Investigation of concentration of economic power; monograph no. 1[-43] (1940)

32 CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER The proposed remedies to blind selling have included use of the cancelation privilege. It is assumed that, in order to maintain his position in the industry, each producer will attempt to maintain a generally high standard of quality in his releases. Occasional failures are presumably taken care of through cancelation. The weakness in this system has already been indicated. Once having secured an exhibition contract, it is to the distributor's interest to reduce cancelations to a minimum. The various means of discouraging use of the cancelation privilege, even where this has been granted by contract, go far beyond simply writing letters extolling the drawing power of the film which the exhibitor desires to cancel. This is especially so in the case of the small independent exhibitor who may have experienced difficulties in assuring himself of a Qontin- uous film supply. An alternative proposal has been that each film included in an exhibition contract be fully described as to players, story, director, and essential situations. Such a proposal is usually accompanied by some prohibition against compulsory block booking to insure that the exhibitor may first select only those pictures he wants and then be sure of getting those pictures and no others. This is the remedy proposed in section 4 of the Neely bill. It shall be unlawful ."o'* any distributor of motion-picture films in commerce to lease or offer to lease for public exhibition anj^ motion-picture film or films over two thousand feet in length unless such distributor shall furnish the exhibitor .at or before the time of making such lease or offer to lease an accurate synopsis of the contents of such film. Such synopsis shall be made a part of the lease and ^all include (a) a general outline of the story and descriptions of the principal characters, and (b) a statement describing the manner of treatment of dialogs concerning any scenes depictmg vice, crime, or suggestion of sexual passion. It is 'the purpose of this section to make available to the exhibitor sufl^cient information concerning the type and contents of the film and the manner of treatment of ques- tionable subject matter to enable him to determine whether the film is fairly described by the synopsis.^' Some difficulty mighTltrise here through lack of agreement as to what constituted an accurate synopsis. The interpretations brought out in the House and Senate committee hearings afford a glimpse of the misunderstandings and litigation which might result from such a provision. Beyond this, however, it must be recognized that if the principle of sale in advance of production is to be continued, some flexibility in description is probably desirable from the consumer standpoint. It is quite possible that unsuspected weaknesses in a scenario may develop during production or even after a preview show- ing. It is probably undesirable to make correction of such weaknesses contingent, among other tilings, on the possibility of noncompliance with contract agreements. Finally, it has been suggested that distributors be required to trade show or preview each picture before making any exhibition contracts. Here also it is evident that some provisions regarding block booking are necessary. It would avail the exhibitor little to have a report on the film shown if he was required to contract for it regardless of his opinion as to its desirability. Prescreening or trade showing has always been opposed by tiie affiliated interests. It has been their claim that prescreening would result in serious dislocations in their long-established methods of doing " S 280, 76th Cong., 3d sess.