A New Twist in Feud Over ‘Lady in Waiting’

Disputes between a movie’s distributor and its exhibitor rarely get a public airing.

So it was unusual last week to see Richard Ingber, marketing president of the independent distributor New Century/Vista, quoted on the front page of Daily Variety. He was venting his frustration over some Southern California movie-theater operators who, after just one week’s run, pulled the new fantasy-suspense-horror picture “Lady in White” from their theaters.

“There was a time,” Ingbar told the trade paper, “a picture could play in a theater and hopefully finds its audience. . . . Nowadays they can’t sit still for one week.”

“Distribution and exhibition . . . it’s like they’re married in our business; they have these little quarrels from time to time, but they really need each other,” commented John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., an exhibition consulting firm, this week. “But you don’t see them fighting in public too much, and especially not through the media.”

“I felt very betrayed,” recalled Ingber in an interview. “I was really angry and frustrated at the time. It was as if no exhibitor was giving a film a chance to find its audience.”

The tale behind the yanking of the “Lady in White” and Ingber’s decision to ignore the show-business code of keeping arguments private says much about what this year’s bumper crop of features is doing to the traditionally clubby, old-boy distribution and exhibition network.

The situation is being called the “film glut”--too many movies trying to get booked into too few theaters. Fifty-four were released in April, for example, compared to only 33 in April, 1987.

Released to 90 theaters in Southern California and Chicago on April 22 to generally favorable reviews, “Lady in White” did reasonably good, but not outstanding, business of $3,141-per screen its first weekend.

The film did especially poorly at drive-ins, and most of the 15 showing it dropped it posthaste. But some Southern California movie theaters also dropped the film, reneging on an informal deal, Ingber told Variety, to play the film “at least two weeks.”

The sometimes clubby trade paper didn’t identify the offending theater chain--allegedly Edwards Cinemas in Orange County--which, for the most part, replaced New Century/Vista’s film with other distributors’ horror and suspense fare.

Exhibitors contacted by The Times declined to discuss the “Lady in White” affair. “It’s history,” said one.

The moral? Consultant Krier offered this observation:

“When the big chains took over (in exhibition), there’s been less and less patience involved on their part. With all these films in release, if a picture’s getting killed, an exhibitor will drop it and add another real quick.”

And a final irony? In its second weekend, showing on only 62 theaters, “Lady in White” averaged $3,132 per screen--a drop of just $9. Its total gross now stands a bit more than $500,000.

Reasonably good for a limited release, but not outstanding.