MOVIE CRAZY

If any merchant attempted to force his clients to purchase a number of his products each time they desired one of them, he would most certainly fail, yet this is just the type of selling which is embodied in the current practice of block booking of movies. The producers force the exhibitors to contract for a whole block of pictures which they must accept regardless of their merits. The theater owners are unable to oppose this system for they must have a frequent change of program and delays in the arrival of film are fatal to them.

The vast movie industry is controlled by a few major producers who are enabled by the practice of block booking to free themselves from the annoying stimulation of competition, and to sell pictures which neither pay the exhibitors nor please the public. A few excellent pictures which the public demands are sufficient to force the purchase of miles of rot. That the huge majority of movies is unpopular and unprofitable does not affect the producers, secure behind the walls of their monopoly, yet the studies continue to gush forth their maudlin mush oblivious of the fate of the exhibitors or the displeasure of the audiences. A system of single picture booking would not eliminate all inferior productions, but it most certainly, would raise the general level and would allow the theatre owners to select pictures on the basis of their merits and popular appeal. Such a system can be instituted only through federal legislation which would make block booking illegal and would place the movies on the same competitive basis as that of other industries.

The campaign for a federal law against this practice under the leadership of President Lowell and other people of note in various fields has been unable to make any progress against the combined might of the producers and their advertising confreres. As in the case of the Tugwell Food and Drug Bill, a highly desirable move has been utterly throttled by a wealthy, unscrupulous lobby.