Block Booking History

From the 1920's to 1948, the movie industry as a whole was at the peak of production and popularity, and the five biggest studios producing them (nicknamed the Big Five) controlled almost every aspect of the industry. Even the stars' lives were carefully manipulated; what was seen by the public as a casual outing by a famous movie star was little more than a staged advertisement to remind people to go see their latest movie. What was generally dubbed “the movies” had become a business seen in terms of dollars and cents, and like any scenario that revolves around finance, some less than legal strategies were put into play. It was this that led to the investigation of Paramount Pictures and the court case in May of 1948, and the resulting ban

By 1945, studios owned either partially or outright 17% of the theaters in the country which accounted for 45% of film rental revenue. (Douglas 334) The block-booking system was a major aspect in this financial game, and served as a means of selling less for more. Block-booking was the term given to the practice of selling a movie theater the rights to show a set of movies. Usually, the studio would sell them one “A” movie, that is, a well made production with a relatively famous star, and any number of “B” movies, films of lesser quality and usually quite a few shorts. In many cases, exhibitors were forced to “blind buy” because many of the films being sold t them hadn't actually been made yet. One good example is that of the film industry tycoon Adolph Zukor, the lead man at Paramount Pictures- at one point, in the year 1918, the six biggest and most popular stars were all under contract to Zukor, giving him incredible leverage in controlling buyers for his films. (Koszarski 1990, pp. 71-72.) If they wanted people to watch their movies, they needed the stars, and this meant they would be going to Zukor for one good film even if it meant booking a year's worth of poor

The first case officially filed in 1938 was by the US government, and a consent decree came of out it in 1940 with 4 points to follow in future-

1. The Big Five studios could no longer block-book short film subjects along with feature films (known as one-shot, or full force, block booking);

2. the Big Five studios could continue to block-book features, but the block size would be limited to five films;

3. (3) blind buying (buying of films by theater districts without seeing films beforehand) would now be outlawed and replaced with "trade showing," special screenings every two weeks at which representatives of all 31 theater districts in the United States could see films before they decided to book a film; and

4. the creation of an administration board to enforce these requirements. ("SHOW BUSINESS: Consent Decree".Time. November 11, 1940. Retrieved Feb. 8,