Boxoffice-January.24.1953

ALLIED GOING DIRECT TO D OF J
WITH ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS
Organization Bypassing
Arbitration as a Way
To Settle Disputes
NEW YORK — Off icial National Allied
policy now calls for recourse to the government
in its attempts to have certain
trade practices changed. Some members
will have recourse to the courts.
Wilbur Snaper, president, made the statement
at a press conference Tuesday (20)
which he called, he said, to make the position
of the organization completely clear. He
emphasized that he spoke officially for the
organization and not as an individual.
WANT GOVERNMENT TO KNOW
In other words, instead of placing any
reliance on an arbitration system a,s a means
of settling complaints. Allied will try to prove
through the government that distributors are
guilty of violations of the consent decree.
Allied has already filed with the Department
of Justice a number of complaints regarding
trade practices it charges are illegal,
and it is preparing other cases for filing,
among them .some having to do with prereleases
of important pictures. He said the
alleged violations are so self-evident that the
government is certain to ask corrective action.
Snaper discussed advertised releasing plans
for "Salome" as typical of some complainedof
distributor practices. He said he wasn't
centering his attack on the Columbia picture
alone, but used it as an example of a general
bad practice. However, he said he thought
the Columbia statement had gotten the company
"in trouble."
POINTS TO 'DISCRIMINATION'
Snaper saw discrimination implicit in the
statement that prerelease engagements would
be limited to cities of 75,000 population
or more. He criticized a request in the statement
that an exhibitor in bidding for the
picture supply "such other information" (beyond
dollar guarantee, terms, length of
guarantee, etc.) as the exhibitor "may consider
important in helping us to evaluate his
offer more carefully." That, Snaper said,
could have to do with setting admission
prices. He said that the mention, "probably
for the first time in advertising," that under
the law only an exhibitor can fix admission
prices, constituted a recognition that prices
have sometimes been fixed by a distributor.
He questioned the provision that "no special
clearance will be granted." He also criticized
the statement that a sales policy for the
further relea.se of the picture will follow the
first prerelease openings.
Snai>er went to considerable length to comment
on some reports of Allied participation
in the arbitration discussions that led up to
the second Allied rejection of a distributor
draft of a .system. He said Allied had never
rejected arbitration, but had taken the
position that before there could be agreement
on a system, a number of distributor practices
would have to be corrected.
TOA Will Try to Untie
The Arbitration Knot
NEW YORK—Directors of Theatre Owners
of America will start wrestling with the
arbitration problem Monday (26) at a two-day
meeting here. Company sales managers will
attend the Tuesday se.ssion.
They all want arbitration, but how to get
it started without Allied is one of the road
blocks they have to tackle.
It's a formidable obstruction because joint
action by distributors and exhibitors on a
plan will require the cooperation of the Department
of Justice in securing court approval
in the form of amendments to the con.sent
decrees.
Some TOA members think it can be done;
some don't, and the same thing can be said of
distributors' lawyers. Whether or not to make
the attempt is to be the topic of most of the
discussion. Harry Brandt, president of ITOA,
says his organization is still ready to go along.
"Why should exhibitors be deprived of
avenues of relief, recognized by all segments
of the arbitration conference to be new and
good, because the plan does not contain all
the sources of relief that all segments of the
conference want included?" asked Herman
M. Levy, TOA general counsel, in a statement
issued after had heard that National AUied's
board had turned down, for a second time, the
last version of the arbitration plan because
it did not include arbitration of film rentals.
TOA has favored arbitration of film rentals,
with the exhibitor the only one who can
institute the proceedings, and it also has
wanted definitions of prerelease pictures,
and it is ready to resume conferences. Levy
declares.
"But," Levy adds, "whether an entire plan,
with so many 'plus points' and representing
the result of the unanimous acceptance of
the principles of arbitration, should be completely
discarded because it cannot be all
things to all men is a question which must
have the most serious consideration.
"The distributors have spoken. They have
stated that they will not agree to the arbitration
of film rentals. If that is their final
He answered reports that distribution did
not have a clear picture of Allied views by
saying that before the New Orleans board
meeting he had met personally at least three
times with Eric Johnston, president of the
Motion Picture A.ss'n of America, and Ralph
B. Hetzel jr., Sidney Schreiber and the late
Joyce O'Hara, assistants, and had "made
Allied's position perfectly clear."
"Distribution has said they want to know
what abuses we want cleaned up," Snaper
said. "They have been told. They know.
They have been supplied with the findings
of Abram F. Myers, Allied board chairman
word, then I say that the plan should be
accepted—with such changes as can be agreed
upon, and that an attempt thereafter be
made to place the system in operation as
quickly eus po.ssible. That, it seems to me, is
owed to the industry by all of its leaders.
"Under the propased .system there is no
compulsion to use it. Exhibitors may or may
not do so, as they choose. But, again, I say,
it seems unfair and illogical that those exhibitors
who want to use it should be deprived
of what appears to be a speedy, effective,
and inexpensive tribunal for so many of our
grievances. The conditionmg of the acceptance
of a 'plus point' system of arbitration
on the inclusion of certain other matters now
in the system is, in my opinion, a luxury that
no segment of the industry can afford.
"One way lies a 'plus point' system: the
other way lies strangulation, debilitating, and
chaotic litigiation. What privilege of choice
can there validly be under the circumstances?
""At our board meeting the directors will
discuss fully the stymie that now exists. I
feel certain that the board will undertake to
accomplish whatever it feels it can to assi.st
in the breaking of the impasse."
Alfred Starr. TOA president, said all the
major company sales managers had accepted
invitations to attend.
Starr's comment: "In an industry .so beset
with strife, with litigation, and all ill-will.
I know of no better way to improve relations
than through the frank di.=cussion of
mutual problems. There are tho.se who wish
to run to the police to seek governmental interference.
If that approach can lead anywhere,
it will be only to greater stricturing
of our industry. It is difficult to comprehend
how men who are so close to the chaos created
by the decisions and by decrees in
U.S. vs. Paramount, et al.. can now go
back to the same source for more purported
help. Where and when in industry history
has government been of any assistance to
exhibitors in the operation of their business?"
and general counsel. At one of my meetings
with MPAA, Herman M. Levy, Theatre
Owners of America general counsel, and
Emanuel Frisch, president of the Metropolitan
Motion Picture Theatre Owners Ass'n, were
present, and they agreed that Allied had made
its position clear.
"I have asked distributors through MPAA
for a solid, positive conciliation system, but
they threw it back in our laps. I had thought
that might be the means of reopening the
talks and of easing the abuses. However, all
they wanted to talk about was the arbitration
draft which we cannot accept."
8 BOXOFnCE January 24. 1953