Word: paramount
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sooner does a generation unlearn a racial epithet than the stigma loses its sting. Consider, for example, the burgeoning controversy over the title of a new Western film. The Legend of Nigger Charley. Paramount released the movie with the "historical explanation" that the character of Nigger Charley was based on black cowboys who roamed the West after the Civil War -a period in which the term was in common currency and not necessarily derogative. But Charley's well-documented credentials failed to satisfy a number of newspaper, television and radio advertising executives. For example, the Oregonian first changed...
...word nigger to white people," he says, "but blacks don't have the same reaction to it any more. Changing the name just reflects the insecurity and guilt of some whites who think the niggers in their town will be offended and throw rocks at the theaters." Paramount Vice President Charles Glenn adds: "I wonder what the media would call a film of Joseph Conrad's The Niggers of the Narcissus...
...from auto parts to zinc mining. But along with many other conglomerates, G. & W. foundered when tight money and recession struck a couple of years ago. Now Bluhdorn is making a comeback, lifted by a business where luck is a necessity: motion pictures. In his palmier days, Bluhdorn bought Paramount Pictures, lately the producer of The Godfather, which will probably be the biggest moneymaker in cinema history...
Bluhdorn is fortunate, because five years ago his Paramount executives bankrolled an obscure author, Mario Puzo, while he wrote The Godfather. Paramount got the rights to the screen version for a mere $80,000 plus 21% of the net profit for Puzo. Thanks to fine scripting, directing and acting, the picture stunned both critics and commoners (TIME, March 13). Only eight weeks after release, it has grossed nearly $50 million.* By the end of G. & W.'s fiscal year in July, The Godfather is expected to show a pretax profit of $10 million. According to industry experts, the movie...
...moneymaker is Associates Corp. of North America, a finance and insurance subsidiary that brings in some 47% of the profits. Like other conglomerates, G. & W. in the past propped up reported profits by taking advantage of liberal accounting rules. For example, in 1967-68 G. & W. sold many of Paramount's old films and recorded earnings from the deal as straight operating profits, instead of nonrecurring gains. But G. & W. has not made such sales lately, and outside accountants who have read its recent financial statements say that the "quality" of its earnings is higher than in past years...