Evidence study no. 25 of the motion picture industry (1933)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




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.

354 ^> ^ ^> The Motion Picture Industry In addition, there seemed to be a lack of men with adequate managerial ability;7 moreover, those who had the ability to operate their theaters profitably were excessively restricted by the limitations placed on them by the home office. Then too, the large chains seemed to be unable to compete favorably with independent operators of small houses, especially second and subsequent-run theaters. Finally, because of the centralized forms of management there was too much standardization in product, in personnel, and in plan of operation. Within the trade, various opinions have been advanced on the subject of chain theater operation. Harrison's Reports, January 31, 1931, said in part as follows: When a theater is inducted into a chain, anywhere from three hundred to thousands of dollars a week are added to the operation as "Home Office Overhead". The operating booth costs the chain not less than twice as much to operate as it did the individual owner, and in many cases as high as five times as much. The chain owner is subject to Union dictatorship that ho independent has ever been subjected to. If the chain operator refuses to accept the Union's demands, the projectionists are pulled out of the booths of all the theaters owned by the chains, no matter in how many states such theaters are. .... the character and ability of the manager contribute greatly to the success of the theater. In fact, there is no business in the world where the personality of the manager counts as much as it does in the theater business. People go to a picture theater to amuse themselves. And a bright, cheerful, and happy-looking manager is part of the "show". An equal handicap to the chain theater management comes from the fact that the theater has to show every picture that is owned either by the company, or by the distributor with whom the company has entered a reciprocal buying agreement — to run each other's films. No matter how poor may be the pictures, the manager cannot reject them as can the independent manager. Very often the independent manager pays for a film and lays it on the shelf rather than show 7 Variety, February 4, 1931, said in part as follows: A survey by an outstanding chain operator indicated that a majority of approximately 3,000 house managers employed by major circuits are only 50% efficient. The circuits are confronted with a man-power problem. That this efficiency has not been raised is the most vexing issue; the loss in efficiency has been estimated to range from 15% to 20%.