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A DUEL
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Paramount was to receive thirty-five per cent, of the gross receipts from sale of films to the moving-picture theatres; the producers, sixty-five per cent. The adversaries, now temporary allies, both profited by the arrangement. Hodkinson, from a local agent, had sprung to rule of a company which distributed nation-wide the best moving pictures then current; Zukor had found a perfect outlet.
However, both men, and especially Zukor, regarded the arrangement as a truce, not a peace. The president of the Famous Players had been looking ahead. He also entertained fears and suspicions, born from memories of the Trust. At the end of his long vision loomed a vague peril. If the brilliant, energetic Hodkinson went ahead he might gather the sales agencies for all the long-film companies under the roof of Paramount. A combination of these middlemen could hold the bridge between the producer and the ultimate consumer, taking toll. Again, as under the Trust, men who did not understand might strangle progress. In a great crisis, such as the “low spot” of 1913, the fire of 1915, Zukor goes deathly still — “the one quiet amidst the raging floods.” In face of a far-away perplexity like this, he comes out of his shell and grows almost voluble. He used to drag Sam Goldwyn, the business executive of the Lasky Company, on long walks, and while wearing him out with his own swift, steady gait of a trapper, review the same situation in the same words. And, as a matter of fact, the equally