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Chain Theaters, Incorporated1 theater operating company — motion pictures
Merchandising — Change in Theater Program Caused by Musicians1 Wage Demands. A theater operated as one unit in a large chain showed a combination program of vaudeville and sound motion pictures. When the theater changed its number of daily performances from two to three, its musicians demanded a wage increase. Believing that such an increase was unwarranted, the operating company considered two alternatives: continuing its existing policy and defying the musicians' demands; or changing the program to one of motion pictures only and dismissing the orchestra.
(1929)
In July, 1929, the musicians of the Willamette Theater,1 a unit of Chain Theaters, Incorporated, showing a combination program of vaudeville and sound motion pictures, demanded an increase in wages. Chain Theaters, Incorporated, was a subsidiary theater operating company of one of the largest motion picture corporations in the United States in 1929. Its organization comprised several hundred theaters located in the more important centers throughout the country. Because of the advent of sound pictures, the decline in vaudeville patronage, the competition from continuous-run motion picture theaters, and the resultant diminishing margin of profit, the Willamette Theater recently had changed its policy of showing two performances daily to one of showing three performances daily. Consequently, the orchestra, consisting of 20 union musicians, demanded a wage increase of $45 a man week. Music costs in the average motion picture theater approximated 14% of total operating expenses.2
Convinced that the extra daily performance did not warrant such an additional expense, the executives of Chain Theaters, Incorporated, considered two alternatives. Under the first, the Willamette Theater would continue with the new policy and openly defy the demands of the local musicians' union. The
1 Fictitious name.
2 See Franklin, H. B., Motion Picture Theater Management, 1927.
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