We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
PUBLIX THEATERS CORPORATION 515
several companies, each of which owned and controlled a theater or group of theaters; some of these theaters the company operated. In 1928, the company was operating directly about 300 theaters and was interested in the ownership and operation of another 350 theaters.
The Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation expected several benefits to accrue from the unification of operation of the various theaters. In the first place, by buying for all its theaters, it would be able to purchase motion picture films in large quantities, whereas previously the subsidiary organizations had bought for each theater individually. This, the executives believed, would give the theaters the advantage of wholesale buying and practically assure them the use of the same brands of motion pictures throughout the chain. The purchases would be made in most cases by negotiations direct with the general sales managers of the producing and distributing companies. Inasmuch as the theaters operated by the Publix Theaters Corporation naturally would buy and exhibit most of the pictures of the parent company, that company would benefit by having a permanent, substantial, and definite market in its theaters for its own product. This was the reason why the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation originally became interested in theaters and it continued to be the principal consideration in the operation of the circuit.
One alleged weakness of buying pictures in one large purchase for a chain of theaters was that it did not grant the individual theater managers sufficient discretion in the selection of their programs. Critics of this type of theater control were of the opinion that the varying local likes and dislikes of the theater audiences were not met. They believed that chain operation had a tendency to lay down a standardized form of entertainment for all communities regardless of their needs. The corporation was inclined to discount this criticism for several reasons. The chief reason was that it proposed to permit its managers to express a preference for the type of pictures they would like to show on their screens. The corporation also believed that a sufficient variety of screen entertainment was furnished by producers to give every community a widely varied program and that with only a little adjustment on the part of local theater managers the entertainment furnished by most of the large producers could be made to suit local needs.