Showstopper: Double features and star power

Continued from previous week
As the Stock Market crashed, spiraling the United States into one of the longest-lasting economic plunges, talking pictures managed to sustain the movie industry while other businesses faltered.
America’s captivity with the talkies would not be everlasting. As families began to stay home and listen to the radio, attendance at movie theaters faltered.
Theater owners struggled to make up for the deficit. With distributors enforcing minimum pricing, there was not much leeway with admission prices.
Like other independent exhibitors, J.P. began introducing the two-for-one offer, coupons and give-a-ways to get customers through the doors. When that wasn’t enough, Adler brought the stars to town. From professional wrestlers to glamorous actresses, Adler lured early American celebrities to small-town America — a move that would draw customers from all over the area.

In addition to promotions, Adler began playing double features, where customers would see two features for the price of one. By pairing a first-class production with a low-budget film, Adler was able to entice customers to the theater without sparing a second prime picture.
Exhibitor promotions would not go uncontested. With the creation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) years earlier, production companies had created a whole new way to handle the independent exhibitor.
The MPPDA contested the independents’ promotions on the grounds of fair competition practice and, for a short time, won their argument; however, when the Supreme Court declared the activities of the National Recovery Administration unconstitutional, independents were free to use their promotions.
The big production companies were not without their struggles. In response to the economic downturn, producers started thinking outside the box, by introducing sex and violence in productions.
When the Legion of Decency formed in 1934, the religious-based group set to clean up new releases.
Then, the MPPDA created the Production Code Administration to approve content, placing constraints on further scripting.
When the government relaxed antitrust regulations to boost the economy, distributors went as far as raising prices and controlling the scheduling of their first-run movies, demanding that independents run them on certain days and times while studio-run theaters were free to run each other’s movies as they pleased. The threat of losing the distributors was enough to keep them in check.
Of eight major producers — (“The Big 5”) Warner Brothers, MGM/Loew’s, Paramount, RKO, and 20th Century Fox, as well as Universal, Columbia, and United Artists — all were producers, six were distributing, and seven had theaters.
The Big 5 played each other’s movies, while all eight producers collected 95% of the rental income paid by theater owners. The deck was stacked in their favor.
Wisconsin independents banded together in 1931 to fight those practices. To argue against poor legislation and protect their business interests, the group formed the Allied Independent Theater Owners of Wisconsin.
They were later joined by Upper Michigan exhibitors.
To be continued