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252 ^ <^ -c* The Motion Picture Industry
distributor is often dependent upon the key-city exhibitor for the successful selling of a picture in the territory to subsequent-run theaters. In fact, the contract drafted at the 5-5-5 conferences provides that the exhibitor may stipulate in his schedule that the playing of a picture by a prior run shall be the condition of his exhibition of the picture, in order that he may get the benefit of the publicity given the film on the prior run. The distributor has felt, therefore, that he should have direct control of the sale of his pictures to the public. An illustration of the importance of well-planned advertising in helping to make a picture successful is to be found in the treatment of pictures shown on Broadway. Here, many a film has been a success largely because of the carefully prepared advertising and exploitation campaign which has been given it. Some pictures, of course, are successes because they are good pictures, and these films, when shown in the rest of the country, are likely to succeed on their own merits there, as well as on Broadway. Many other films, however, are of mediocre or poor quality, and still are successful on Broadway; in these cases the success is due largely to the exploitation which the pictures receive. When exhibited in the rest of the country, without the advantage of elaborate advertising, these films are likely to fail in most communities. Given the advantage of the exploitation used in the key cities, however, they might succeed to a certain extent. Therefore, since the success of a picture in subsequent runs depends so much upon the success of the engagement in key cities, it would seem logical to suggest that a cooperative advertising arrangement be developed between the exhibitor and distributor, costs being shared jointly by the two.
This logic would seem to be all the more convincing where pictures are sold on a percentage basis. Here the distributor has a direct, immediate, and continuing interest in the success attendant upon the exhibition of a picture. Nothing would appear more logical, therefore, than that he should have a part to play both in directing and in financing the advertising connected with it. Percentage pricing may or