Harrison's Reports (1933)

80 HARRISON’S REPORTS for reasons unknown, was not appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court; therefore, there was no final adjudication. As far as the layman, or any other person interested, is concerned, if he wants to convince himself that block-booking has existed in a vicious form, and still exists in the same and even worse form, all he has to do is to ask his local exhibitor about it. “5. The motives prompting the exhibitor to buy in block are in each instance, economy, convenience and the assurance of a constant source of supply at reasonably regular intervals. Misconceptions about block-booking arise from two sources ; agitators who hold out to exhibitors, by whom they are employed, the impractical dream of buying at retail for wholesale prices ; and the perfect alibi block-booking affords an exhibitor criticized by his patrons for exhibiting a particular picture. . . .” I can hardly restrain myself from exploding and telling Hays how unjust and unfair he is for making such erroneous and misleading statements ; but after second consideration I decided that, if any exploding is to be done, it must be done by you when you realize, after I present the facts, how misleading they are. To begin with. Hays has been trying right along, in this pamphlet and in other pamphlets, statements, and speeches, to lead you to believe that there is no block-booking ; now he tells you that there is, but that the exhibitor wants it, and that those exhibitors who point out to block-booking as an evil are doing so only to justify their showing dirty pictures. If there has ever been another person more inconsistent than Will H. Hays, show him to me. You can convince yourself that this statement does not represent the facts by asking your local theatre owner whether he wants to show a picture such as “The Story of Temple Drake”; you will find out that not a single smalltown exhibitor wants to show it, and would welcome any outside help to enable him to get rid of it. I have before me the house organ of Henry J. Holloway, of the Gem Theatre, 8830 St. Charles Road, St. Louis, Mo., and read in it the following statement under the heading “Gem Not to Show Objectionable Films” : “The two pictures, ‘So This Is Africa’ and ‘Life Begins,’ which are now being shown in St. Louis theatres, and to which children under 16 years will not be admitted, will not be shown at the Gem Theatre. . . .” I know of others who “shelved” dirty pictures but lack of space prevents me from naming them. This should certainly offset Hays’ statement that the exhibitors are condemning block-booking so as to justify their showing “a particular,” that is, a dirty, picture. The exhibitor has no choice in the matter, as it was explained in the analysis of the contracts of the different distributors, which do not permit an e.xhibitor to cancel any of the pictures he contracted for, and he cannot buy part of the output. Now and then an exhibitor would rather pay for a picture and “shelve” it, but not very many exhibitors can afford such a luxury, and not very often, for to rent pictures for exhibition purposes costs so much that it will bankrupt any exhibitor if he were to make this a practice. This should be true particularly when the “dirty” picture should happen to be of the “percentage” class : to figure out the price of a percentage picture if it should be canceled it will be necessary for the exhibitor to furnish to the distributor his gross receipts for all pictures for thirty days prior to the date that picture was to be shown, and then by an intricate calculation the distributor arrives at the figures as to the sum of money he ought to receive as a rental for such picture. If the picture were booked for a Saturday or a Sunday showing, as is often the case (in many contracts the distributor retains the right to designate Saturdays and Sundays as the playing days for a certain number of his pictures), cancellation of it, even once, would work a great hardship on the exhibitor, because those two days are the best patronized of the week. And why should the exhibitor be made to suffer for a dirty picture when he had nothing to do with producing it? As to Hays’ insinuation that the complaint against blockbooking arises from agitators, who make the exhibitor be , lieve that without the block-booking system they will be able to buy retail pictures at wholesale prices, allow me to say that Ilays’ statement is misleading on its face and in its implications. To my knowledge there is no exhibitor-organization leader, or individual exhibitor, who entertains such notions. How can he make such a statement when in most localities the independent exhibitors cannot buy film at all, no matter how much bigger prices than the producer-controlled theatres they are willing to offer? 1 can present to you at least one concrete case — that of Mr. R. C. Spidell, of the State Theatre, at Dover, Ohio ; Mr. Spidell has written me as follows : “In this town, there are two theatres ; the State which is my own, independent, and the Bexley, which is a chain theatre, owned by Paramount-Shea. New Philadelphia is another town just three miles distant and in that town there are two theatres, both owned by Paramount-Shea — the Bijou, which they keep closed, and the Union Opera House. Now, for the two houses they keep open, this company has bought every major company’s product, for both first-run and second-run in each town. And then, to top this off, they have bought these pictures “Exclusive” (Editor’s Note; Not to be shown in any other theatre in either of these two towns at any other time), so that we cannot buy even a third-run. “We know that they have bought twice as many pictures as they can possibly use. They did the same thing last year and did not play more than half the pictures they bought. “Last fall when we could not buy any of these companies’ products for the current season (Editor’s Note: A picture Season is from August i of one year to July 31 of the next) we tried to buy what this chain did not use from last season’s products; but we were refused even this. Surely this cannot be right. We have about $ — ^ — invested in our theatre and we are going to lose it all just because this chain theatre company buys all the pictures that are made, and gets exclusive showings on them, so that w'e cannot buy either first-run, second-run, or even third-run. . . .” This is not an isolated case ; there are hundreds like them. I have many such letters in my files. All I can say is that, when there is a producer-controlled theatre in a locality, it corrals all the best product, and in most cases buys up more pictures than it can possibly use, so as to keep them away from the independent theatre owner. And then Will H. Hays has the brass to stand up without blushing and tell you that “block booking” is an alibi, offered by the independent theatre owner to justify a dirty picture he has shown ! Ye gods ! I don’t know whether Mr. Hays worked in a circus when he was young. I suspect he did. for only persons who had had a circus experience can so twist things around. For instance. three years ago last March he formulated his famous Morality Code. During these three years he kept telling the American public that the pictures were now clean. In ^Iarch he was in Hollywood and, as I informed you two weeks ago, threatened the producers with dire consequences unless they stopped putting “dirt” into the pictures. When was he right? Then, or now? If then, he is wrong now, a thing which he, of course, is not, for he would not have issued threats unless there was dirt in pictures. Naturally he must be right now, and was wrong then. In other words, for three years (I shall not touch upon the pre-Code period) he has been giving the American public misinformation about pictures so as to appease its wrath ; and when he found out that he could no longer do it, he issued threats. Will the members of his organization pay any attention to his threats now? Let us find out whether they will or not : These threats were made about the end of Alarch. On Friday, last week, there was released in New York City, and will soon play in other cities, “The Story of Temple Drake,” which has been founded on William Faulkner's book “Sanctuary,” one of the vilest books that have ever been published. How vile it is you may gather from the fact that in one situation of the book it is implied that the virtue of a j'oung girl was destroyed by a degenerate by a vile method ; and in another, that this degenerate was whinnying like a horse while the young woman was in an unnamable posture with a young man. These situations have been removed from the picture plot, of course ; but the picture violates the Hays morality code in at least three particulars : it shows lustful kissing, excessive drinking, and a rape. Long before the picture was produced, I pleaded with Paramount not to make it. pointing out to the harm it would do to the motion picture industry if it were to proproduce it. Copies of the correspondence exchaneed between the Paramount head and myself were sent to Will H. Hays. Did sanctimonious Hays do anything to stop production of it? No! All he did was to threaten the members of his organization with exposure to the public unless they put an end to filth in films, but that is as far as he went, and that is as far as he will go, if we are to judge by his having permitted “Temple Drake” to be shown. (To be ccmchtdcd next xccck)