El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-08-23

~ ROBABLY very few of the five mil
lion or more people who daily at
= tend motion picture shows ever
stop to wonder where all the films
come from and how it is arranged that
they see a different program. every day
at their favorite theater.
At one time, before the formation Of
the socalIed film service organiza-
TONS" motion pictures were sold out
right by individual manufacturers to
exhibitors, most Of whom operated a
series of small and generally unat-
tractive theaters. or played "one night
stands before lodges, Sunday schools,
etc
Since, in those days, the cost of each
film was abO1t 500 or more, it Is
obvious that the programs were limited
to a few subjects of general interest
The next step was the establishing of
exchanges" operated for the most part
by men who had followed the business
Of exhibiting motion pictures from Its
infancy, and made considerable money
thereby. These exchanges assumed the
purchase cost of films and undertook
to rent them to the theaters.
However, because each worked indie
pendently of the other, without regard
for price or schedule, conditions soon
became chaotic A theater manager
would advertise a program he had ar
ranged to get from one exchange, and
wake up the morning before II was to
be run to find that his competitor had
secured the same pictures from another
exchange a day ahead. One manager
would run a certain number OF films
for five or ten cents. His competitor
would go him one better. Then the
competitor, and so on, until they both
found there was no money in the bust
ness
Another evil in those days was the
frequent repeating" of films The
supply was not as plentiful as now,
and since there was no system of
booking" one never knew when he
would pay admission to see films that
he knew by heart.
The public did not take kindly to the
existing conditions, and exhibitors with
large investments to protect were
heartily discouraged at the outlook for
the future. It began to look as if the
picture shows were merely a passing
fancy.
The first move toward rehabilitation
was the formation of an organization
known as the General Film company
Onc.). In 1910, this company pur-
chased a certain number of exchanges
throughout the country and established
the first efficient system of booking
films according to a definite schedule.
This system, still in use in a modified
form, with the socalled Syndicate"
and independents" undoubtedly did
more than any other single thing to es-
tabIish the permanency of the motion
picture business
Briefly, the system operates like this;
The manufacturers of films assign a
release date to each picture-the date
upon which it may be rented by ex-
changes to the theaters- The film is
handled thereafter according to its age,
and automatically fits into what are
known as runs" When a theater ad-
vertises that it shows first run pic
lures" that means pictures that have
not been run before. Every theater
wants a well balanced program and
most theater managers, whether they
run new or old pictures. insist upon a
program that has not been shown in
the houses of any of their competitors
It is manifestly impossible to con-
slider all theaters in a city, particularly
in the larger cities, as being in active
with each other. COnse-
quently each city is divided by the ex-
changes into situations" For ex-
ample, three theaters in the business
section of town within radius of a
few blocks, are considered as conflict
ing and the same is true of three |
houses in the residential section of a
town within a radius of half a mile |
or so. But in booking films, usually |
the two groups are treated as if theJ |
were in different cities.
A theater manager goes to an ex- |
change and explains that he wants q 4
certain number of films per day Of a |