Boxoffice-March.24.1956

1
Exhibitors Complaints
(Continued from page 8)
to attain a high degree of opulence while
the independent exhibitors teeter on the
brink of ruin.
4. "Millions of Americans who are dependent
upon the independent subsequent run
and small-town theatres for motion picture
entertainment are being deprived of the opportunity
to see many of the best pictures,
in derogation of the public interest."
Myers told the Committee that despite the
seriousness of the complaints and the testimony
of dire needs of independent exhibitors,
"the cause of the motion picture theatres is
not a hopeless one."
He said: "It is a widely entertained notion
that television has doomed the movies beyond
salvation. Had we shared that view
we would not have evoked the good offices
of this Committee and would not be here
wasting its valuable time. There is still a
chance for the physician before the coronor's
services will be needed."
Wilbur Snaper, former president of Allied
for two terms, operator of theatres in
New York and New Jersey, followed Rembusch
to the witness chair. "If the Department
of Justice would act aggressively in regards
to the consent decree, many of the
evils of the business could be cured and
might not ever come to pass," he asserted.
He told of the example of Loew's Theatres,
Inc., recently being allowed to open a drivein
in New Jersey, in direct competition with
a number of locally-owned theatres within
a radius of only 25 or 50 miles. He said he attempted
to appear as an intervenor in the
case, when a hearing was held on Loew's application
to open the drive-in. He asserted
that the Department of Justice lawyer seemed
to be more eager to help Loew's than did
the company's own attorneys.
"Frankly, what exhibitors are doing here is
calling the cops," Snaper said.
He came out strongly in favor of repeal of
the admissions tax and also in favor of compulsory
arbitration of film rental prices.
"I hope that this committee will come to
the conclusion that there must be a policing
of our industry by the federal government,"
Mr. Snaper said.
Senator Schoeppel again seemed to take
exception to the idea of federal regulation,
or help of any kind.
"You don't want the government to get into
your business, do you?"
Benjamin N. Berger, regional vice-president
of Allied, from Minneapolis, also clashed
with Senator Schoeppel, who asked Berger:
"You don't want your business to be a
public utility, do you?"
Berger replied: "Yes, just as the railroads
must serve some towns on a basis that does
not seem to be economic, but is in the public
interest, so must the distributors be made to
serve smaller exhibitors. It is the equivalent
of a public utility, for the movie business
is a public business."
Berger said that "percentage is an innocent-sounding
word, but has killed hundreds
of exhibitors in recent years."
He charged that thousands of exhibitors
have been squeezed out of business, not by
TV, but by failure to be able to get good
pictures.
"The exhibitors are between the devil and
the deep blue sea," he asserted. "It is unfair
and cruel to the public to dangle 'Guys and
Dolls.' and other big pictures before their
eyes, in national advertising, and then show
these pictures only in premium houses where
only a percentage of the public can see them."
Senator Humphrey, who is a personal friend
of Berger's, commented that he wondered if
the motion picture business is in danger of
getting to be like many businesses in Europe,
which frankly specialize in producing on a
limited scale only for the cream of the
market.
"The great difference between the U. S.
system and that of other parts of the
world, economically, has been the widespread
diffusions of the benefits of our economic
system to all classes," the senator said.
Berger said emphatically at one point, in
his colloquoy with Senator Schoeppel, that
the "producers have not the faintest idea of
the problems of the exhibitors."
Berger, who is chairman of Allied's Emergency
Defense Committee, told the Committee
that the selling policies of the major film companies
"are preventing thousands of theatres
from showing many of the finest motion
pictures and are preventing millions of
Americans, especially in the low income
brackets, from seeing those pictures."
This was the thesis of the statement read
to the Committee by the Minnesotan—that
(Continued on page 15
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