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70 ^> <^ ^> The Motion Picture Industry
the supervision of district managers,12 who in turn would report directly to their respective division managers.
The company did not maintain a general theater manager as did a majority of its chief competitors; instead, the activities of the five division managers were coordinated by two regional directors, whose territories were divided theoretically by the Mississippi River. The eastern director had headquarters in New York City; the western director, in Los Angeles. To provide all the benefits of a highly centralized organization, the company rotated the directors as between the two territories.
In general, before the appointment of a general film buyer for Fox theaters, films were purchased by the unit theater managers or their buyers, by division buyers, and in some cases through the cooperation of both. When films were purchased by the individual theater, the transaction from purchase to delivery, although governed in part by predetermined budgets, and to a lesser extent by general company policy, was not unlike the purchases made by individual independent exhibitors. Purchases made for a group or a division were negotiated by a division buyer or a division manager. The division buyer, because of his personal contact with the theater managers in his territory, was well acquainted with the situation of each theater and was therefore able to judge the suitability of each producer's product for specific theaters.
Division sales managers of the various distributing companies usually negotiated with the division buyers for the sale of their pictures to Fox theaters. Unless he was offering his company's product in units, the distributor-representative endeavored to sell to the buyer as many of his pictures for as many of the Fox theaters in his district as possible, and to secure for them a maximum total price. The buyer, on the other hand, usually selected certain pictures and endeavored to purchase them for a minimum price. He
12 See Lewis, Howard T., op. cit.