Boxoffice - Feb. 17, 2014

'
moral
Independent Staffs SaysNeelyWouldOpenTheaires
Urge Against Bill
2b Many Film "Welfare" Units
Birmingham—Independent theatres outide
of film exchange cities will be hard
lit if the Neely bill is enacted, a petition
irculated among independent theatre emiloyes
for forwarding to the Alabama deleation
in Congress declares. It contends
hat many independent houses will have
close if the bill becomes law.
Letters also are being secured protesting
he bill from local civic clubs. American
,egion posts and other organizations, and
.'ill be forwarded to the Alabama deleation.
The text of the petition as signed by emloyes
of Waters Theatre Company, of
fhich N. H. Waters is president, follows:
"We. the undersigned employes of local
idependent theatres in the Bii-mingham
istrict, realizing the importance and
ignificance of the Neely block bookingllnd
selling bill, known as S-280, which
ill come up in the House very shortly,
•ish to make known our thoughts and deires
in connection with it.
"This bill will not harm in any way the
irge exhibitors who maintain offices in
ach exchange city: but the small indeendents
like our employers will either
•ave to make a trip to the exchange cen-
;r to buy each and every picture, or it
ill be necessary for the distributing comany
to send their salesmen Into the ter-
.tory. which naturally will create a large
xpense. This, of course, wUl be passed
a investigation you will find that it will
)rce out of business a great many small
iwn exhibitors throughout the south."
Irkansas Fire Marshal
^akes Rules Stringent
Little Rock. Ark.—State Fire Marshal
uy E. Williams announced recently that
rict adherence to the rule governing fire
•evention in theatres will be required,
e stated that during the past it had been
apossible to inspect all theatres. An asstant
has been added to his department.
3wever, and all houses are now being inlected.
No new film theatres will be allowed to
)erate until they have been approved.
uring a period of ten days recently seven
leatres burned.
Add in Hot Springs
Hot Springs. Ark.—Malco Theatres,
c, has taken over the State here from
G. Blaschke, who built the house over
years ago. The property will be renoted.
C. H. DuVall wUl manage.
Dallas—The moral and economic arguments
posed by proponents of the Neely
bill are dressed down in a feature article
by Dale Miller, associate editor of the
Texas Weekly.
In ihe first instance, he argues, enactment
of the bill would open up avenues of
action for many "welfare groups . . . particularly
in small communities" who
"would exert relentless pressure on each
exhibitor to accept only such pictures as
they decided were suitable for the general
public to see."
"Censorship in most forms is repugnant."
Miller continues "but in the case of selfesteemed
paragons of public virtue prescribing
what we may vicariously enjoy
and what we may not, it is especially so.
"The crusade for legislative action to
i remedy this situation > began years
ago, before the motion picture industry
adopted its rigid production code and proceeded
to censor itself into innocuousness.
but the circumstance that the conditions to
which the reformers object have already
been corrected, has done nothing to mitigate
their zeal or discourage their efforts."
Cites Cancellation Privilege
He observes that "so-called sex pictures
are produced by obscure independent companies
and always sold singly" and that
present trade practices "do not compel any
exhibitor to play any picture" because they
permit "him to cut-back a percentage of
the pictures for which he contracts."
Turning to the economic aspects of the
bill. Miller chides that segment of the
n to the exhibitor, meaning that a great
lany of the smaller theatres will out of
ecessity have to close as they will not be
to pay the additional cost of pictures trade which believes "elimination of block
ble
lat will be brought about through the en-
:tment of the Neely bill.
booking will permit them
select only pictures which
(exhibitors)
will procure
to
tlie
"We. therefore, implore you to use your best patronage and thus produce the most
revenue."
ifluence in attempting to defeat this bill
hen it is presented on the floor of the
ouse, feeling sure that if you will make
"Few big industries," he declares, "would
operate efficiently without the extent of
their markets being determined at least
partially by advance contracts. And the
motion picture industry in particular, because
of the variety of its products and the
heterogeneity of its customers, needs to obtain
a reasonably accurate estimate of its
market before investing manifold millions
of dollars in production and distribution.
"... The necessity of selling each picture
independently of any other would incur
tremendous additional expenses, which
"Less Oiiensive Than
Funny-Papers"
Dallas — "The organized motion picture
industry has already made the
movies less offensive morally than even
the funny-papers," says Dale Miller, associate
editor of "The Texas Weekly,"
in an article deprecating the moralist
angle of the Neely bill.
If the bill is enacted, he foresees a
field day in the operation of theatres
for "welfare groups" and "various exemplars
of public morality," and plenty
of trouble for exhibitors, especially
those in small towns.
"What We Would See
Under Neely Bill"
Dallas—Dale Miller, associate editor
of "The Texas Weekly," hitting the
Neely bill as "restrictive" and "meddlesome"
legislation, speculates on the
kind of pictures "we would see if block
booking and blind selling were abolished,"
and comes up with this:
"... if each picture had to be sold
independently, the incentive to gamble
on artistic or expensive productions
would certainly be reduced. Films
would tend to become stereotyped, to
adhere to prosaic patterns, and would
be produced more frugally and less inspiringly,
with an eye on their marketability
and not on their worth. Hollywood
would labor and bring forth its
mouse.
"A great medium . . . would be pulled
as if by a magnet toward a common
denominator of Shirley Temple and a
travelogue through birdland."
would be passed on to theatre-goers in
higher admissions prices or be absorbed by
the industry in depreciating the quality of
its products—either of which would result
in lower boxoffice receipts and less income
to all branches of the industry, to say nothing
of the effect on the entertainment of
the public."
"... what the bill prescribes to eliminate
blind selling, is non-sensical beyond
debate," in Miller's opinion. "A producer
must either prepare a synopsis in advance
—and then knowingly violate the law and
risk imprisonment by producing the best
picture of which he is capable, or ignore
every new idea and inspiration that may
occur to him or his staff—or he must prepare
it after the film is completed. In the
latter case, distribution and exhibition of
the film must be delayed at a critical time
while the expensive and tedious process of
providing the synopsis and selling the
show is laboriously undergone, with resultant
inconvenience to the industry and
the public, and sacrifice of the film's timeliness.
"All this is deemed necessary to permit
exhibitors, who don't care, and moralists,
whose business it is none of, to protect
the public from the objectionable portrayals
which no longer appear on the
screen."
objection" the
Miller's "essential to
Neely bill is that it is "restrictive" and
"meddlesome" legislation.
"With regard to the motion picture industry,
neither its organization nor its
operation is perfect, and perhaps such
trade practices as block booking and blind
selling are not the best that could be devised.
But they are the product of years of
growth, years of experiment, years of trial
and error, and what changes need to be
made should be brought about by the normal
interplay of economic forces and not
by peremptory decree of government," is
Miller's basic idea.
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