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MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITORS' ASSOCIATION 629
For the first year the committee planned to limit its activities to the purchasing of feature pictures only and to permit the members themselves individually to purchase newsreels and other short film subjects. Its first action was to request from all member exhibitors copies of the contracts into which they had entered with distributors during the year 1927-1928. From this source, the committee secured sufficient information to analyze the previous purchases of members. The committee recognized the necessity of analyzing the contracts over a period of several years to get accurate information about the requirements of the members and their relative ability to pay for pictures. It was impossible, however, for most members to send the committee their contracts for years prior to 192 7-1928, for the reason that most exhibitors destroyed their contracts after they had finished showing the pictures purchased under the contracts. After all the contracts had been received, the committee checked them with the New York exchanges of several of the distributors to make sure of the accuracy of the information. It was not possible, however, to secure the cooperation of all the exchanges in making this check.
The committee also asked each member exhibitor to submit a written report of the history and current operating conditions of the theater or theaters which he operated. In this report the member was asked to explain in detail the conditions under which he negotiated for pictures; whether the entire year's needs were purchased early in the season or from month to month and whether or not the member was forced by the distributors to purchase an entire block as offered in order to get any of the distributors' pictures. Each member reported the names of the distributors from which he usually purchased, the names of distributors with which he was on particularly friendly terms, the prices asked and the prices paid, the protection secured, the protection to which the exhibitor was subject, the type and condition of the building, the class of patronage, the names of competitors and the nature of the competition, and whether, in the opinion of the exhibitor, business in general was good or bad, and the trend. Most of the exhibitors made these reports in the form of letters addressed to the committee, but a number of them reported by calling on one of the executives employed by the committee and discussing their situations with him. Careful notes were made of each interview.