Stein, Ben

Description

Letter, probably from Ben Stein, owner and manager of the Douglass Theatre and Stein Enterprises, to Richard E. Norman, head of Norman Film Manufacturing Company, a Jacksonville-based, white independent film company active from 1921 to 1926 that specialized in outdoor adventure films for African American audiences, dated October 17, 1927, negotiating terms for showing the film Black Gold (1928). The letter responds to Norman's refusal to lower the rental price of the film Black Gold (see dbr030 of the Douglass Theatre Web site). Stein warns that he will have to pass up playing the film Black Gold as long as Norman does not agree to share fairly in the profits. He explains that features usually cost him between $12.50 and $15.00 and that he is only willing to show films on a fifty-fifty basis after the cost of the film is taken out. Stein questions why he should be expected to assume more of the risk, since his business is good. Stein concludes that he might be willing to do business with Norman when his business is bad next summer. Black Gold, a story of the oil business in an African American city in Oklahoma, starred J. Lawrence Criner, Alfred Norcom, Katheryn Boyd, Steve Reynolds, U. S. Marshall, and E. B. Tatums.Digital image and encoded transcription of an original manuscript, scanned, transcribed and encoded by the Digital Library of Georgia in 2005, as part of Georgia HomePLACE. This project is supported with federal LSTA funds administered by the Institute of...

Record Contributed By

Middle Georgia Archives

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia