Harrison's Reports (1933)

208 HARRISON’S REPORTS December 30, 1933 ARTICLE II — Administration Section One : A body known as “Code Authority” shall be set up to act as the agency for the administration of the Code, to be vested with such powers as are necessary to carry out the purposes for which it has been established. Section Two (a) : The membership of the Code Authority shall be as follows : For the companies that represent producer, distributor and exhibitor interests : Merlin H. Aylesworth, Sidney R. Kent, George J. Schaefer, Nicholas M. Schenck, and Harry Warner. For the independent producers, distributors and exhibitors : Robert H. Cochrane, W. Ray Johnston, Ed. Kuykendall, Charles L. O’Reilly, and Nathan Yamins. (b) When a question before the board affects directly or indirectly any class of employees not represented on the Code Authority, the Administrator shall select one representative from among persons that have been recommended by that class to sit, for the consideration of that question, as a member of the Code Authority. (Marie Dressier and Eddie Cantor have already been appointed to represent the actors.) (c) The Administrator may designate three additional persons to be members of the Code Authority as observed for the Administration. These shall not have any personal interest, either direct or indirect, in the motion picture industry, nor shall they represent any interests adverse to the interests of those engaged in it. (Two of the three have already been appointed. They are : Dr. A. Lawrence Lowell and Sol A. Rosenblatt. But Dr. Lowell has declined the appointment.) (d) In case a vacancy is created by absence, resignation, ineligibility, or incapacity of any member, an alternate of the same general class, who shall be a bona fide executive, or a bona fide exhibitor, as the case may be, shall be designated by such member whose seat has become vacated, to act temporarily in his behalf. Such designation shall be certified to the Code Authority by the member on whose behalf the alternate is to act. The Code Authority, however, may reject such alternate and require the designation of another. (e) A temporary alternate designated to become a permanent alternate will have to be approved by the Code Administrator first. (f) In case a member cannot for some reason designate his alternate the Code Authority may do so with the approval of the Administrator. (g) One employer cannot be represented on the Code Authority by more than one member. (h) When a member ceases to be a bona fide executive, or a bona fide exhibitor, his seat is considered vacant and is filled by the Code Administrator in case the member whose seat becomes vacant cannot designate his substitute as in (f). Section Three : The Code Authority shall make its own rules about meetings and other matters of procedure. Section Four : The Code Authority may create committees and delegate to them any power or authority within its own powers for the purpose of carrying out the intent of this Code, but at no time shall it be relieved of its duties, and of its own responsibility for the acts of such committees ; it may remove at any time any committee member, and it shall be its duty to review the acts of any of these committees. Section Five ; The Code Authority shall have the right (a) to collect from the members of the industry data reasonably pertinent for the carrying out of the purposes of this Code to be submitted to the President when required by him, or to governmental agencies, for purposes enumerated in Section 3 (a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act, but such data shall be considered of confidential nature, and only unidentified summaries of them may be published, under rules prescribed either by the Code Authority or by the Administrator, and (b) to make independent investigations of violations of the Code. Section Six : The Code Authority shall assist the Administrator in carrying out the provisions of the Code and in making investigations to ascertain whether the provisions of the Code are observed by everybody, or to satisfy himself whether a complaint lodged with him is justified or not, submitting a report to the Administrator. It may initiate regulations, make interpretations, or consider recommendations for such regulations and interpretations as may come before it, even when they pertain to trade practices. Section Seven: The Code Authority may, after notice and hearing, prescribe additional rules governing the policies of producers, distributors and exhibitors in their dealings among themselves, with one another, and with their employees. These rules shall be submitted to the Administrator and if the President approves them they shall automatically become rules of fair practices, a violation of which shall constitute a violation of the Code itself. Section Eight: The Code Authority shall utilize the facilities of national, of regional, and of local trade associations, groups, institutes, boards, and organizations in the industry to an extent and in a manner that will prove most useful for carrying out the purposes of this Gjde. Some exhibitor leaders have become frightened by the wording of this provision lest the producers be enabled to employ the film boards of trade to take advantage of the independent exhibitors for the benefit of the major producerdistributor-exhibitors. Since there will be government representatives, not only on the Code Authority, but also on the different boards that will be set up by it, such a fear is groundless. Remember that the Code Administrator has been given by the President the right to review, and if necessary to disapprove, any of the acts of all Code bodies if he should feel that they are unfair, or that they have been obtained from these bodies by fraud. Section Nine: A Code Authority member shall refrain from sitting on any matter involving, directly and not as a class, the interests of his company as well as of his own. In circumstances of this kind the Code Authority shall designate an alternate, to be taken from the same general class, not connected in any way with the company or with the theatre of the disqualified member. Section Ten: (a) The Code Authority shall have the right to appoint, remove and set the compensation of all persons it may employ for administering the Code, (b) The expenses of the Code Authority, in administering the Code, shall be defrayed with funds obtained by assessing the three branches of tlie industry, (c) Those who do not pay their share of the cost will not be entitled to the benefits of the Code — they shall not be entitled to file any complaint with the Code .\uthority or with any of the bodies created by it to enforce fair trade practices. ARTICLE VH — General Trade Policy Provisions Part One: By this provision, producers, distributors, actors, directors, writers and others, including production executives, give their word to maintain high moral standards in the production of motion pictures. Though this provision does not seem definite enough, its effect may prove more beneficial than if it were definite, for if we are to take into account our past experience, the big producers have never failed to have a demoralizing picture passed by censors. They are always able to invent means and ways to evade censorship regulations. To attain their object, they even hire censors to work for them. With the “Morality Clause” flexible, perhaps the exhibitors may be able to invoke the powers of the different Code bodies to be relieved of demoralizing pictures. We shall have to wait to see how it will work out. If it does not work out well, I believe that the President will, at the end of ninety days, use the big stick to bring about reforms. Part Two: This part refers to advertising and publicity procedure: the industry pledges itself to maintain high moral standards. ARTICLE VIII — Miscellaneous Provisions P.ART One : In asking an exhibitor to ship a print to some theatre, the distributor makes him his agent. In this manner the exhibitor is relieved of responsibility as to what happens to the print once he delivers it to the carrier designated by the distributor, or. in the absence of definite instructions, to the carrier selected by the exhibitor. Part Two: (a) If any part of this Code provides for arbitration other than that provided for in the Optional Standard License Agreement, all those who have accepted this Code shall proceed to arbitrate all arbitrable questions by submitting them to an arbitration board as indicated in this Part of the Code. Part Three: The provisions of this Code shall not apply to a case involving production and distribution of either standard or substandard films, exhibited either at regular theatres or at non-theatrical places, or to a case involving television, unless the Code .■\uthority, after an investigation, determines that an unfair competition is created against an established motion picture theatre. {To be continued next week)