Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Feb 1948)

ASK REHEARING OF GOLDMAN ACTION Majors Petition Supreme Court to Review Verdict of $375,000 Damages Washington Bureau The Goldman anti-trust suit reached the U. S. Supreme Court Friday when the eight major distributors and various Warner Brothers subsidiaries filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the high court. The petitioners ask a review of the January, 1948, decision of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia which granted $375,000 in triple damages plus $60,000 in costs, to William Goldman Theatres, Inc., a Philadelphia independent circuit. House Dark for Some Time The Goldman anti-trust action, begun in 1945, is based on Mr. Goldman's charge that the distributors discriminated against his Erlanger theatre in distributing first run product. Mr. Goldman kept his Erlanger dark for some time. The award was originally made in December, 1946. It was upheld by the Circuit Court and covers the period from November 9, 1940. to December 8, 1942. Mr. Goldman has another anti-trust action pending in Philadelphia in which he asks triple damages covering the period from December 8, 1942, to December 18. 1946. The appellants, which include the Warner theatre circuit, told the Supreme Court that if the lower court's decision were not reversed, it "might well spell the ruin of the motion picture industry." Brief Supports Petition All the distributors, combined, filed a brief in support of the petition for certiorari (a writ issued by a superior court calling up evidence from an inferior court) and another supporting brief was filed by the Warner defendants. Stating that "there are now pending in the Federal court upwards of 50 anti-trust cases in which one or more of these petitioners is involved," the petition bluntly warned: "This decision, if it stands, will bring down on the motion picture industry a flood of litigation which it may not be able to survive." After these warnings of disaster, Warner Brothers brief declares that as a result of Goldman Theatres having opened a new and better theatre than the Erlanger, the theatre involved in the suit, "the question of monopolization has become academic, and the only question that still remains is . . . whether plaintiff is entitled to recover millions of dollars because it did not have as good a theatre as the new Goldman theatre in the years past." The Erlanger was termed "an established failure" by the distributors' brief. And then, elaborating: "Here, respondent (Mr. Goldman) would be allowed to recover for the non-operation of this established failure — which it can be fairly inferred from the record never made a profit — a sum representing many times the original cost of the theatre, thus converting a theatre which earned no profits in a competitive market into a bonanza through the instrumentality of an inferred conspiracy based solely upon the refusals of these petitioners — severally — to decline to experiment with their pictures in a theatre which had never been successful. "It is this type of litigation," the brief concludes, "which has encouraged plaintiffs all over the country to harass these petitioners and other parties with claims of damages to business or property, with no obligation to prove any actual damage, but using paid experts to testify to some theory that the plaintiffs would have made mode money than they actually made if they had played other pictures, or pictures on a different run, or pictures which played in a competitor's theatre." William A. Schnader, Bernard G. Segal and J. Pennington Strauss signed as attorneys for the distributors, while Joseph M. Proskauer, Morris Wolf and Louis J. Goffman represented the Warner companies. Louis Mayer Purchaser Of New York Rivoli Louis B. Mayer, in charge of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, has identified himself in Hollywood as the purchaser of the Broadway Rivoli theatre, New York. Sale of the house was reported in the Herald February 14. The purchase was a personal investment, he stated. The 2,100-seat, Greek-styled house fronts on Broadway and extends back to Seventh Avenue, between 49th and 50th Streets. It was built in 1917. Samuelson Elected Manager Of Pennsylvania Allied Sidney E. Samuelson was elected general manager of Eastern Pennsylvania Allied at a board of governors meeting in Philadelphia last week. Other officers elected were : Ben Fertel, treasurer ; E. B. Gregory, secretary ; Harry Chertcoff, national director ; Morris Wax and George L. Ickes, alternate national directors, and Jack Greenberg, chairman of the finance committee. The board also approved the appointment of Sydney Heldon as field representative for the organization. Tom Clark Will Address TOA Meet March 9 Tom Clark, U. S. Attorney General, will be one of the featured speakers at the board meeting of Theatre Owners of America in Los Angeles March 9-10, Robert Coyne, TOA executive secretary, said in New York last week. One director from each regional association affiliated with TOA and all TOA officers will be on hand. A number of reports will be submitted and the board will be asked to set policy on several issues. Among them is the question of local taxes and the matter of reduction | of the Federal admission tax. A. Julian ■Brylawski, TOA's legislative representative 'in Washington, will make several suggestions for a coordinated exhibitor program to be considered by the board. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which recently arrived at a rate compromise with TOA, will be discussed. The board will be asked to ratify the agreement, which involves no license fee increases for theatres with 500 seats or less. In addition, the group will clarify TOA's stand towards the Lewis bill, supported by Allied States, which would shift the load of Ascap rates onto the producers. Should the board, as is expected, express its opposition to the proposed measure, TOA then will officially oppose it before the Congressional committee. Since exhibitors recently have shown considerable interest in television, the TOA board will be asked "to set the direction in which to move," Mr. Coyne said. Subsequently TOA may undertake to contact the television networks and the Federal Communications Commission and in general may explore theatre television. Exhibitor reaction to the recent TOA survey of television has been gratifying, Mr. Coyne said, adding that in his opinion exhibitors would do well to consider large screen television in the light of reality and to abandon set notions on the impracticability of the medium. The TOA board also will hear a report on 16mm. Mr. Coyne stressed that TOA had no quarrel with 16mm "where it stands on its own feet as fair competition, California Theatres Association of Northern California has voted to affiliate with TOA. Roy Cooper of San Francisco will represent CIA. MGM Five-Day Meeting to Open on Coast Monday William F. Rodgers, vice-president and general sales manager for MGM, has called a five-day conference of field sales managers, their territorial assistants and home office executives to be held in Hollywood beginning Monday. The primary purpose of the conference is to screen several pictures scheduled for release in the next six months. 24 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, FEBRUARY 28, 1948 H