By Peter Besas

Madrid, June 5, 2025

The following are my reminiscences of how the first Variety Latin-American section evolved in 1975 -1976. The story may be of some interest to those who want to cast a nostalgic glance back at how some aspects of the paper worked at that time and the people, now defunct, who played a part in the old Silverman era.  

Normally, Simesite is a place for short items, remembrances, obituaries, news concerning the activities of surviving muggs, as the scribes of the paper were jocularly called. However, given the capacity of our webpage, I felt that the following fifty plus pages, which it seems to me would not be of sufficient interest in a printed format, might easily find an appreciative audience on Simesite.

I have named the sections as follows (each section is a separate article on the site):

The Hotel Suisse in Cannes, May 1975

The Croisette and the origins of the Film Festival

Variety’s modus operandi,/Variety in Cannes

Syd’s “Go Ahead”/Variety’s International Expansion

Off to Latinoland

Rio and Buenos Aires

Heading Northwards to New York

Preparations in Madrid

In Sime’s Lair

Valley Stream

Should anyone wish to make any comments or observations on the following, please send them to: 

peterbesas@yahoo.com

If you’d rather download and read the article off line, it’s available here as a PDF:

The film festival in Cannes was in full swing. The Azure Coast glimmered in all its Gallic glamour and elegance, tricolor flags flapping in the Midi sun. The Variety crew were comfortably lodged in a venerable and slightly dilapidated family-run late 19th century villa called the Hotel Suisse which might have done the honors to the likes of Marcel Proust. The chalet was fronted by a large garden whose scent wafted through the open windows of the dining room, with its decorous sideboard and refined cutlery and table linen. There was an old metal-grilled elevator, with a clanging outer door and a pair of inner doors that opened to the cabin, which was provided with a small seat. At the rear of the spacious high-ceilinged lobby nestled a small reception counter behind which stood the telephone switchboard through which all incoming and outgoing calls had to be made once you connected with the operator. In each guest room a dial-less telephone was attached to one of the walls. Upon picking up the receiver, the persona at the switchboard then rang the number you gave him.

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That year, as was customary, the Croisette was lined with deck chairs that could be rented per hour for a few francs (an elderly madame came around occasionally and gave you a paper slip when you paid her). Sitting there, you had a magnificent sweeping view of the Old Port with its outdoor restaurants and yachts and in the distance appeared the occasional ship, perhaps heading to nearby Nice. Lining the Croisette, opposite the luxury hotels, were fashionable beach restaurants shaded by colorful awnings that served Gallic delicacies, a few kiosks that sold newspapers and magazines, including the New York Herald Tribune and other foreign press, a string of palm trees, and large panels attached to the lampposts each of which promoted some new film that was in preparation or was being screened at the festival. 

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For Variety and other trade papers from England, Italy and France, this was one of the high points of the year. Some of these trade papers printed daily editions that were chock full of advertising announcing films and screening times at the film market as well as projects of films being prepared. It was the market, not the main competing festival and its ancillary sidebar sections, that were mostly the focus of the trade sheets on display in the posh hotels, suites rented by film sales companies, and lobbies. The new titles vied for attention in the press as well as on posters plastered in hotel lobbies and hotel façades and up and down the length of the Croisette. 20,000 journalists, photographers, film and television professionals crowded into the small Mediterranean city for the ten days the event lasted, with  films screened each day – the main, competing pictures in the Palais but also, from nine in the morning until midnight, in a half dozen commercial cinemas around the small city, many located on the Rue d’Antibes, the street that runs parallel to the Croisette, featuring commercial fare from around the world, mostly with English soundtracks, attended by buyers and distributers. The screenings might be packed tight with potential buyers when a film had been lavishly publicized, but at other times there would be only five or six in the seats.

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Variety had been founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman, Syd’s grandfather. A year later, in 1906, a London office had been established and freelance correspondents in Paris and other European cities followed in the following decades, making Variety a truly international show biz trade paper, the only one of its kind covering vaudeville and live performances. The first ever recorded reviews of two short one-reel films appeared in the January 19, 1907 issue. In later decades, sections on radio and television were added, as these new media came into existence. Later, a short section on the legitimate theatre ran at the back of the paper, as well as night club reviews, a “chatter” catch-all column and – importantly – obits of those in the entertainment field.   

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