Harrison's Reports (1932)

164 HARRISON’S REPORTS October 8, 1932 THE “EXCLUSIVE RUN” PANIC Many exhibitors are in a state of panic as a result of the “Exclusive Run” policy of some distributors. One of them, leader of an organization, has gone so far as to accuse me of insincerity and of lack of sympathy for the small exhibitor because I did not become hysterical over this problem. “When the ‘Exclusive Run’ plan came up,” he wrote me. “you dismissed it with a mere gesture and you showed very little interest in the activities of our Association in our attempt to fight this evil that is threatening the entire industry.” I have not grown hysterical because nothing that I can say either editorially or orally can Induce those distributors who are bent upon adopting such a sales policy to change their minds, and because the plan, being fundamentally unsound, will fail. Let us examine this plan again to see why it is unsound : Pictures became popular because of the low admission prices that were charged for them in comparison with the spoken drama ; and stars became popular because of the frequency with which they appeared in all theatres in addition to the low prices that were charged for their pictures. Today the Chaplin and the Lloyd pictures do not draw the crowds they used to draw because of the infrequency with which these two stars appear on the screen, in addition, of course, to the lower quality of their pictures. When a producer decides to sell the pictures of a star he controls to a limited number of theatres, and to force these theatres to charge a minimum of fifty cents for an admission, it does not take much wisdom for a person to realize that the number of such star’s followers will diminish in time. People will resent being required to travel an unnecessarily long distance to go to see such a star’s pictures and to pay a higher admission price for them. They would have resented it during prosperous times let alone during these times when every dime counts. If this industry were governed by soundly thinking men, and not by men who, in the majority of the case, have grown fat by easy money, they would have taken the first person who would propose such a plan and kicked him out of the industry. Unfortunately we are not. And no one expects “crackaloos” to think logically. They have ruined the industry by their crazy notions of zoning and protection. It takes anywhere from six to twelve months for a producer to get his money back from a picture, whereas in the old days, where age of a picture was practically the only protection offered an exhibitor, the producer collected eighty per cent of his receipts in three months. Everybody could run a film then, and everybody was happy. Today everybody feels miserable, the producer more than any one else. The basic trouble for the ills of the industry is human greed. It is greed that has brought about the producer’s destruction. The producer, when he saw that the exhibitors were making substantial profits out of their theatres, felt that it was his pictures that enabled him them to make those profits. He started grieving, accusing the exhibitors that they did not pay him enough for his pictures. The exhibitors paid him more but still he was discontented. And he planned to take the theatres away from them. He felt that, with enough theatres in his circuit to enable him to take the cost of his pictures from the rentals, he would be in a position to tell the remaining exhibitors to go hang themselves, unless they paid him what he felt his pictures were worth. He did not realize that the success of those theatres was owed as much to the proprietors’ individuality, business acumen, and hard work, as to his films. He bought the number of theatres he set his mind to buy. But the scheme did not work ; he soon found out that theatres could not be conducted in Florida, or in Texas, or even in Greater New York itself, from an office on Broadway. And no man can run seven hundred theatres as efficiently as can seven hundred owners. The outcome was that the theatres he acquired began to lose money immediately after he acquired them. And they have been losing money ever since. He could not get rid of them, because they were the only assets he could show to the bankers for the money he borrowed from them. And so the banks have been compelled to put in good money after bad to avoid a crash, with the hope that conditions will soon change, putting the theatres back in the black. But business conditions have not improved, and so the theatres are keeping on losing money, millions of dollars. In the meantime the cost of production, because of “insane” management and graft, has kept on growing until now what the big producers take in is not enough to cover the cost of production and distribution. And so some of the distributors, in order to make the receipts cover the cost. are trying to invent plans that are unworkable, for they are economically unsound. Of course no one expects people to think coolly and soundly when the ship is sinking, as is the case with four of them. But they should do some cool thinking, just the same, for the “Exclusive Run” selling plan, besides being unsound, reeks with illegality. As I said elsewhere in this editorial, this paper cannot induce desperate people to abandon desperate plans. The only advice that it can give to the exhibitors is, therefore, to sue any producers who will conspire with one another and with exhibitors, whether affiliated or not, to shut him out of product. It is in the courts where he will find justice, for the producers cannot influence the Federal courts. Notice that they have been found guilty in almost every case where they were sued for conspiracy in restraint of trade. THE SERIES OF FOUR ARTICLES THAT DEALT WITH THIS SEASON’S PRODUCTS It is seldom that I talk about my work, for I believe that to let the work itself speak is more effective. But I cannot let the opportunity go by this time without saying something about the series of four articles that gave an analysis of the current season’s products, which was concluded in last week’s issue. I don’t know whether you realize how much labor it required to present the information contained in those articles to you, or how accurate are the statements made about the pictures. Every book, play, or magazine story had been read, either by me or by readers engaged by the Forecaster. The function of these readers is to submit to me a synopsis of anywhere from four to eight thousand words. Such a synopsis gives me correct information as to the suitability of the story material for a picture. I may say, in fact, that such synopses, prepared as they are by readers of exceptional ability, makes it possible for me to get a better idea of the material’s suitability than if I read the entire book. Just to give j’ou an idea how accurate is the information conveyed in those articles, allow me to say that, of the sixteen books, plays or magazine stories that were forecast and have so far been produced and reviewed, fourteen have turned out accurate ; they are the following : “Guilty as Hell” (“Riddle Me This”), Paramount; “The Hat Check Girl,” Fo.x ; “Once in a Lifetime,” Universal ; “Life Begins,” “The Cabin in the Cotton,” “The Crash” (“Children of Pleasure”), “Blessed Event,” and “A Successful Calamity,” Warner-First National ; “Age of Consent,” “Thirteen Women,” and “The Most Dangerous Game,” RKO ; “Strange Interlude,” MGM ; “Night Club Lady” (“The Murder of the Night Qub Lady”), Columbia ; and “Rain,” United Artists. The prediction proved wrong in the case of “70,000 Witnesses,” Paramount, and “A Bill of Divorcement,” RKO. In each of these two cases the forecast was unfavorable, but the pictures have turned out good entertainments. The short verdict alone, as given in the case of each picture treated in those articles is not, of course, as convincing as is the full explanation, as given in the Forecaster ; when j-ou talk prices to the salesman it is much more effective to have the full review before you than it is to have a mere verdict ; you are then in a position to confound him. This is an advantage which only the Forecaster subscribers possess. The series of articles giving the box office performances of last season’s pictures is another money-saving piece of information that has been given in H.\rrison’s Reports. PURCHASING ALL “RUNS” In Seattle and, as I understand, in some other parts of the country', the Skouras brothers, managers of the FoxWest Coast circuit, are purchasing all runs in the towns where a Fox-West Coast theatre is in operation, thus shutting their competitors out of product. The Skouras brothers had better consult a good lawyer about the matter ; a lawyer I consulted told me that purchasing all runs under such circumstances is, in his opinion, a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust law. It is not blameworthy for a person, not a lawyer, not to understand the law, even though the law does not hold him blameless because of it ; but it is blameworthy when it is within his means to consult a good lawyer and he fails to do it. Besides, it may have serious consequences if the law violation can be established.