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144 ^> ^> ^> The Motion Picture Industry
for separate and several films; or for a number or numbers thereof less than the total number, which total or lump-sum price and separate and several prices shall bear to each other such relation as to operate as an unreasonable restraint upon the freedom of an exhibitor to select and lease for use and exhibition only such film or films of such block or group as he may desire and prefer to procure for exhibition . . . ." Certain testimonies at the hearing on this bill before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the Senate are presented here because they explain more fully the attitude of certain exhibitors toward block booking than did some of the testimonies before the Federal Trade Commission in its case against the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.
Except for the United Artists Corporation, virtually all large distributors and most smaller distributors practiced block booking. The distributors who handled only five or six pictures per year, however, seldom sold in that manner. Several different types of block booking were in use.
The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation each year, as soon as its program was announced in the spring, sent its salesmen into the field to sell its pictures to the exhibitors in groups or blocks. In its brief the company stated: "These blocks vary from 10 to more than 40 in one block; Famous Players-Lasky Corporation has never had more than 40 in one block. Its average number per block since 1920 has been about 25. It has never offered less than two blocks per year and in some years as many as four blocks." It was the goal of every salesman as far as possible to sell each block in its entirety to each exhibitor in his territory. The salesmen were instructed, however, whenever they found it impossible to sell to an exhibitor a block as offered, to try to sell him one containing a smaller number of pictures. The salesmen's instructions permitted them, when selling an exhibitor an entire block as offered, to accept a lower price per picture than would be acceptable when selling a corresponding exhibitor a smaller number of pictures.