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12 ^> ^> ^> The Motion Picture Industry
The terms of sale employed by state right exchange men were also deterrents to aggressive selling. The program or service idea was still in vogue, with the result that films were not distributed intensively throughout the respective territories and failed to command rentals which were commensurate with the earning power of the feature picture. The producer was powerless to remedy the situation, for, because of the variations in the quality of the product and the differences in purchasing ability between exhibitors of different classes, he could not dictate to the distributor the prices at which he should sublease films to exhibitors. Therefore, the entire success of profitable production depended upon the aggressiveness which exchange men displayed in covering their territories and in securing maximum rentals from the exhibitors.
Not only were these specific difficulties experienced by producers with individual exchange men, but the sum total of all national distribution on a state right basis presented unsatisfactory arrangements from the producer's point of view. Most important was the lack of control over national distribution. Some exchange men were satisfactory; others were not; and no uniformity of practice could be dictated by the producer. This lack of centralized control also left room for much dishonesty, some of which was deliberate but more of which resulted from general laxity of control. Release date violations arose chiefly from the cutthroat competition between exchange men. True, this evil lessened somewhat with the advent of the longer picture, which had an average life of from one to two years as against that of a few months for the shorter film. A more important evil was that of "bicycling",6 that is, the transporting of a film from its authorized place of exhibition to another theater which had made no leasing agreement and had paid no rental for its use. Where exchange men were careless in securing the immediate return of prints to the exchange fol
6 See p. 281.