We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Background of the Industry <^> <^> <^ <^ 17
found in the desire of the producer to assure himself of outlets for his own product and of some certain income to meet his production costs. An efficiently operated chain of theaters, strategically located, should yield some contribution toward producing costs. There is, for example, the exploitation value which is derived from the exhibition of a picture shown in a de luxe house at a key point. Then, too, the maximum revenue from any picture comes in the first three to six months of its showing. A substantial proportion of this accrues to the producer, if he owns a considerable number of outlets, since naturally his theaters are first-run houses for his own pictures. The fact that the film is leased rather than sold outright may also suggest the desirability of a close working agreement between the two parties concerned.
These and similar problems involved in the mechanics of distribution were unquestionably strong contributing factors toward integration. It is entirely possible that in the period preceding 1925 they played a larger part in this connection than they did subsequently when, perhaps it may be said, their influence was secondary as contrasted with certain other influences to which reference will be made shortly. To assume, as is sometimes done, that the organization of theater chains had its inception about 1925 or 1926 is not historically correct. Not to mention other earlier and isolated instances, it may be noted that by April, 1919, First National controlled 190 first-run theaters and approximately 40 subsequent-run houses, not counting some 366 theaters which were controlled under subfranchise agreements. In January, 1920, the total number of theaters controlled by First National had increased to 639 ; of these 224 were first-run houses, 49 were subsequent-run houses, and 366 were outlets operated by subfranchise holders.
The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, too, in order to guarantee adequate representation for Famous Players pictures in certain sections of the country and to secure exploitation through prerelease and first-run houses, became