We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
PUBLISHED EVERT SATURDAY BY
ASSOCIATED PUBLICATIONS
Vol. 35 Number 2
June 3, 1939
Member
Audit Bureau of Circulations
Editorial Offices: 9 rockefeller plaza, new york city; Publication Office: 4804 e. 9th ST., KANSAS CITY, MO.,' Hollywood 6404 HOLLYWOOD blvd.; Chicago: 332 s. Michigan blvd.
BEN SHLYEN
Publisher
MAURICE KANN
Editor-in-Chief
LOUIS RYDELL
Advertising Manager
William G. Formby, Editor; Jesse Shlyen, Managing Editor; J. Harry Toler, Modern Theatre Editor; A. J. Stocker, Eastern Representative; Ivan Spear, Western Manager.
LOOK OUT FOR THE COPS
ttTl|TE, AS AN industry, face the unfortunate truth in Washington at the hearings on » ■ the Neely bill of being a divided industry, although of equal interests, and one would be led to believe from what we had heard in Washington from the proponents of the Neely bill that we should all be ashamed to be identified with this business."
This is an excerpt from the lengthy address delivered by William F. Rodgers, for the distributors' committee on trade practices, before the Allied of New York convention.
Anyone who read with passing fidelity the miles of words which developed at those hearings must agree. The picture, painted brashly by both sides, was not pretty and presented this business in a light that does it no credit and may do it considerable harm.
A lot of unsavory phrases and veiled and direct charges were tossed about by those for the Neely bill as well as by those who were opposed to it. This is no attempt to compute which side is guiltier, for there is enough onus in the sum total to crown both.
The pro-Neelyites probably felt they had to blast their way through in order to make an impression. No doubt, the antis figured it in exactly the same light in order to repel the barrage and force the enemy into some sort of a retreat. In the doing, the industry of which both are a part took it beautifully on the chin in the eyes of a senate subcommittee, the official government records and the public, which still pays the bills, through the country's daily newspapers.
If it is the fact that dollar publicity continues to make this industry a lovely target for lawmakers who need new and greater revenues — and this column believes this is definitely the case — great comfort, indeed, must repose in the nation's tax camps as a consequence of the Neely hearings.
The situation of a large industry apparently divided and fighting like hell among its component branches, tactically, suggests this is the time to move in and give the film boys plenty while they are still punching each other around and cannot spare the time to notice another bruiser creeping up from the outside.
We are not going to be silly enough to think Allied intends calling a halt in its announced program of seeking the best deal it can from the majors. Furthermore, we do not think Allied should do anything of the kind. A fight is a fight and the scrapper with the most powerful armament will win unless all history up until this day has been kidding around.
That is not the point at all. Rather is it the point to realize that, for the best interests of all concerned, the smarter thing to do is to keep the family squabble inside the house where the bloody noses can be patched up without a rumpus which will call in the police and haul everyone off to the hoosegow.