Boxoffice-Febuary.28.1953

MYERS OPENS ALLIED ATTACK
ON PRERELEASING POLICIES
System Is Being Used,
He Says, to Return
Illegal Practices
OKLAHOMA CITY—Major distributors
were charged here this week by Abram F.
Myers with using the special prerelease
policy as a means of circumscribing those
provisions of the antitrust decisions and
decrees which prohibit a system of fixed
runs and clearances and minimum prices.
CALLS IT A 'DELIBERATE ATTEMPT"
Speaking before the recently formed Oklahoma
Allied unit, the general counsel and
board chairman of Allied States Ass'n contended
that in many instances the device of
the prerelease policy was "a deliberate attempt
to make exhibitors agree in advance to condone
and, in effect, to become parties to
flagrant violations of the decrees and of the
laws as a condition to the right to license
pictures in interstate commerce and trade."
He cited chapter and verse from the various
court decisions and decrees to bolster his
contentions that the contracts which the distributors
were asking exhibitors to sign for
pictures licensed under prerelease policies
were in direct violation of regulatory measures
set down by the courts and agreed to
in pacts with the Department of Justice.
Myers' bitter denunciation of the distributors
was evidence that Allied was ending its
"cold war" over ti'ade policies and was now
entering the "hot war" phase of its long
round of controversy with the film companies.
"We have put our pasition before the film
companies as forcefully as we know how," he
declared. "Thus far all warnings have been
ignored. From now on we intend to follow
through on our Chicago-New Orleans program,
using every legal means available. This
may turn out to be a hot fight. It will be no
place for compromi.sers and weaklings."
Myers and his Allied organization were
ready to go to court once again.
USING NEW DEVICES, HE SAYS
The chief counsel minced no words. He said
the companies were trying to introduce "all of
the old outlawed practices through the introduction
of new devices.
"The former theatre monopoly was built
up and maintained by a system of fixed admissions,
runs and clearances, all designed to
give competitive advantages to the producerowned
theatres and to hamper and restrain
their independent competitors," he said.
"The new techniques." he continued, "have
been adopted and are used for the same purpose,
namely conferring on the formerly
owned theatres a monopoly of the exhibition
of motion pictures. The new plan differs from
the old one only in that there is no purpose
to acquire the independent theatres that may
be put out of business.
"Fewer pictures, fewer theatres and higher
prices sums up the policy of the modem movie
moguls."
Myers thesis for the address was that high
(Continued on page 10)
UPSTAGE TO OBLIVION: Or, Will the Movies
Price Themselves Out of the Mass Market?
OKLAHOMA CITY— Is the motion picture
theatre to follow the legitimate theatre "into
the limbo of almost
forgotten things" and,
like the stage, price
itself out of the market
and become a purveyor
of entertainment to
the classes instead of
the masses?
This is the question
posed by Abram F.
Myers, Allied States
Ass'n general coun.sel,
in his talk before the
A. F. Myers Oklahoma Allied unit
this week. "Upstage to
Oblivion" was the title of his address.
"When an actor gets a big head it is said,
in theatrical parlance, that he has gone 'upstage,'
" said Myers. "So long as producers,
directors, authors and actors merely snoot
one another, no great harm is done. It is
only when they start looking down their noses
at their only means of support—the theatre
owners and the theatregoers—that they get
into trouble."
His warning was that the so-called legitimate
theatre died off because "cranial expansion
reached epidemic proportions and
infected virtually everyone connected with it."
Increasing costs, of course, made necessary
of increased admission prices, but extravagant
prices for so-called extravaganzas led someone
to think those same prices could be
charged for simple plays. The two-dollar top,
added Myers, became the two-dollar minimum,
and orchestra seats soared to five and
six dollars plus scalpers' commission and tax.
Charges Divorcement
Is
Only 'Technical'
OKLAHOMA CITY—Only technical divorcement
has been achieved as a result
of the antitrust decrees which required
major pictiu-e companies to divest themselves
of theatres, Abram F. Myers. Allied
States Ass'n general counsel, declared
here this week.
"When I speak of technical divorcement
I mean just that because the underlying
community of interest between the film
companies and their theatres was not
ended. With few exceptions, each new
theatre company is owned by the same
stockliolders who own the shares of the
film company that operated the theatres.
And in each instance the management of
these theatres was committed to the man
who operated them when they were owned
by the film company."
Don't let it happen to the movie business,
he warned.
"In spite of a lot of snide remarks, it is
a good thing that the movie pioneers came
largely from manufacturing and mercantile
lines. They knew that success in business
depends, not- on high prices, but on volume.
In the early days they wisely kept production
high and prices low. They saw to it that
movies were made available, not merely on
the main stem of the big cities, but in the
residential sections of those cities and in the
smallest towns."
PATRONS HAD A CHOICE
The big first run theatres with their high
overhead charged higher admissions than
their smaller competitors, as was to be expected,
Myers commented. But those who
were prevented from patronizing the cathedrals
of the cinema either because they could
not afford it, or resided at a distance too
great therefrom, or for any other reason
could always obtain motion picture entertainment
close to home for a price they could
afford, he -said.
Myers made this point in developing his
attack on the pre-release policies of the distributors,
in which he contended that key
city first runs were being given special privileges
in the way of runs and clearance and
upped admissions were helping kill moviegoing
habits.
He continued:
"No one in his right mind supposes that
the movie industry could have attained its
present greatness if film entertainment had
been reserved for the big spenders in the big
cities and had been withheld from those who
could only attend the small town and neighborhood
theatres. The small theatre is to the
big theatre what the branch line is to the
railroad—a feeder. The moviegoers of the
last score of years acquired the habit as children
in the small town and neighborhood
theati-es. When they left home for college or
to work in the city, the movie house made
them feel at home.
DEPENDING ON KEY SPOTS
"Tlie present day movie moguls seem to
forget all this in their anxiety to make a
fast buck from advanced admission price
pictures in a few key spots. They stubbornly
refuse to believe that what happened to the
stage can happen to them. They entertain
the weird notion that screen entertainment
can be restricted to a comparatively few high
admission houses in the large cities and
that the public will troop to those theatres
in sufficient volume to make up for the 15.000-
odd theatres that will be forced to close.
"Only the film companies are affected by
the big head, but since they control tlie supply
of product there is imminent danger that they
will carry the business upstage and, perhaps,
into oblivion."
BOXOFFICE :: February 28, 1953