Film FORTUNE

While the Cinema has been growing up as industry and art, the movie press has signally failed to keep pace with it. That the Cinema deserved, and the literate portion of its U. S. public would welcome, something more than tradepapers, highbrow snippets and vulgar fan magazines, has long seemed obvious. This week on U. S. newsstands appeared 52,000 copies of the first substantial effort to supply this demand. It was Cinema Arts, a FORTUNE-sized, 50-c-, slick-paper magazine, published by Albert Griffith-Grey, younger brother of the oldtime cinema director, David Wark Griffith.

Cinema, Arts will "attempt to do for the Cinema what FORTUNE has done for Industry." Its credo is "That . . . more than any other form of art expression, the Cinema reflects and interprets the changing moods, fashions and philosophies of the times." Its hope is "to 'freeze' on paper something of the fleeting beauty of the films. . . ." That Cinema Arts' hope was completely realized by its first issue last week was debatable. Much of what it had frozen on its 90 pages, well-cushioned with advertising at both ends, was routine pressagent photography. But the textual interpretations of current U. S. moods, fashions and philosophies as seen in the Cinema, were impressive. Critic Richard Watts Jr., Director Rouben Mamoulian, Author Jim Tully, Singer Mary Garden, Scenarist Homer Croy contributed.

Cinema-Arts' editor is Paul Husserl, onetime script editor for the cine-MARCH OF TIME. Following the current vogue, Editor Husserl packed his first issue with many more pictures than paragraphs, hired four artists, most notably Jaro Fabry, to illuminate what interstices were left between photographs and text. Best shots: a full page of Henry Armetta titled "Portrait of Expostulation " and "Double Feature," a photograph of a Manhattan theatre marquee advertising Romeo & Juliet and Mama Steps Out.

The future of Cinema Arts will depend heavily on how its backers fare with an issue of 170,000 shares of stock at $2 a share, subject to SEC approval, to be offered to the public by William J. Mericka & Co. this week. Publisher Griffith-Grey --who enlarged his name in 1915 to avoid being confused with his famed brother, for whom he used to distribute pictures like Broken Blossoms, Intolerance, The Birth of a Nation--determined 18 months ago to get out Cinema Arts. Last autumn he startled the magazine world with the biggest dummy ever seen in the U. S., a book 14 by 17 in., of which 12,000 copies were distributed in the U. S. and England. Despite enthusiastic response from advertisers, who welcomed its display opportunities, the magazine was whittled down before publication to 11 1/4 by 14 in., to make it manageable on newsstands. The first issue represented an investment of about $100.000. Best augury for its success last week was news of two competitors. Stage advertised a July issue completely devoted to the Cinema. Forthcoming is another high-class cinemagazine, Cinema Preview, to be published in San Francisco.

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