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APR -6 '25
EXHIBITORS
<5ra<fe REVIEW
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HelPs Going to Break Loose
Where Do You Stand, Exhibitors?
HE BATTLE for control of the motion picture industry is definitely on. Don't be deluded by the cynical notion that it is all talk.
There has been a good deal of talk, but it is fast converting into action.
The fight that's coming isn't going to be a pretty one. It isn't going to be governed by rules. There will be no gong and no referee.
It is going to be a fight to extinction, between those who are seeking to tighten the last strings of monopoly and those who insist on their right to live without special dispensation from certain selfchosen rulers of the business.
That sort of fight knows no restraints. But it usually brings decisive results.
If you, as an Exhibitor, have remained free and independent up to this point, you must be prepared to admit that the independent producers and distributors have a right to live and that their cause is identical with yours.
Admitting that, the vitally important thing for you to consider is this:
The whole battle is going to rag-e around something you control — TIME. In your hands, to a large extent, rests the destiny of the industry.
If you choose the easy policy' of least resistance today, you will have a yoke on your own neck tomorrow.
There can be no doubt that the easiest way to operate your business is to tie up your time-book to one or two larere blocks of pictures; then sit back and take in the
money. But you ought to know, by this time, that the money doesn't always roll in to the tune indicated in the beautiful announcements. And you ought to know, too, that if you do book the combine's product and get caught making a real profit on it your theatre is due to pass out of your hands altogether, or, as an alternative, you will find yourself facing competition that will destroy all possibility of profit.
In past years you have had reason to feel that you could not safely rgly on independent product. It was lacking in both quantity and quality.
That condition no longer exists.
You can get good pictures, and plenty of them, without putting your own neck in a noose. Better product than a lot of the stuff you have been getting.
It is merely a question of guts.
Are you willing to assert yourself now, as the owner and manager of your own business, in order that you may continue to own and manage it?
Or do you prefer to sign the first contract that is shoved under your nose and avoid anything that might prove a little unpleasant?
You don't have to carry the world on your own shoulders. You don't have to go into battle alone. If you go at all, you will have plenty of organized support.
The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America, at its convention in Milwaukee, May 12-14, will demonstrate to you that it is ready for the war, fully prepared to