page_title: Block booking
hierarchical_section_title: Block booking
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Montgomery before a senate committee in Washington, D.C. on April 3, 1939. The S.R.O. sign was hung out today at the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee Hearing as Montgomery appeared to express his opposition to a bill designed to prohibit "Block booking" and "Blind selling"&#8212;two trade practices which curb the discretion that a movie house owner has in selecting pictures to be shown in his community. Speaking as a former President of the Screen Actors Guild, Montgomery told the Committee that the Guild and their lawyers have come to the very definite conclusion that if the bill should become a law it would cut in half the production schedules of the motion picture industry.
context_page_description: Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Under block booking, "independent theater owners were forced to take large numbers of [a] studio's pictures sight unseen. Those studios could then parcel out second-rate product along with A-class features and star vehicles, which made both production and distribution operations more economical." The element of the system involving the purchase of unseen pictures is known as blind bidding.
context_section_description: Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948). Under block booking, "independent ('unaffiliated') theater owners were forced to take large numbers of [a] studio's pictures sight unseen. Those studios could then parcel out second-rate product along with A-class features and star vehicles, which made both production and distribution operations more economical." The element of the system involving the purchase of unseen pictures is known as blind bidding.
caption: Robert Montgomery before a Senate committee in Washington, D.C. on April 3, 1939 to oppose a bill designed to prohibit block booking
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