◆ SpookStack

28 key-runs are located in the business or shopping centers of outlying ‘districts. Each’ stands. at the head of a line of subsequent-run places in a geographical zone. The key-run is without exception the largest and most profitable theatre in its zone. A feature picture plays first in the downtown area. After this run. is completed, it may go to a “‘moveover,” of second-run downtown, for a week or two, or it may be put out of circula-° tion for 28 days of “‘cleatance.’’ This clearance period is to keep the price up by preventing neighborhood competition with first-run houses. ~ After the 28 days, a number of prints of the picture are shown in many key- run houses at the same time, usually — for a week. After another week of clear- ancé, they open for three or four-day runs at the first subsequent-run house in each zone. And so on, until the final house is reached. Before the war, Warners operated, be- sides all Philadelphia's first-runs, two of the three moveover houses and 15 of the 18 key-run theatres. Warners de- cided what pictures to play in its first- run houses, when to play them and how long they were to play there. No “A” picture could enter the city with- out first Being shown by Warners. If this meant..holding -up*:important pic- tures for a month or a year, that was too bad. - No subsequent-tun exhibitor could touch a picture that Warners was in- terested in until Warners got through with it—that is, until the best profits had been skimmed off by the downtown houses, and the next best profits by a Warnetr fitst-tun neighborhood. Film rentals were also weighted in favor of the Warner monopoly. Several independent exhibitors paid higher fees for pictures than did Warner houses getting the pictures ahead of them. For many films the percentage taken by the distributors from a small end-of-the-run theatre was the same as that charged for a first-run downtown. The effect was like putting the ptesident of a corpotation and his stenogtapher in the same tax bracket. Moreover, in each rental contract the distributor of the picture stipulated the minimum admission fee to be charged. Admissions were heavily influenced by those charged at Warner houses. Price- cutting by. an uppity exhibitor would mean relegation to a later and less profit- Picture’s Progress ERE’S how the system discussed H in the accompanying article worked with a specific picture, as fe- cently as last year. “The Bells of St. Mary's” moved into downtown Philadelphia Febru- aty 13, 1946. After a very good first week’s run, the rental was set at 40 to 50 percent of the gross. Twenty-eight days after its first tun was completed, it opened at the key-run houses—for instance, at the Orpheum, a big Warner house. Here it grossed possibly $8,000, of which 50 petcent went back to the distribu- tor, leaving Warners $4,000. After: hopping from theatre to theatre in the Orpheum zone, it played the Wayne, a small indepen- dent. By now most people had seen it; it had been milked dry of profit. ‘The Wayne might gross $300 on it, of which it could keep at most $180. And the picture had to be’ carried on “preferred time’”—Saturday or Sunday—if the exhibitor wanted to ~ stay in the good graces of the ex- changes. The result of .this rental system is that good pictures are frequently not so profitable as poor ones, and lose - out often in the small theatres. “Suppose I buy ‘Blue Skies’,”” ex- plained one exhibitor, “It’s being sold at 45 percent. Suppose I do a capac- ity business on it, and gross $500. I pay out 45 ‘percent, and I’m left with $275. I’m better off if I take a “B” picture. I could get one for $30, take in $350, and <lear more than I could on ‘Blue Skies.’ After all, I’m‘ in business.” NEW REPUBLIC — able tun, A new exhibitor desiring to compete on equal terms with a Warner house anywhere along the line was through before he started, Warners’ omnipotence in the area, atising from the buying and withhold- ing power of its theatres, worked against the exchanges of the other big producers — as well as against the exhibitors. The " gang” ARNERS was not. the only villain in this game, however. The pro- ducer-exhibitors work together, allotting one another different areas as their spe- cial bailiwicks wherein their theatre chains can monopolize profits and keep down competition. Thus Paramount is solid in the solid ~ South—so solid that, according to a trade anecdote, an isolated house owned by a Warner relative in Jacksonville, Florida, once paid more for a single fea- ture than the same picture cost 41 thea-’ tres of a Paramount chain (Sparks). Loew's, which, with RKO, controls much of the picture circulation in New York City, during an internecirie squabble once held Paramount pictures away from. most of New York’s neighborhood thea- tres for almost a year. Warners is cur- rently banning all Universal and Eagle- Lion pictures from any of its theatres, according to Variety, in retaliation for an alleged raid on its studio personnel by these two producers. ‘These are.minor ripples, however, on the smooth surface of trust relationships. Internal. differ- ences are generally subordinated in the interest of presenting a solid front against the independents. The essence of monopoly is that it can restrict distribution and exhibition, and, in the resulting sellers’ market, fix and. maintain high prices. The independent exhibitor in Philadelphia—or in any-city —could not and still cannot buy pictures in quantity except from the established film-distributing agencies of the pro- ducers (the “Big Five” consisting of Warners, Loew's-M-G-M, ‘Twentieth Century-Fox, Paramount, RKO, plus Co- lumbia, Universal and United Artists). These exchanges distribute films of pro- ducers outside the “gang’—on their own terms. Consequently the exhibitor has to depend o on their pictures or 80. without.