“Plea by Theatre Owners”

Headline: “Plea by Theatre Owners”

Subhead: Independent Movie Houses Want Better Exhibiting Conditions.

SEATTLE, July 14 (AP).—Independent motion picture theatre owners will meet in Chicago next October to demand that the group of producers and distributers of which Will H. Hays is national head allow them more favorable exhibiting conditions.

This was announced here today by W. A. Steffes, President of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of the Northwest and the Exhibitors Allied States Association.

“We will demand,” he said, “that the Federal Trade Commission either accept or reject the recommendation we made at its national conference last Fall, when the film industry got together to work out a code of ethics.”

Their recommendations included a request that the Trade Commission will eliminate compulsory block booking, which compels a theatre to take the output of one producer for a year. The independents, Steffes said, wish to keep the producers out of theatre ownership to a degree sufficient to insure that they could not “hold a club over the independents.”