The motion picture industry (1933)

362 ^> ^> <^> The Motion Picture Industry .... All important decisions for every theatre were made in New York. The home office staff functioned at a weekly cost of $125,000 or over $6,000,000 yearly, with this staggering overhead distributed among the Publix theatres. An elaborate organization of 19 home office departments was evolved. Complicated forms, red tape and routine were required to keep the home office informed of what was happening from coast to coast and to keep the field force informed about what should happen. ... It was difficult for top executives in New York to master the geography involved, not to mention individual theatres or the names of theatre managers. Conflict between home office control and local control of individual operations was the first monkey wrench in the machinery. Excessive standardization and stereotyped routine were inevitable. . . . The more the home office muscled in, the less eager were local managers to cause offense by noisy initiative. They merely played the game and were above all things respectful to superiors who were too far away to interpret this attitude for what it really was. . . . Delay in action due to red tape, dearth of individual initiative in the field force who saw overhead mounting, faulty booking by newcomers who did not understand community preferences, centralized handling of union scales which penalized smaller operations, increased taxes because the wealthy national chain seemed prosperous, community resentment against a huge foreign corporation, local newspapers ; increase in rates, lack of competition between three or four managers of the same circuit in the same city because of standardization, blanket regulations without regard to quickly shifting local conditions. . . . Bulk buying and other producer-distributor circuits demanding the same rentals for their product that Paramount product received at its own theatres. This leveled off the big saving that was supposed to justify bulk buying. Film costs were more than when the head of a small chain bought for his theatres without restrictions. Home office department heads fought for home office control to preserve their departments and keep their jobs. It was too evident that if authority were taken from New York and vested in the field force, that some comfortable home office berths would be empty. The tip-off on the weakness of centralized operation came when the Publix partnership operations controlled from the field, and without New York interference, showed profits that were in sharp contrast to red figures of similar operations under New York control. . . . The more the home office machinery was dismantled, departments eliminated or skeletonized, red tape junked and cabinet meetings cut, the less effective was what remained. If the centralized plan could not succeed when functioning in full strength, it was certainly not practical when