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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 229
greatest percentage possible of your output, and everybody tries for that strenuously.
Q. And the degrees of effort put forward vary without limit, do they not?
A. Yes, I think that is true.
Q. And so far as Famous Players is concerned, does it ever stand pat and refuse to sell an exhibitor who does not want to take the entire block?
A. Not to my knowledge.
In the same way the Universal Pictures Corporation, another large distributor, sold most of its feature pictures in blocks. It also had a special service particularly designed for smaller exhibitors, known as the Universal Complete Service Plan,3 which was a type of block booking. Subscribers to this service were entitled to receive each week during the period of the subscription a complete program composed of a feature picture and the necessary short pictures, all to be selected by the exhibitor from the pictures released by the Universal Pictures Corporation. A few of the very best pictures each year were excluded from this service. The International Newsreel, which was distributed by the Universal Pictures Corporation for the International Newsreel Corporation, was not included in the service.
Another large distributor of motion pictures, First National Pictures, Incorporated, practiced another method of block booking. This company had been organized as a cooperative buying association in 191 7 by a group of 28 exhibitors who were dissatisfied with the kind of pictures then being offered by the producers. Later it had started producing its own pictures. The original 28 exhibitors and those who subsequently joined the company signed contracts whereby First National Pictures, Incorporated, licensed and required these exhibitors to show all the pictures which the company itself might produce.
Educational Pictures, Incorporated, a large company which released only short pictures such as comedies and newsreels, advertised and released its pictures by series without giving emphasis to the individual pictures. Its productions were usually listed, for example, as "10 Charlie Bower Comedies, 8 cartoons, 10 Lupino Lane Comedies/' etc. Its salesmen attempted to sell as many series as possible in a block to each exhibitor. As regards its newsreels, Educational Pictures, Incorporated, like
3 See Universal Pictures Corporation, page 273.