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.
194 <^y ^> ^> The Motion Picture Industry
met to a limited extent through the use of guaranties and various modifications of the unit system.
The application of a percentage pricing policy to theaters showing double feature programs constituted one of the most perplexing problems. In some cases the problem could be met by the showing of pictures of one producer on the same program. In a majority of instances one of the two pictures shown was leased for a flat amount, this amount being included as a part of the house expense. Such an arrangement required that the exhibitor book at least one-half of his film requirements on a flat rental basis. In some cases distributors sold to double feature accounts only under flat rental contracts. Occasionally other distributors, principally as a matter of expediency, met the problem by bargaining with the competing distributors and the exhibitor to determine which picture would receive a flat rental and which one a guaranty or percentage division, or both. Rarely did the distributors agree to share unequally; if a division was agreed upon, it was usually made on an equal basis. With but few exceptions, and regardless of the method used, percentage arrangements, because of the many variables involved, had not been satisfactory for accounts which exhibited double feature programs.9
By 1931, the chief problems in the administration of a percentage pricing policy, namely the tasks of checking box office receipts and of inducing exhibitors to provide effective advertising and exploitation, had not been solved adequately. The seriousness of the problem of checking receipts at times threatened to disrupt the entire percentage system. Exhibitors resented the use of checkers by distributors. They disliked, for example, the stationing of unfamiliar and unregu
9 The Paramount Publix Corporation announced that during 1931 and 1932 percentage sales would be restricted to theaters where a division of receipts would be mutually beneficial to the company and to the exhibitors. Pictures would be sold to theaters showing double feature programs under flat rentals only. This policy was adopted because of the difficulty encountered in showing two pictures from one producer on the same bill. (See Variety, April 1, 1931.)