am sure that they will give you their reason in detail. For instance, George Schaefer will be here. He has had plenty of experience. Will Rogers, after 30 years' experience, sales head for Metro-GoldwynMayer, men who could not have come from the bottom to the top in those companies unless they did possess real honesty and integrity. They have tried to build, to lay bricks instead of throw them.

You will have here, if you have the patience and time, scenario writers, directors, artists, and other people to tell you of their problems and the things that confront them in the studio; and, the distributors, and I imagine you will have plenty of exhibitors; and also from women's clubs, some of whom, after having had an opportunity to study this bill, have indicated now they are opposed to it and will be here to speak in opposition to it. Yes, I talked to the women of Nebraska and explained this bill, and they voted against it after they knew what it was all about. And there is in the record a letter to the chairman in which they said they had gone on record in favor of the bill at first but after studying it were now opposed to it.

The same thing is true of the women of Indiana. And while on that subject we have dozens and dozens of groups of fine women in this country who work with the picture industry, who try to develop in the community a taste for better motion pictures. I think outstanding among them is an organization of ladies in Indiana. They have cooperated with their local newspapers; they review pictures; they look at them and have cooperated with the school superintendents. They are continually working. They have just had their twenty-fifth anniversary on May 1. There are dozens and dozens of groups of women in this country who give of their time, in their own communities, to the problem of good taste in motion pictures. If you were to submit this taste to the groups locally, if they are to make the selection of pictures, you will have little groups in 9,173 places instead of one, the source of production.

Now, Mr. McGranery, you know the man who has been on this job; you know where he stands and what he is doing, and that man is Joe Breen. Joe Breen is as fine a man, as clean man as you can find in any business anywhere. And he is engaged in doing what I think has been done in 100 percent-well, I will say 99 percent of all cases, of putting good taste in motion pictures. Every script goes through his hands, so far as it is humanly possible for him personally. Of course, no man can do all the work by himself, but he has several people, well, I do not know, maybe a dozen people in his department. He has been doing a great piece of work. He has been largely responsible for the raising of these standards of good taste.

Now let us not confuse censorship and good taste. Good taste is not censorship. I believe, contrary to what some others have said, that as far as good taste is concerned, one standard is enough for all American people; we all know what good taste is; its common decency, which is the same thing in South Carolina, Indiana, New York, or California.

Now, these people propose to do away with this code which makes pictures what they should be, at the source of production, by the people who make them at the time they are made, at one spot; and

they propose that in spite of the fact, that center would be scattered to 9,173 spots of the United States in 16,500 theaters.

They say that if most exhibitors are given the choice of pictures they are going to make it fine for the community. I am going to prove something to you gentlemen by facts and figures-I am going to show you for last year, the number of pictures distributed by five companies.

These lists give the total number of each picture sold and played. One begins at the top with 14,000, on down to 2,000.

How in the name of heaven can we be accused of selling everybody all of our pictures, with that great difference in play dates? You cannot be guilty of block-booking and then say that your affiliated theaters make up the difference-and no one has ever accused us of having over 2,400 even remotely affiliated. The figure which is more accurate is 2,300.

How can 2,300 theaters make a difference between 14,000 and 2,000? I wish somebody would figure that out for me.

Now, there are the actual bookings from five of the companies, of the number of each picture they sold or played last year. I will pass these lists up to you.

(The list referred to is as follows:)

PARAMOUNT PICTURES, INC., SEASON OF 1938-39

Number of

bookings

14, 261 28. Say It In French_.
12, 025 29. Touchdown Army..

11, 815 30. Tom Sawyer. Detective..
11, 261 31. Magnificent Fraud..........

11, 189 32. Zaza___

10, 968 33. Undercover Doctor-.
10, 929 34. Ambush.

10, 684 35. Boy Trouble_
10, 658 36. Illegal Traffic_.
10, 510 37. Sons of the Legion..
10, 457 38. Island of Lost Men
10, 163 39. King of Chinatown_
9, 780 40. Beachcomber_..
9, 711 41. Night Work..
9, 628 42. Disbarred...
9, 597 43. Sudden Money.
44. Grand Jury Secrets-

9, 544 45. Arrest Bulldog Drum

TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX FILM CORPORATION, 1938-39 FEATURE BOOKINGS TO

RKO RADIO PICTURES, INC., 1938-39 PRODUCTIONS TO MAR. 29, 1940

UNIVERSAL PICTURES CORporation, iNC., 1938-39 PLAYING SEASON

LOEW'S INC., METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES, 1938-39 FEATURE BOOKINGS TO

Mr. PETTIJOHN. You will notice that the top Paramount picture, number of bookings of that picture, which was Union Pacific, is 14,261. Now, gentlemen, as I go through the top pictures, let us see if there

is any moral question involved here at all.

The top one for Twentieth Centry Fox is Jesse James.

The top one for Universal is East Side of Heaven.

The top one for Loew's, which is the same as M. G. M., is Boys Town; and RKO, Gunga Din.

Now, there are five pictures just as different as day and night, and yet they led their fields.

Now, going on down to the bottom of all of them, Paramount, the lowest is Unmarried, 4,408; Twentieth Century Fox, Inspector Hornleigh, 1,145-Twentieth Century Fox, Jesse James, 14,552, down to Inspector Hornleigh, 1,145.

Mr. MCGRANERY. What do those figures prove?

Mr. PETTIJOHN. Those figures prove that that is the number of bookings these companies actually got from the theaters in the United States of America.

And those figures to me are conclusive, proof, without any question whatsoever, that we do not sell theaters all of the pictures or none. Mr. MCGRANERY. I still do not follow you on that.

Mr. PETTIJOHN. I beg your pardon.

Mr. MCGRANERY. I still do not follow you on that.

Mr. PETTIJOHN. Well, we have a total possible market of 16,500 theaters.

Now, I would say, let us take Paramount, for instance. Paramount would sell an average of around 10,000 theaters their product. I mean they would probably have that many customers, approximately, from one year to another.

So, it is evident that 4,261 theaters more than their regular customers played Union Pacific and a lot of them played Man About Town, Star Maker, and so on down. Down at the bottom, when you get down there, you will see that they did not sell all of their accounts. There they sold only 4,408. Let us go up to the middle of that column, and you will see that only 6,732 of their 10,000 accounts bought pictures up here in the middle of that bracket. If you go over here to Fox on your lists on the next page, they have approximately 10,000 customers, too, and you will see that pretty nearly 9,000 of them did not buy that picture at the bottom. While on the other hand Twentieth Century Fox must have sold nearly 5,000 theaters more than their regular customers on Jesse James.

Now, I want to submit to you another list while we are at this point.

Mr. MCGRANERY. Who made Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Mr. PETTIJOHN. Columbia.

Mr. MCGRANERY. I did not notice it on that list.

Mr. PETTIJOHN. Columbia's list of products is not there, but it had a large number of bookings.

As a

Mr. MCGRANERY. You did not leave that off for any reason? Mr. PETTIJOHN. No; Columbia did not give me their list. matter of fact, Mr. McGranery, it may sound strange to you, but I have not seen that picture yet.

Mr. MCGRANERY. Neither have I.

Mr. PETTIJOHN. But that picture was sold singly. Now, I am going to give you a list of the pictures which had the largest number of cancellations and one which had the fewest last year.