Hollywood by its nature, not only eats its young but possesses little loyalty for people that have done them a great service. It is definitely a “what have you done for me lately” attitude. There are no favors in Hollywood. Time and time again the system put forward by the studios has sought to diminish and to thwart the goals of independent theaters.

The independent theaters never had a strong enough voice in order to make their presence known. This lack of an independent voice I believe has badly hurt this industry to a point where it has to act now or it will be beyond repair. Yes, I know Avengers is doing great.

When the studios owned a substantial amount of movies theaters, they connived in various ways to insure that their houses received preferential treatment. Lawsuits came and went until eventually after an eleven year deliberation, the Paramount decree was put into effect.

The only time Hollywood diminished its position is when Willy Bioff, an enforcer with the Chicago Mob, took control of IATSE, the union made up of motion picture technicians as well at that time, the projectionists that worked in most of the major theaters. In 1935 a campaign of extortion began to occur. Movies were run backwards and reels played out of order. This was going to continue until the studios paid off the unions and their mob masters. The studios dutifully paid.

The origins of the movie did not occur in Hollywood, that is just where power was centralized for production. Most exhibition decisions were made in New York. Hollywood did not even come up with most of the ideas that pushed it forward, they just kind of stole them.

In Montreal, Canada, on August 31st 1907, the world’s first and largest movie theater, the Ouimetoscope, was inaugurated. With 1,200 seats and, for the first time, air conditioning, it was built by Ernest Ouimet, an electrical engineer by trade. He made his mark with the mission statement “to provide the best moving pictures and illustrated song exhibition that can be provided,”.

Ernest Ouimet would open his first movie house in 1906, at1204 Ste-Catherine Street East. Previously a musical cabaret, Quiment transformed it into a movie theater with 500 chairs and a small screen in the back of the room. This space did so well that it would be demolished a year later to make way for the luxurious Ouimetoscope. It was the world’s first theatre to open exclusively for movies. Now to be fair the first screening in North America took place in Richmond, Indiana using a process called Phantoscope, the title of the show was “The Butterfly Dance”

Ouimet was the first movie showman, Ouimet would obtain French movies from France and would translate the English ones he got from the United States. But after many years of success, the competition grew stronger prompted by the forces in Hollywood. Ouimet decided to beat the studios at their own game. He moved to Hollywood and started producing movies. His company, Laval Photoplays failed. Defeated, he moved back to Canada and took a job with the Quebec Liquor Commission.

Here was a man who more or less invented the concept of the movie palace, before Loews, before Famous Players-Lasky, Paramount and Warners and he was summarily dismissed and rejected by Hollywood. There is a callousness in Hollywood that is rarely seen in other industries. History has shown it time and time again that the only way to deal with Hollywood effectively is to deal from a position of strength. Many professional bodies feel that if they talk to Hollywood, they will acquiesce and see the light. They never will. They have a mandate and that mandate is one of total and absolute control over the product stream.

Now with the advances in technology of streaming Hollywood as well as having a real chummy relationship with Washington, Hollywood is poised to become total vertically integrated. The Justices on the Supreme Court who handed down the Paramount decree must be turning in their graves.

I do not want to make the statement that NATO and other industry organizations have no interest in assisting the independents, but they are so busy with other areas of corporate concerns, they do not have the time nor do they have the inclination to speak for the independent. NATO is fueled by the interests of the major circuits, other organizations feel that buying groups are of prime importance. These are all well meaning people with a deep love for this business.

Frankly I think most of them internally acknowledge to themselves at least that nothing will be accomplished in dialog with the studios but have little idea on how to move forward.

Unfortunately they all know that there is one thing they can do, one thing that they can do that Hollywood will sit up and take notice of. That one thing is to say no to the studios.

That’s a scary road to travel, and in the words of Robert Frost it is The Road Seldom Traveled, but soon and very soon some theater is going to have to say….enough