Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1940)

October 5, 1940 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW Page 3 :....:..:.„..., ....... ... Get Together Boys! To too many distributors the theatreman is merely a mugg who pays the freight after he has been high-pressured into signing a contract. Comes acceptance of the contract and then the customer becomes "just another" account on the books. From the opposite side one finds pretty much the same attitude. Theatremen in general look upon the distributors as a crowd who are out to get most of the receipts and once they get him hjoked are no longer interested in him as a friend or a customer. The trouble is one-sided. The fault lies with the distributor. He has set himself up on a pedestal and remained too far out of reach and contact with the theatremen who are his best customers and whose money for film rentals keeps him in business. Executives above the branch manager classification are more or less boogey-men to the exhibitors. They are the obstacles to reductions, adjustments, concessions and what-have-you. Rarely are they friends or buddies of the men who buy pictures for the average movie houses of the country. RKO-Radio pioneered the plan of a director of exhibitor relations and MGM took it over as a splendid idea. It certainly is. But it doesn't go all the way in supplying the need for closer relations and contact between distributor and exhibitor. If it be true that times are changing so radically and this business of ours is rapidly approaching a buyers' market instead of the sellers1 market which has existed for so many years, then the vital need for friendlier relations is even more important for the future than it has been in the past. Our advice to ALL distributors, major and independents alike, is: get out into the field; meet your customers; dispel the boogey-man theory. Let them find out, first hand, that district and divisional sales heads and all the others are regular guys and sincerely interested in the problems and troubles of the customers and are happy, nay, anxious, to cooperate and work with them for mutual benefit and gain. Don't think you can invite an exhibitor to travel a hundred miles or more to attend a trade screening and then kid yourself into believing that you are making a terrifically friendly gesture. Try emulating Paramount' s recent and superb plan of bringing the screenings closer to the exhibitor and find out, as did Paramount, what a hit it made with the customers and how much goodwill it engendered. It may not have occurred to a lot of executives in this industry that the more friendliness they create with their exhibitor customers the less grief and invective will be present to plague the motion picture business. This is the new era, gentlemen, yesterday you could snub your customers and get away with it. Today it isn't that simple. Tomorrow it may be impossible. A A A Tail Wags Dog Despite almost unanimous opposition of theatremen to the consent decree's five-picture clause, it now appears certain that the decree will be accepted and signed by all five participating companies and the government as soon as the court of jurisdiction can pass upon it. The latter, it appears, will be just a formality. If news is being reported accurately and correctly, a vast majority of the Allied units have expressed disapproval of the clause and most of them in no uncertain terms. Nevertheless, Abram F. Myers, in his address at Atlantic City, gave his approval to the decree in general and the clause in particular. To all outward appearances he has ignored or disregarded the sentiments of his own organisation. The acceptance of the decree again serves to emphasise the impotency of the exhibitor front in this industry. Those exhibitors who are members of organisations were probably laboring under some sort of a dream that their interests were being watched and protected by those to whom dues are paid. The decree acceptance illustrates the gravity of the situation. It exists in all phases of the exhibitors' fight for right and equality; proper representation — in all matters pertaining to his business; protection against undue discrimination in legislation, taxes, censorship, etc., etc. It will continue to exist so long as exhibitors follow and support salary-seeking leaders, publicity-minded flagwavers or a combination of both. But when the time comes that a few real exhibitors take the lead and guide the organisations, you will find less personal aggrandisement and some real accomplishment on behalf of the exhibitors who kick in with the dues that make organisations possible. Too many exhibitors prefer to find facts the hard" and expensive way. Many of them prefer to vent their ire on the trade papers instead of on the leaders who seem to be leading them astray. So if the dues-paying theatremen are satisfied with such conditions why should we work ourselves into a lather about it? — 'CHICK" LEWIS