The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-17

lion dollar monopoly of the
 The story also involves the se- cret political pressure being brought to get around Thurman Arnold, hard-hitting assistant at torney general, and squelch the movie-monopoly prosecution.
 For the first time in history the movie moguls are worried. One of them, visiting in Washing ton the other day, admitted that for the first time they had found man they could not influence. Usually, a few parties in Holly wood, featuring ravishing females, are enough to persuade justice department official to drop an antitrust prosecution.
 So far, however, Thurman Ar mold has been cold to feminine charm and deaf to arguments from Hollywood's high-priced legal bat tery.
 CRIMINAL PROSECUTION
 Inside fact which the movie in- dustry may not know is that Ar mold came near bringing criminal charges against them, instead of merely civil action.
 Wilful violation of the trust laws carries 8 criminal penalty. However, in digging through his files, Arnold found letters from his predecessors written to mo- tion picture lawyers virtually promising exemption from anti trust laws. This had been put across by Will Hays, former postmaster general under Hard ing and chairman of the Repub- lican National Committee.
 In view of this correspondence, Arnold decided to bring only a civil suit. Even this, if successful, will mean a complete revamping of the entire film industry. THE BIG EIGHT
 What Arnold has charged is that the motion picture industry is controlled by eight big com- panies-Paramount, Loew's (Me- tro- Goldwyn- -Mayor), R. K. O., Warner Brothers, Twentieth Gen. tury-Fox, Columbia, Universal and United Artists.
 These eight, the Justice Depart ment contends, control about 90 per cent of the movie business. operate 2,397 key theaters, haXe divided up territory among them selves, driven the independents out of business, have monopolized first-run pictures, and enforced block-booking so that a theater has to take all of the product of a company, including bad pictures as well as good.
 The Justice Department is preparing to show that the own- ing of theaters by the big pro- ducers is one of the worst evils in the industry. Chief viola tors in this respect are Par amount, which owns 1,133 thea ters; Loew's with 119, RKO with 124, Warmers with 527, and Twentith Century Fox with SIS.
 The story of how these theaters were acquired, squeezing out inde- pendent owners by refusing to lease them films, is one of the most sordid stories the Justice Department has on record. It compares to the tactics of the big oil companies in squeezing out independent companies by refus- ing them the use of pipe lines.
 One result of this squeeze play was the elimination of vaudeville. The big movie mo- guls found that dividends in- creased by forcing the theaters to buy an extra film instead of the vaudeville acts once popu- lar throughout the country. Re- suit: payrolls have been cut in ever city in the country, divi- dents are up, and thousands of actors are on WPA rolls.
 Another movie practice the Jus tice Department proposes scut- ting is block booking. This is the practice of requiring a theater to take all of a company,s product or none. This means it must take 60 or more poor films during the year to get a handful of real fea- lures.
 One important result of this has been the degeneration of the in- dustry. The total output of a company is sure to be sold, so there is less incentive for produc- ing Al pictures. SOME OF THE FRANKER MINDS IN