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212 THE HOUSE THAT SHADOWS BUILT
Zukor, and to have exaggerated a danger, as men of lively imagination will. The Trust, by monopolizing production, had strangled progress. The Famous Players, embodied in Zukor, then led the field in production of first-class films, and Lasky stood next in merit. Perhaps they, too, were working toward a monopoly! Also, one suspects, these two dominant temperaments clashed. Hodkinson wanted the Lasky pictures, but separately and on his own terms.
Zukor was not looking toward monopoly of production; his need at the moment was a large and regular outlet. Machinery there was, scrapped from wreckage of the Trust, to distribute short films. The makers of super-films, like him and Lasky, must still depend on the uncertain states’ rights system. What they wanted was a smooth and certain machine throwing out to distributors two changes of programme a week. Using Mary Pickford’s popular Tess of the Storm Country as a lever, he had A1 Lichtmann call the chief executives of the big distributing firms to New York. They represented five groups, strong enough to cover with sub-agents and agencies the whole United States. And, as a resolution of strangely warring forces, they pooled their interests in the Paramount Picture Corporation, with W. W. Hodkinson president and general manager. The Zukor, Lasky, and Bosworth companies accepted it as distributing agency, and perfected the two-film-a-week arrangement which I described in the last chapter.