Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

88 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. themselves produce or inaniifacture the fihn. They have contracts with various manufacturers and producers, and purchase the nega- tive or several copies and then arrange with exhibitors throughout the country for the exhibition of the same. The CiiAiRMAX. Are the independent corporations under the con- trol of the censorship of this New York National Board i Mr. ScHECHTER. The Universal Film Manufacturing Co. and the Mutual Co. are called in the trade " independent " companies. They submit their pictures to the New York National Board of Censors. I believe, too. that most of the other companies which I have mentioned likewise submit their films to the New York board for examination. It is only the very small concerns who are organized for the purpose of manufacturing a special feature and then go out of business after the production and exhibition of the same that do not submit their pictures to the national board for examination. The Chairman. But those pictures go out to the public and are exhibited ? Mr. ScHECiiTER. Yes; I think so, but that does not say that they are of a questionable nature. The greatest portion of them are be- yond question. Only in rare instances is a film produced which is likely to be questioned, and these are generally suppressed after they have been exhibited for a short time. The Chairman. After they have been shown ? Mr. ScHECHTER. Ycs, sir; but the law is adequate to punish the violators Avho purchase and exhibit obscene or immoral pictures, if the officials who have charge of the enforcement of the law will put into force and effect the laws now on the statute books. As I explained, the manufacturer simply makes the pictures. He does not distribute his product directly to the theater exhibitors, but sells his product to the film exchanges which I mentioned. The film exchanges buy the duplicate prints of the original film and rent them out day by day to the different exhibitors, the film exchange being a clearing house or so-called circulating library for the exhibitors. I wnll now endeavor to explain the need for these distributing agencies; that is, why the pictures can not go directly from the manu- facturer or producer to the exhibitor. The first moving-picture exhibitions consisted of vorv short films, which Avero exhibited as a curiosity by traA'eling exhibitors who went from, city to city. The success of tliese traveling shows brought about stationary shows, and this continued to grow in po])uIarity. As ii.- populaiity increased variety was needed, because people would not go to see the same show over and <ner again. With the denumd for variety became a necessity for improving the chai-acter of the pictures, requiring greater expense in the productitm. The nianufac- turing end of the business developed. Enterprising exhibitors then began showing more than cue picture. Up to this time all pictures had been bought outright from the manufacturers by the exliibitors, but as soon as competition between exhibitors required the showing of more than one picture, the expense of running the shows began to increase beyond the possibility of enrning. Some of the exhibitors owning more than one theater would be able to purchase m(u-e than one i)icture and would run all of the pictures so purchased through all of their shows, and then rent them out to other exhibitors. That was the beginning of the film exchange which now allows each