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MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITORS' ASSOCIATION 625
purchase pictures directly, the MetroGold wyn-Mayer Pictures Corporation and other distributors were attempting to negotiate directly with member exhibitors.
The members of the association required more pictures than those sold by the three distributing companies with which it had been negotiating. The committee, therefore, planned to drop negotiations with these three companies and buy enough pictures from other distributors to furnish members with a large part of the pictures needed during the year. With the members thus assured of enough pictures to keep their theaters operating most of the time, the committee would be in a strong bargaining position, when negotiating with the three companies with which it originally had opened negotiations, for the few additional pictures required.
The committee undertook to buy the pictures of Pathe Exchange, Incorporated, and of FBO Productions, Incorporated, which had been listed as second choice by many of the members. Although the committee conducted the negotiations with these two distributors, it settled prices for each member individually and concluded a separate contract for each member. This policy had been necessitated by the desire of the exchanges to write separate contracts for each exhibitor, by the desire of the members to pay for their pictures in terms of exact prices settled with the distributors, and by the incompleteness of the statistical information upon which the committee planned to base the allocation of price among members. Negotiations were concluded whereby the association purchased for certain of its members 12 pictures from FBO Productions, Incorporated, for first run and 18 for second run to follow the Keith-Albee Orpheum Circuit which had purchased them for first run. The committee also bought 25 feature pictures from Pathe Exchange, Incorporated. A comparison with the contracts of the previous year proved that the prices for every theater were the same as or lower than in 192 7-1928. A number of the theaters secured better runs than they had been able to obtain in 1927-1928.
While these purchases were being negotiated, a number of members had expressed a desire to be freed from their operating agreements so that they might buy pictures directly. They were fearful that the association might not be able to buy enough pictures to furnish them with complete programs for the year. One