Harrison's Reports (1945)

112 HARRISON'S REPORTS July 14, 1945 leader and he would not have to take time out to learn the business. "We refer to Hon. Frank C. Walker, who has just retired as Postmaster General of the United States. "The choice of the Postmaster General and Chairman of the dominant political party conforms to a pattern. The tribute paid Mr. Walker in the House of Representatives attest his high standing in Government circles. He is popular in all branches of the industry and knows how to get along with people. Allied leaders who participated in the 5-5-5 Conference remember that while they did not always see eye-to-eye with Mr. Walker, they never lost their respect for him, or their tempers. With Mr. Walker at the head, independent producers, distributors and exhibitors could resume carrying their problems to 44th Street with assurance of courteous treatment and openminded consideration." There is little that I can add to Mr. Myers' excellent suggestion that Frank C. Walker be offered the leadership of the MPPDA. If the MPPDA is going to make a change — and a change is needed badly — it cannot hope to choose a better leader than Mr. Walker, who has earned the respect of every branch of the industry, and whose qualifications for the post now held by Will Hays have been so well outlined by Mr. Myers. It has been my privilege to know Frank Walker personally. And to know the man is but to have an added reason for concurring heartily in what Mr. Myers has had to say of him. I know that his acceptance of the MPPDA leadership, should that organization be astute enough to offer the post to him, would be most beneficial to the industry as a whole. MPTOA LOSES A MEMBER Warner Brothers Theatres, which for many years has been an associate member of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America, has resigned from that organization, effective July 1. Ed Kuykendall, president of the MPTOA, who announced the resignation in a press release, said that no reason was given for Warners' withdrawal of their support and cooperation from his "national organization, which is now composed of 16 state and regional associations of theatre owners composed largely of independent exhibitors, but in which the important affiliated circuits have a special associate membership." Pity poor Ed Kuykendall, for the resignation of the Warner Brothers theatres is indeed a bitter blow to his hybrid exhibitor organization, which, as most of you know, is producer-controlled, by virtue of the fact that the money for its upkeep comes from the producers' coffers, in the form of dues paid by the theatres they own. Kuykendall says that no reason was given for the withdrawal. The reason however is obvious, not only to Kuykendall, but also to every informed industryite. It relates back to the action that Kuykendall took at Washington, in April 1944, when he visited Tom Clark, the then assistant attorney general in charge of the anti-trust division, and urged him to scrap the Consent Decree and to proceed with the prosecution of the anti-trust case against the defendant-distributors, at the same time prohibiting the affiliated cir cuits from expanding their theatre holdings. Kuykendall recommended also that, in the event the Department of Justice should feel it inadvisable to scrap the Decree, it should include in an amended decree certain stipulations (which he specified) that might have benefitted the independent exhibitors immensely if they had been adopted. The recommendations Kuykendall made to the Department of Justice were so detrimental to the interest of the producers — his bosses — that his motive puzzled me, and I said so in these columns. Shortly thereafter, as a result of Kuykendall's action, Joseph Bernhard, head of Warner Brothers' theatre department, resigned as a member of the MPTOA's board of directors. Immediately, Ed "crawfished"; in an effort to appease Bernhard and probably other affiliated members of the board, he issued a bulletin to the effect that he had presented to the Department of Justice the views of his organization's independent members only, and that neither the affiliated nor the partly affiliated members were consulted in the matter. Ed's statement was a masterpiece of "double talk," a futile effort to bring Bernhard back into the ranks. A few weeks later I learned from authoritative sources that Ed had called a meeting of the unaffiliated members of the MPTOA board of directors with a view to influencing them to compose a petition to the Department of Justice requesting that it drop the anti-trust suit against the major companies and that it grant to the independent exhibitors just enough reforms to appease them. But Kuykendall's board members, peeved by the excessive rentals they had to pay for film, refused to go along with the plan, and they drafted an entirely different petition, leaving Kuykendall in a position from which he could not retreat. In discussing Kuykendall's action in the April 22, 1944 issue of this paper, I said that "if Kuykendall had sought the advice of a grammar school child, he would have been told that his action would prove disastrous to his organization's finances." I said also that "if any more resignations take place, I fear that Ed Kuykendall's meal ticket will be in danger, unless, of course, the remaining affiliated circuits increase their contributions so as to cover up the loss." Ed apparently realized the danger, for since that time not one of his numerous bulletins has contained any statement that might in any way displease his affiliated members. Before closing this piece, I want to state, as I have often stated, that Kuykendall's claim that his organization is composed "largely of independent exhibitors" is just so much "bunk" aimed at painting the MPTOA as representative of bona fide independent exhibitors. It is true that some independent exhibitors belong to his organization, but they are so few in number that I doubt if their combined dues amount to more than a few thousand dollars, which is infinitesimal when compared to the many thousands of dollars poured into the organization's treasury by the producers' affiliated theatres for the purpose of using it as a "front." Obviously, it does not require great imagination to understand that Kuykendall and the other MPTOA representatives must do the producers' bidding lest they put an end to all financial support. And the proof of it is Warners' resignation.