The Exhibitor (1957)

December 11, 19 57 MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR 5 39 Years of Service to the Theatre Industry Founded in 1918. Published weekly by Jay Emanuel Publications, Incorporated. Publishing office: 246-248 North Clarion Street, Philadelphia 7, Pennsylvania. New York field office: 229 West 42nd Street, New York 36. West Coast field office: Paul Manning 8141 Blackburn Avenue, Los Angeles 48, Calif. Jay Emanuel, publisher; Paul J. Greenhalgh, general manager; Albert Erlick, editor; M» R. (Mrs. "Chick") Lewis, associate editor; George Frees Nonamaker, feature editor; Mel Konecoff. New York editor; William Haddock, Physical Theatre and Extra Profits departmental editor; Albert J. Martin, advertising manager; Max Cades, business manager. Subscriptions: $2 per year (52 issues); and outside of the United States, Canada, and Pan-American countries, $5 per year (52 issues). Special rates for two and three years on application. Entered as second class matter at the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, post office. Address all official communications to the Philadelphia publishing office. VOLUME 59 . NUMBER 7 DECEMBER I I, 1957 as we screen it LET’S SUE THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE As we have said before, and again repeat, we aren’t lawyers, and there's an awful lot about the law that we don’t know. But we do think we know something about basic American freedoms. And we have an unbounded faith in the eventual fairness of American justice. Many years ago, this motion picture industry may have been badly “trustified.” Some theatre circuits, owned by producerdistributors, possessed too great a concentration of theatres in a particular area; and there isn’t much question that “youscratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-your-back” deals resulted in swapped playing time between circuits, and between pro¬ ducer-distributors, with injury to independent competitors. There also were “franchises,” “preferred customers,” and pos¬ sibly other instruments not wrong in themselves but wrong or unfair in their application. All of this we admit. We admit also that charges were leveled fairly, court hearings were held properly, and judg¬ ments were issued fairly, under which the producer-distributor owned theatre circuits were both cut loose and whittled down. As a means to keep the source of supply separated from the “retail stores,” pictures were required to be sold singly and to the highest bidder. Swapping playing time, and all other “preferred customer” deals were outlawed for all time. But neither peace nor prosperity has resulted. Without the secure real estate holdings in the form of theatre buildings at the important cross-roads, producerdistributors have financing difficulties; have no means of “road testing” the new and original model that is every individual motion picture; and have no assurance that the model that costs several millions of dollars to make will have even a single theatre outlet. So supply sources have dried to a trickle. Without the facilities to produce, theatre owners with their new won “right-to-buy” find little or nothing on the shelves for sale; find every producer-distributor holding out for holi¬ day seasons and for percentage terms that were undreamed of; and find that independent neighboring competitors can be just as fierce, just as cutthroat, and twice as damaging in a tightened market as the old, producer-distributor circuits. And every theatre is living on a day-to-day basis, without any known supplies for as little as a month or six weeks in advance. Certainly, the former trustification no longer exists. But thousands of theatres have gone bankrupt, several former producer-distributors have closed shop, and others are totter¬ ing. Shaking with worry about the future, Allied States, who pleaded for the first government attention, Theatre Owners of America, and nearly every important independent theatre owner organization and group approached the Department ol Justice as long ago as last March and asked that the larger independent theatre circuits now be permitted to enter pro¬ duction and increase the industry’s film supply. Last Oct. 10 the Department called a closed-door meeting from which the trade press was excluded, and sucked its gums. Here it is December, and the same silence reigns in the house of the blindfolded weight lifter. We don’t think this is American. We don’t think this is freedom. And we don’t think this is justice. We would like to suggest that this industry should do what it can to live and to prosper, with or without the sulky lawyers of the Depart¬ ment of Justice. The monopolies are broken up. The five or six largest pro¬ ducer-distributors today are in some cases not even the same ones against which charges were leveled. The areas of the country that were circuit dominated are now better than 50 per cent independent. Five thousand drive-ins, mainly built by independents, now dot the land where none existed when the Paramount case was settled by consent. Is there to be no end to this silly supervision by a Department that seems too little interested to even render an opinion— right or wrong? If the Department of Justice owned TV stations, it couldn’t do much more than it has to hamstring this industry’s efforts to survive. Let’s do what needs doing. And if the Department of Justice puts its nose in, let’s take the record that exists to the Courts and ask for assistance. If necessary, let’s do a switch. Let’s sue the Department of Justice! A YOUNG MAN INTERESTING TO WATCH At a luncheon the other day at which the trade press repre¬ sentatives were introduced to “Hi” Martin, the new general sales manager of Universal-International, the usual probing questions calculated to produce headlines seemed to fizzle out like damp firecrackers. For all of his white hair, here was a relatively young sales executive, more or less unknown around New York, who had been tossed quickly into the top spot by the sudden death of Charlie Feldman. It figured that he was entitled to make a mistake or two, or to commit his company to some policy he would want “to eat” the next day. But this didn’t happen! Specific questions, dealing with his company’s policy, Mr. Martin answered quickly and with candor. General questions, many of which dealt with controversial industry subjects, and which might have tripped him into an awkward answer, Mr. Martin parried with the statement that he only represented Universal-International and could only answer questions spe¬ cifically relating to that company. No slips! No errors! All in all, “Hi” Martin made a fine impression. Possibly he needs some top-spot seasoning. But if he does, it didn’t show. We think he’s a young man who is going places. It will be interesting to watch him make his bid.