Sodom and Gomorrah : the story of Hollywood (1935)

226 SODOM AND GOMORRAH to about eight firms derives much of its support from block-booking. So much has been written about this institution that its workings are general knowledge. The average person, however, has no idea just how far-reaching and despotic this vicious monopoly really is. In the first place, as it exists today the motion picture industry is not just a simple monopoly, but a double-headed one, controlling both the producing field and the exhibiting field. The major producers maintain their monopoly in the field of production by their strangle-hold over the exhibitor, which, in turn, is sustained by that self-same production monopoly. It is just one more case of the egg-first, chicken-first question. In the early stages of the motion picture industry, the producers stuck to the business of making pictures, at which, from a financial viewpoint, they were very successful. However, it soon occurred to them that, since the exhibitors were apparently making some money in the theater business, they had better grab that, too. As the producers made and distributed their own pictures, what would be easier than to acquire their own theaters which they could favor with their best pictures and thus run their competitors, the independents, out of business? And this is precisely what they did. The Paramount-Famous-Players-Lasky bought the Publix theater chain in which to show Para