Description:

Disney Walt

Walt Disney Weighs in on the Hollywood Antitrust Legislation, Signed TLS

Superb Walt Disney Typed Letter Signed on his signature stationary, Walt Disney's Productions, 2719 Hyperion Avenue, Hollywood, California. Letterhead with a vibrant full color image and caption of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. Dated "March 21, 1940", and signed by Walt Disney as "Walt Disney". Fine condition. Matted, framed and glazed to a completed size of 15" x 17.5".

The letter is addressed to Congressman Charles Plumley in Washington, discussing the then hot topic for the Hollywood studio/motion picture industry of block book and blind selling. Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the start of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the  U.S. Supreme Court in their decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Under block booking, "independent ('unaffiliated') theater owners were forced to take large numbers of [a] studio's pictures sight unseen. Those studios could then parcel out second-rate product along with A-class features and star vehicles, which made both production and distribution operations more economical." The element of the system involving the purchase of unseen pictures is known as blind bidding.

Disney's response to the Congressman is shown below:

"I address you with reference to the 'Neely Bill', which pertains to the questions of block booking and blind selling of motion pictures. My duties in connection with the production of our motion pictures occupy my time to such an extent that I have been unable to carefully read and analyze this proposed legislation. Therefore, I will not presume to impose my opinion as to its technical merits.

"Our company is an 'independent', as that term is generally understood. We produce cartoon short subjects such as the Mickey Mouse series, and an occasional feature like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', and like our current feature, 'Pinocchio'. Therefore, our position differs in many respects from that of the 'live action' studios. It may be that the 'Neely Bill' might affect us much less than it would many of the other motion picture companies. Indeed our market is such that some of the Neely Bill's provisions conceivably might react in our favor.

"On the other hand, as a matter of general principle, I am constrained to believe that legislative interference in an industry such as motion pictures might be harmful, and would be more likely to impede rather than further production and distribution. It is my opinion that the motion picture industry is qualified and capable of regulating itself from within, and such regulation, free from legislative pressure, would be more normal and would avoid undue disturbance and economic burdens...."

The Golden age of Hollywood with their enormous control was slowly grinding to a halt. The Neely Bill, the early stages of this represents a piece of antitrust legislation aimed at the Hollywood studios. The Federal Trade Commission declared block booking anticompetitive, and brought into question other studio practices related to their theater monopolies. In 1928, the FTC took Famous Players-Lasky (the forerunner to Paramount Pictures) to court, along with nine other major Hollywood studios. In 1930 the major studios were declared guilty of monopolization. However, the effects of the decision were nullified by a controversial deal arranged with the Roosevelt administration during the depths of the Great Depression. After having weathered the worst of the Depression, the major studios emerged more powerful than ever. In 1938, the Roosevelt administration turned the tables on the studios, ordering the Department of Justice to file suit against Hollywood's Big Eight. The case U.S. v. Paramount was delayed several times by consent decrees and World War II. However, largely due to the influence of the independent producers and the rise of the SIMPP, the case made it to the Supreme Court where the famous 1948 decision lead to the abolishment of block booking, and the forced divestiture of the studios to sell off their theater chains.

Following the decision, and with the rise of television, the major studios felt that the loss of their exclusive theatre arrangements would reduce the opportunity to re-release products from their extensive film libraries. Paramount, for example, sold its pre-1950 sound feature film library to MCA, which created EMKA (today Universal Television) to manage this library. Other studios, such as 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., also sold or leased their classic back-catalogs to other companies. By contrast, Walt Disney believed his film library was much more valuable than RKO had estimated it to be; in 1953, he formed a holding company that both: held rights to his pre-1953 works and distributed new material from his studio—that company became its own in-house distribution unit, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The growth of television in subsequent years has resulted in these supposedly "worthless" films earning billions of dollars in rentals from television stations and networks.



This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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