 1/3 % of the stockholders. The class A stockholders voted overwhelmingly for the plan. Had a run-in with Lawrence Berenson, the lawyer from Boston.

I said: What will we have to do? Bring an ambulance outside and have you run out?

He said: You just try to have me run out and see what will happen!

I said: No! No! But you would chase an ambulance if you heard the bell ring. It got a big laugh.

Before the meeting Judge Levy ruled that the trusteeship could have a proxy on my B stock held in escrow by Bankers Trust, but I went ahead and voted it. That's causing a lot of confusion. Levy made a nasty sermon saying: ''Here we have a little $1,600 acorn which grew into a sturdy $300,000,000 oak. . . . The very Fox chopped down this healthy, thriving tree with his own hatchet."

March 6--The Film Co.'s earning statement ought to encourage people: $11,000,000 against $5,000,000 in 1928, and almost as proportionately big a gain for the Theatres Corp. It looks like this financing row is going to drag on until the annual meeting April 15.

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