Harrison's Reports (1934)

IN TWO SECTIONS— SECTION ONE Entered as second-class matter January 4, 1921, at the post office at New York, New York, under the act of March 3, 1879. Harrison’s Yearly Subscription Rates: United States 315.00 U. S. Insular Possessions. 16.50 Canada 16.50 Mexico, Cuba, Spain 16.50 Great Britain 16.00 Australia, New Zealand, India 17.50 35c a Copy 1440 BROADWAY New York, N. Y. A Motion Picture Reviewing Service Devoted Chiefly to the Interests of the Exhibitors Its Editorial Policy: No Problem Too Big for Its Editorial Columns, if It is to Benefit the Exhibitor. Published Weekly by P. S. HARRISON Editor and Publisher Established July 1, 1919 PEnnsylvania 6-6379 Cable Address : Harreports (Bentley Code) A REVIEWING SERVICE FREE FROM THE INFLUENCE OF FILM ADVERTISING Voirxvi SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1934 No. 2 Benefits the Exhibitor Will Derive Under the Code — No. 6 ( Article V — Concluded from last week ) Part 4. This provision stipulates that the Code Authority shall have the power to investigate offers for personal services so as to prevent one employer from offering to a person an unreasonably excessive inducement to leave the services of another employer and to accept his offer for employment. The operation of this Part has been suspended by the President by an article in his Executive Order, which reads as follows : “(4) Because the President believes that further investigation with respect to problems of payment of excessive compensation to executives and other employees in this industry is required, the provisions of article V, division A, part 4, of this code are hereby suspended from operation and shall not become effective pending further report from the Administrator after investigation ; . . . ” B. PRODUCERS Since the provisions under this division refer to producer matters that do not interest exhibitors, no interpretation of them is made. C. PRODUCER-DISTRIBUTORS Since the provisions of this division do not affect exhibitors, no interpretation of them is made. The entire Code has now been interpreted. SUMMARY As I stated in an earlier installment, many exhibitor leaders are dissatisfied with the Code on the ground that it does not give the independent exhibitors all the reforms they asked for, and that what reforms it gives them are not worth getting excited about. That the Code does not give the independent exhibitors all the reforms they looked forward to getting is true; but are the reforms it gives them unimportant? To answer this question accurately, it is necessary that we recapitulate whatever reforms the Code effects and then compare them with the reforms the exhibitor leaders were able to obtain from the producers by direct negotiation over a period of time extending more than thirteen years — from 1920, the year when the exhibitors formed Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America, at that time a genuinely independent exhibitor body, up to last year, when Allied States held the last round-table conference with the major producers, negotiating the Optional Standard License Agreement. The following are the reforms the Code effects : 1. A distributor cannot frighten an exhibitor into paying him higher rentals than his films are in the exhibitor’s opinion worth by threats of building a competitive theatre. 2. No employee of a distributor may use his position to prevent an independent exhibitor from getting his just share of films. 3. No distributor can coerce an exhibitor into accepting substitutions. 4. No distributor can coerce an exhibitor into paying him higher rentals than his films are worth by threatening to rent them, or even by renting them, to a non-theatrical institution except as the Local Grievance Board may rule. 5. No distributor may compel an exhibitor to buy more short subjects than he needs to complete the program on the days he shows that distributor’s pictures. 6. No distributor may divulge an exhibitor’s box office receipts to another distributor. 7. No distributor may transfer his assets to leave his deliveries to exhibitors incomplete. 8. A distributor must make a price adjustment if he should fail to deliver all the features he sold to an exhibitor. 9. No distributor may designate a flat rental picture to take the place of a percentage picture on days on which a picture is declared by the Grievance board, on a complaint by an exhibitor, unsuitable. 10. No distributor may refuse to deliver features because of a dispute on shorts. 11. A distributor must offer to his customers first an extra picture he may release in the middle of the season. 12. An influential exhibitor, when he makes a selective contract with a distributor, must make his selections within a definite period of time, so that the subsequent-run independent exhibitor may get the films when they are still fresh. 13. No exhibitor may contract for more pictures than he needs in order for him to create a shortage of pictures for his competitor. 14. No exhibitor may compete with another exhibitor by a cut-throat competition, such as giving rebates and other acts. 15. No exhibitor may grab a theatre from another exhibitor while the holder of the lease is negotiating for its renewal. 16. All distributors are compelled to accept the Optional Standard License Agreement that was adopted by the representatives of exhibitor organizations in agreement with representatives of distributors. The benefits the exhibitors will derive under such Agreement are the following: (a) In case a distributor breached the exhibitor’s contract, he must pay definite damages to the exhibitor, (b) (1) Definite release dates are provided for, enabling the subsequent-run exhibitors to get their pictures when they are still “fresh”; (2) an exhibitor is enabled to play a picture out of its turn; (3) an injured exhibitor is made a party to any action a distributor may take against an exhibitor who failed to ship the print in time for the injured exhibitor’s use. (c) It compels the distributor to furnish to the exhibitor play-date availability notices in accordance with a definite system, (d) It curbs a first-run exhibitor’s habit of delaying the exhibition of pictures, (e) It puts the responsibility on the distributor to notify the exhibitor what pictures will not be “generally released,” and grants certain rights to the exhibitors on such pictures. 17. Fair arbitration is provided for, the sort that was agreed upon in the Optional Standard License Agreement. 18. One exhibitor is prohibited from seeking to influence a distributor to break his contract with another exhibitor. 19. Either a distributor or an exhibitor is prohibited from offering bribes to the detriment of another exhibitor. 20. The exhibitor is granted the right to cancel ten percent of such of the contracted pictures as he thinks are objectionable to the people of his community. 21. There is established a Code Authority, or a national appeal board, to which body all aggrieved persons may appeal to for redress. 22. There are established Clearance and Zoning Boards for setting up fair clearance and zoning schedules, enabling the exhibitor to appeal to the Code Authority in case a schedule should be unfair to him. 23. A Grievance Board is established in each zone where an exhibitor may take his complaints, with a right to appeal to the Code Authority in case he cannot get justice from such a Board. ( Continued on last page )