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Block Booking <^> <^> <^> -^ <^> <^> <^> 143
Lasky Corporation. The principal charge of the Federal Trade Commission's action was directed against the corporation on the ground that it was seeking to restrain competition. In connection with this charge, various practices were attacked. For example, the company's policy with regard to theater acquisition was alleged to be unfair. Among the various practices which the Commission charged Famous Players-Lasky Corporation with using as a means toward restraint of competition, none assumed a more prominent place than that of block booking.
This method of sale was attacked on the grounds that it limited the exhibitor's choice, often forcing him to take pictures which he did not want; that it assured the distributor an income on all pictures regardless of their quality; that it caused overbuying on the part of exhibitors; that it enabled a distributor to usurp the playing time of exhibitors to the exclusion of other distributors; and that it had other harmful effects. In the course of its investigation the Federal Trade Commission conducted extended hearings to determine whether or not block booking should be ordered stopped as an unfair trade practice.
While the investigation of the Federal Trade Commission was in progress, Senator Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa, in an effort to hasten the settlement of the block booking problem, introduced into the United States Senate an antiblock-booking bill * which provided with regard to block booking that ". . . it shall be unlawful ... to lease or offer for lease for exhibition in any theater or theaters copyrighted motion picture films in a block or group of two or more films at a designated lump-sum price for the entire block or group only, and to require the exhibitor to lease all such films or permit him to lease none ; or to lease or offer for lease for exhibition such motion picture films in a block or group of two or more at a designated lump-sum price for the entire block or group and at separate and several prices
1 Senate Bill 1667, Seventieth Congress, First Session.