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THE MAKING OF MOVIES is even more strongly influenced by the power situation in Hollywood than by the Code of taboos. Power resides in the front office of each studio and the executive in charge of production wields it, which is similar to the situation in most large industries.

Among the crucial problems of modern society are those which center around power, as it functions in both economic and political areas of living. Its foundations are not necessarily the same. Power can spring from ability, as when a man wields authority over others and has the responsibility of making important decisions, because of his acknowledged competence, training, experience or talent. Or another person may have the same position, and power, not because, he has any greater ability than the people under him but because through aggression, cleverness, or luck he fulfills a drive to dominate others. In each case the basis on which the power rests determines the type of relation between the headman and his followers. On "my" South Seas island, the chief in one village had been chosen by the people because of his courage and ability, and was respected by all. A few miles away, in a neighboring village, the chief had ingratiated himself, mainly through lies and flattery, with a representative of the white man's government who had then appointed him as chief. Since he had no special skills and was known to be a liar, the natives did not take him very seriously.

Naturally all those who wield any power, big or little, whether Stone Age savages, chairmen of college departments, or tycoons of industry, would like to believe and to have others believe that they achieved it through their special ability. But only the followers can speak with any objectivity on this.

In Hollywood, it is rare to hear anyone talk in a complimentary fashion of front-office executives. Most studio people, whether well-known directors, producers, stars, or writers, or the lesser known assistant directors and publicity men, have no respect for the big boss, who they say owes his position to luck, to smart maneuvering, or both. Rarely do they think he knows anything about how to make movies. Yet the same people are quick to recognize ability when they see it. They speak in both admiring and respectful terms of the exceptional executive whose power is based on ability and talent.

The front office, with occasional exceptions, rests on a combination of various types of influence which are associated with the big business executive, the political boss and the medieval lord. Like other businessmen, front office executives are concerned with attaining large profits, but the profit motive is not always primary, and rarely the only one. For many executives, power is even more important; and Lord Bryce's description of the political boss fits many Hollywood executives. He writes: "The aim of a Boss is not so much fame as power, and power not so much over the conduct of affairs as over persons."1 This type of boss often displays his power in the most obvious manner.

One Hollywood executive, now dead, kept a hundred-dollar gold piece in his pocket and while talking to a producer or director would continuously throw it up in the air and catch it after it had bounced back on his desk. The metallic ring of the coin on the glass-topped desk did not make conversation easy. The symbolism was clear. The same man enjoyed having conferences with a director in the studio barbershop. The executive would recline in the barber's chair, and while his face was covered with lather and the barber shaved him, and a manicurist filed his nails, and a boot-black shined his shoes, the director stood nearby, listening with respectful attention to his boss's discussion of the movie on which he was working. This man often showed kindness and affection towards his underlings, even if he did not respect them.

Another characteristic of power in Hollywood is seen in the

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prevailing attitude toward people as property. Every individual has his price and this attitude exists straight down the line from top executive to least important employee. Everyone is a piece of property with a specific price, for whom negotiations are carried on through an agent. A producer frequently asks for "a $750 [a week] writer" or "a $2000" one. Actors are often loaned by one studio to another without their consent and most of the time without any advance knowledge of the deal. The studio profits by getting more from the deal than it pays as salary. The publicity departments regard actors as property whose value they are responsible for, or at least have increased. One star who reluctantly refrained from giving out details of a forthcoming marriage because the studio was embarrassed by some of the attendant circumstances, said to the reporter, "I'm their property. If they tell me not to talk, I don't talk."2 The attitude of being able to buy anything or anyone is reflected in one of the folk tales circulating around Hollywood. A producer who sent his daughter to college was informed that she was being sent home because she was not doing well in her classes. The father, much concerned, asked what was the matter and was told that the daughter did not have the capacity to do college work. The producer's answer was, "I'll buy her a capacity."

The feudal characteristic of the power situation lies in the option contract which legally binds directors, actors and others to the studio for a period of seven years. The employee is not permitted to break his contract for any reason. If he refuses a role the studio suspends him without pay, and formerly the number of weeks of suspension was added to the duration of the contract. This last provision is no longer legal. If an actor receives another and better offer while he is under contract, he is not allowed to take it. Court cases in which the actors and directors try to break their contracts usually end in victory for the studio.

The cases coming to court are the exception but the problem comes up frequently when an actor or director has unusual and unexpected success during the life of the contract. The studio then often gives him a bonus and raises the salary check, but rarely as much as if he were in a bargaining position. For many the problem

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is, of course, not to get out of the contract but the ever-present anxiety of whether the studio will take up their option at the end of a six months' period. But, no matter what the problem, the option contract which binds the employee to the studio for seven years and permits the studio to dismiss him at the end of six months or one year, without having to show cause, smacks more of medieval power relations between lord and serf, than of employer and employee in the modern world of industry. It is interesting that the guilds have never fought to change the option contract although the Actors' Guild has tried to reduce the time limit. They fight for higher and higher salaries, which they seem to regard as sufficient compensation for servile and undignified conditions of work. At least they sell their freedom for a high price. Of course, everyone does not work under a contract. Some take their chance and freelance, making a separate contract for each picture. Relatively few stars and leading actors are in this latter group.

Although the relationship between the powerful and the powerless in any situation follows well-formalized patterns of dominance and submission, there is usually some flexibility and manipulation on a personal level. In the Deep South before the Civil War, relationship between house slaves and their masters were frequently quite personal and could be manipulated through wheedling, tact and the sex relations which sometimes existed between the master and his female slave. In Hollywood, while the relationship between the powerful and the powerless is determined by the contract and the well-established mores, it too can be manipulated by social ties, flattery, gifts and sex relations. Every conversation is filled with blandishing phrases such as "You're wonderful," "You're magnificent," "You're perfect." Expensive gifts are exchanged between stars and their directors, producers and executives, and often given by stars to their cameraman. Social ties and sex relations flourish between the important people engaged in a production, but are not confined to production time. Both are constantly used in "playing the game" by those ambitious to succeed and by the successful to demonstrate their power. The men with power usually have no respect for the people so controlled, and the latter are resentful.

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They, in turn, frequently manipulate people beneath them and so exchange roles. The concept of people as property, valued at a certain price, who can be bought and sold and managed so as to do one's bidding is not unique to Hollywood, but is exaggerated there to such a degree that it becomes an outstanding characteristic.

The structuring of power varies a bit from studio to studio, as it did in the Old South from one plantation to another. It may be divided between several men or be held almost completely by one. However, a top executive is always responsible for the major decisions, one of which is to pass on what stories and scripts are acceptable for production. Some executives have the reputation of making their decisions not on reading a story treatment, or the novel or play from which the latter may be taken, but on listening to someone telling the story. Their judgment must of necessity be colored by the skill and enthusiasm of the storyteller. The final script must also receive the O.K. of the front office. In one major studio, where power is delegated and divided among four or five executives, the finished script is sent to all of them to be read. It usually ends rather emasculated, with only the weakest portions, which offend no one, remaining. Most of the strong parts will have worried or irritated one of the executives and will therefore have been eliminated. Sometimes an executive feels he must cut or demand changes merely to prove that he has a critical mind or to demonstrate his authority.

Whether the executive reads or listens, acts singly or with others, he usually projects his own taste onto the public. His attitude is, "If I don't like a picture, nobody else will." The mechanism of projection, that is, ascribing one's own feelings to others, can be considered a normal process, underlying our understanding of other human beings. However, it becomes abnormal when the need to project is so strong that it has a defensive function and the individual uses partial and superficial data to attach meanings taken from his own experience, but which do not correspond to the real behavior of the other person.3 The question is raised of whether the

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usual executive's projection of his image of himself onto the audience is normal and realistically true. In any case, the important decisions on scripts are conditioned by the taste, judgment and personality of executives. Decisions about casting and cutting or on shooting a picture on location or in the studio, on the production's budget, and the settlement of disputes which may arise between any of the important people involved in the movie are likewise the responsibility of the production executive.

All power has its perquisites. Among the aborigines of Central Australia the old men, with knowledge of totemic ceremonies, are the most powerful; they have their pick of women and the choice food, in a society characterized by scarcity. In our culture a traditional prize for the powerful is wealth; and Hollywood executives, many of whom set their own salaries, follow the tradition. The Treasury list of big money-makers in 1946 was dominated by movie people (executives and actors) and the best anyone outside of the movies could do was to tie for sixth place.4 Unlike the custom in most industries the heads of studios earn, on the average, more than the presidents of companies of which the studios are a part. For the fiscal year 1945 (except in the case of Metro and Warner Brothers, when the totals for 1946 were available) the salaries of the heads of the major Hollywood studios ranged from $500,000 to $182,100 as compared to a range of from $255,273 to $115,970 for the presidents of the companies.5 An executive, Louis B. Mayer, with his salary of $502,571 for the fiscal year 1945-1946, topped all the Hollywood earnings including those of the highest paid stars.6

It was easy to get data on salaries and on returns to stockholders, which are about the same as those on other stocks. But it was practically impossible to get accurate information about the net profits of individual pictures, which is what remains to the studio after salaries have been paid to all those connected with the film, deductions made for all costs such as sets, music, costumes, raw film, laboratory costs, exploitation, and subtraction of from 25 to 55 per

88 HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY

cent for overhead. The amount of net profit was the holy of holies in Hollywood.

In all field work there is usually one piece of esoteric data which is hidden by the natives. Among the Melanesians in the Southwest Pacific it is black magic. Among the Hollywood executives it is net profits. Even producers rarely know this about their own pictures. A general suspicion prevails that much of the profit is siphoned off in overhead expenses and executive bonuses.

Automatically from 75 to 55 per cent of the cost of production is charged to overhead expenses. If a Broadway play is purchased, one studio immediately adds 5o per cent to the original cost for overhead. This is done for each item, such as writers' and actors salaries, although it is for the same overhead. There are other more devious techniques. An actor's salary for the period of his contract has been charged against the costs of the movies in which he plays. During his contract he goes on some kind of publicity junket and his salary is charged a second time to "overhead for junket." A couple of studio people go out to look for a location which serves three pictures, but the expense of finding it may be charged separately to each one. The cost of dismantling the set may be charged to a picture, although the same set may be kept and used again with a few minor changes in another film. A producer may work on several pictures at one time, but his salary will not be equally divided among them instead, more may be charged to each picture than is warranted. Laboratory processing offers another place for concealment. The laboratory is owned by the studio but a bill for the work is sent to it.

All these and many more devices are common knowledge in Hollywood and regarded as customary. Independent producers and others who work on a percentage basis have to be on the alert against these "paper" expenses, and are constantly inquiring why
another $200,000 has just been tacked onto overhead. Some raise objections to the amount of overhead charged against their films. It was reported in Variety of September 29, 1948, that the president of the Hal Wallis Independent Unit was trying to get a reduction of the overhead figure, or the right to move out of the Paramount Studio to a rental lot.

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Mr. N. Peter Rathvon, formerly president of RKO, formed a company for financing independent movies, and in the description of his new activities it was said:

As an investor he is able to call the tune on spending and keeping costs down by helping a producer avoid credit deals for studio and laboratory facilities which involve ruinous overhead and "padded" charges.7

Mr. David 0. Selznick was very outspoken on this matter in a newspaper interview:

"The whole industry, as a matter of fact, is built on phony accounting." . . . He declared it was entirely fallacious to burden all categories of films and all expenditures with the same percentage for overhead.

Illustrating his point with a studio that used a 50% overhead figure, Selznick declared it was misleading its own executives.

What happened, he said, was that $250,000 was added for overhead to a $500,000 film and $1,000,000 to a $2,000,000 one, while actually there was nothing like that difference in the overhead cost between the two films. For instance, he pointed out, if it was decided to bolster the big film with an extra star at $200,000, that added an additional $100,000 to the picture's overhead cost. Actually, it didn't cost the studio an extra cent in overhead. Result is, Selznick declared, that when the two films go into distribution, the phony bookkeeping makes the $750,000 one appear to show a profit, while the $3,000,000 production appears to suffer a loss.

"Actually that may not be true at all," Selznick pointed out. "Nevertheless, seeing the figures, the boys in the front office decide that what they need is more $750,000 films. The result is that they have completely misled themselves."8

There are a number of reasons for concealing the amount of net profit, which practice is, of course, not limited to the movie industry, although one wonders if executives in other industries actually mislead themselves. Concealment is desirable because of taxes,

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fear that employees will ask for a raise if profits are high, and because some directors, actors and producers work on a percentage basis of net profits. In the New York theater the playwright receives a percentage of the gross intake against an advance payment.

When the question is asked, "Has a picture made money?" it usually means "during the first six months." A top A hit may bring back its cost in two months, a medium successful picture in one year, but full profits are not in until after a three-year run, and in the case of revivals, longer. In the past nothing less than 100 per cent net profit was considered good and on top successes it was much more, sometimes as high as 300 per cent. It is rare for a picture not to bring back its costs; when a picture is said to be "unsuccessful," it usually means that it did not bring in a big profit. Unless a profit is "sensational" or "terrific," it is not considered a profit in Hollywood; and according to Fortune,9 the movie industry has reached the end of its era of fortunes on films.
The domestic box office rose steadily to a peak in 1946, but began to decline in 1947. There was then much discussion on the need for economy in the studios because of the falling markets, foreign competition and dwindling box-office receipts. It was even rumored that there would be some reductions in the salaries of the top people. It is part of the mores of Hollywood always to begin their "drastic" reduction with the lowest-paid employees. The following paragraph from Variety of November 19, 1947, bears this out (italics ours)

Moskowitz huddled with studio toppers on his arrival last week and held several sessions with an eye toward determining how to effect further payroll economies. On Friday (14) he is reported to have advised various department heads that their departments must be cut by 40%. Cutting is already under way, it's understood, with 10 dropped from contract department, eight girl messengers discharged and 20 janitors swept out in the shuffle.

Most of the executives justify their enormous earnings because they say they are showmen who know by "instinct" what makes a good picture. Many of them can point to their long years of experience,

since the days of the old silent "flickers," and they take credit to themselves for the financial success of the industry.

The description of their business practices indicates the degree to which this belief is based on myth or reality. The reliance of the executives on a series of well-known formulas has already been described. Behind the lack of faith in their own judgment about something different from the hackneyed rules may be the fact that most of the top executives seem to be men without real understanding of what makes a good movie. When they have an
unexpected success or failure, they appear unable to analyze the reasons for either, but attribute it to the fickle public or to luck. In other businesses, successful designers of clothes, hats, jewelry
and architecture launch new styles and take chances on their success. Theater and publishing, which are taking on more and more of big business, still constantly take chances with new ideas. But the motion picture industry only rarely has this courage, and its system of production discourages originality. This not only detrimental to the artists who work in Hollywood, but also bad business practice.

It is also uneconomical for any industry to buy twice as much raw material as is used. A conservative estimate by story editors or major studios is that not more than half of the story properties purchased are filmed. Other people outside the story departments estimate the ratio as twenty-five to one rather than two to one. Behind each picture produced is, at least, the cost of two properties. The reasons given for this unusual business practice are several. The reading and buying of the stories is done very hurriedly by the story-editing department, because of the fear that some other studio may buy. Unlike the practice in the publishing world, a writer submits a story, script, or book to a number of studios at one time and hence the need for speed in the competitive buying. After the story is purchased, presumably with the intention of production, there are many reasons why it may remain on the shelf. What was first seen in it does not, on more serious consideration, have enough possibilities to make production worth while; or the star for whom the picture was originally bought does not like it, or is tied up with other pictures; or the

producer who liked the story has gone to another studio. To the additional cost of the story bought by the studio and not used may also be added the salaries of writers and producers who have tried to develop a script from it. Production on a picture is sometimes postponed or shelved even after sets and costumes have been designed.

The general hostility to planning is seen not only in the extravagant buying of story properties, but comes out in many other parts of the industry. Any executive will talk about how essential stars are, and yet there is no long-range plan to develop them- instead, training is a hit-or-miss affair. Almost every producer will hold forth at great length on how few good script writers there are; but there is little analysis of the problem or plans to improve the situation: In most businesses the decision to hire or fire a $500-a- week employee would be made after considerable thought and consultation between a number of executives; but in Hollywood a $3500-a-week writer is fired without consultation with anyone and, if he is not on contract, on a week's or less notice. One such writer was told to quit when his week was up, but when the time arrived the producer had changed his mind and he was told to stay. Whims and personal desires often override business interests. It is reported that one executive insisted on being accompanied by a star to the opening of her picture in New York, even though she was working in another film at the time. This meant that the whole company had to be laid off, at a cost of $50,000, while the actress was at the New York opening with her boss.

Instead of relying on carefully thought-out plans the Hollywood executives pride themselves in working on "instinct." The editor of the Hollywood Reporter (September 26, 1947) writes:

Motion pictures are not an assembly-line mass-production enterprise like automobiles or prefabricated houses. The motion picture industry was not built by mechanical geniuses or financial wizards. It was built, and built well, by showmen showmen with an instinctive feeling for what the public enjoys, and with the same instinct for delivering just that kind of entertainment.

The use of the word "instinct," a biological term, is incorrect; 'but if we accept the trade paper's colloquial use, what the editor implies is that these Hollywood executives are showmen gifted with special intuitive powers, who do not need to plan, and think, and work hard, as presumably do the heads of factories turning out automobiles and prefabricated houses. There is a circular process here, for even when executives do plan and work hard, they credit the results to instinct and luck. Both these qualities are considered more fashionable in Hollywood than thinking and working. Yet these same showmen, with their "instinctive feeling for what the public enjoys," are repeatedly surprised by "sleepers" (pictures not expected to be very successful which turn out to be box-office hits) and by others, made to be top hits, which do not come off.

There is one executive, an independent, who does have what seems to be an intuitive feeling for picking a box-office hit. But what he actually has is sound judgment on what makes a good movie, the courage to try something new and very high standards. He knows also how to select able people to carry out his ideas. He knows also how to select able people to carry out his ideas. But for most of the showmen to whom the editorial refers, their "instinct" may cover up
poor business judgment and an actual lack of knowledge about movies. Theaters must have movies, and until the present time Hollywood has had a monopoly on the product.

This inefficiency and wastefulness are not unknown to Wall Street, which is continuously wary about film stocks in spite of the record profits by the major studios. According to Variety (December 25, 1946):

. . . New York Exchange quotations on majors' common is from 25% to 50% below what it ordinarily should be.
Number of other stocks such as steel, oil, automobiles and chemicals, Wall Street concedes, are computed on a basis from 10 to 15 times their equivalent earnings. Only those considered more speculative are down to the eight times earnings tabulation, they say.
What has film execs further puzzled is demonstration as far back as 1929 of profit-taking power of film companies.

Industry did not feel full brunt of stock crash until a number of years later and was one of the first to stage a phenomenal recovery when conditions picked up. Staying power of film biz plus record profits ordinarily would warrant much higher prices, execs say.
Only real factor weighting prices, it's believed, is idea among financial circles that Hollywood throws big money around and out the window on caprice. Prejudice has been of long standing, and such items as junking of first takes on 20th's "Forever Amber" which reputedly cost the company some $350,000 hasn't helped to diminish it. Production costs, notoriously ballooned by hard working flacks, has also taken Wall Street in film trade believes.

Although the studio executives seem puzzled and hurt at Wall Street's suspicions, yet they themselves continuously say that each big picture is a gamble. For most everyone in the industry, Hollywood is regarded as a place where one plays for big stakes where chance, luck, the breaks, are among the determining factors. Executives and producers appear never to have any certainty of suc-
cess, and profits, but instead are always and continuously fearful of failure and losses.

There is, of course, some uncertainty about profits and losses in any business. Book publishing is very much a gamble. No publisher is always turning out best sellers and there are many tales of how a best seller was turned down by seven or eight publishers before someone took a chance on it. Indeed, no publisher feels that every book must be a best seller and most firms are satisfied with a few a year which they regard as a means of paying off the small returns or losses from other books.
Movie executives and most producers, however, think that every picture must be a top box-office hit and bring in from 100 to 300 per cent net profit. This attitude is probably conditioned by two factors, one historical and the other psychological. As we have seen, one reason movie makers do not think in terms of ordinary business profits of 20 or 25 per cent is because of their exceedingly high returns in times past, when 100 percent profit was considered

only normal, and when returns were sometimes as high as 300 per cent. The studio heads cannot bring themselves to believe that the end of that era of fortunes made overnight has actually come.

The constant fear of failure and the need for excessive profits on every picture may also be conditioned by the very high personal insecurity of most executives and producers. Dramatic financial success, gained mostly through a set of fortuitous circumstances, such as that movie going is a popular habit and fills a real need and that Hollywood until recently had a monopoly on the product, is, however, looked upon as a sign of genius, or at least, greatness. The executives therefore need a box-office hit every time not just for profit, but also to convince themselves of their greatness. This problem is not confined to the executives but pervades all of Hollywood and is the logical psychological result of a situation in which most everyone wants to think he is a genius, or at least unusually gifted whether it be as showman, actor or writer and is constantly being told that he is "great," "terrific," or "wonderful." In any industry, profession or art, the proportion of outstanding ability or talent is very small. It is no smaller in Hollywood than anywhere else, and may be larger among the artists, but the pretensions to it are much greater.

Yet, as is well known, it is rarely possible to fool oneself completely. Always there is some lurking doubt, ready to come to fight at the first sign; and of the signs, that shown in profits is the most symbolic for the executives. The discrepancy between the idea of himself which the executive wants to believe and to present to the world, and the one he really is, is rather wide. In the former, he is a great showman who can unerringly spot a good movie through listening to a proposed story treatment, who "instinctively" knows just what the public wants, and who, in addition, has great business acumen. In the latter he is an aggressive man, lucky in getting into the industry when it was young, possessing sufficient clever business sense to take advantage of opportunities, with little taste or understanding of the ingredients of good drama, and whose knowledge of the audience is limited to a projection of himself or to meaningless polls. Most people engage in some self-deception, but that practiced by executives, and

a large number of other important people in Hollywood, appears to be much greater. The hypothesis is that this covering-up of inner uncertainties about ability is sometimes projected onto the market. The question will the public think my picture wonderful and give the sign of approval by a big box office? may hide the more basic anxiety: Am I really good, or do I owe my position only to luck?

A psychological explanation of the industry's fears of hard times has been noted even by a trade paper:

Rather than being a year of recession for films, 1947 may well turn out to be the greatest or close to the greatest b.o. year in industry history. While talk is widespread of a drop in film grosses, a careful check by Variety makes it appear the recession is considerably more psychological than economic.
Survey of major distribs, affiliated circuits, independent circuits and scattered indie houses reveals the average of gross income at both the b.o. and in film rentals on a par with or better than the comparative first nine weeks of last year. Unless there should be serious adverse changes in the present general economic picture next summer and fall, profits should come close to the phenomenal figures of 1946.10

Many actors, writers, directors, producers and others have the same problem. Adjectives of superlative praise are not limited to the movie advertisements but are part of the small talk exchanged between Hollywood people and pervade all conversation. The employers want to believe these laudatory words about their $3000-a-week employees, and the latter want to believe them, too. The very heights of such standards must inevitably lead to great emotional insecurities for mediocre or average people. The most psychologically secure people in Hollywood were those who did not think they were geniuses, but who had proved ability and a real knowledge of the medium, and those whose goals were commensurate with their ability.

Since success is so important to the executive for deep personal reasons as well as the usual economic ones, he does what he can to

insure it. His use of polling techniques, his employment of the highest paid writers, directors, actors, and others, his following of taboos and superstitions, are his insurance against uncertainty.
Of course, a well-written script, ably directed with talented actors might also be regarded as an insurance for success; but it could be used only by a man who had the necessary ability to recognize it.

In Hollywood the causes for success or failure are still considered luck and breaks, comparable to primitive man's thinking for him, the causes of illness are in the realm of the supernatural;
cures are therefore of a magical nature. When he first comes into contact with Western society he is glad to have the white man's medicine even though he is still as ignorant as ever of the nature of the disease. He soon has two kinds of magic instead of one, which he uses without discrimination. Later, as he takes on the cultural heritage of Western society, disease moves out of the supernatural world and into that of reality. His magical practices then tend to disappear and be replaced by whatever understanding medical science provides for prevention and therapy. A highly paid writer is
only another kind of magic. Front-office executives, as well as most other Hollywood people, are in various stages of emerging from magical thinking and replacing it with realistic knowledge of their medium and their audience.

The fears involved in the gambling and magical attitudes are only part of the blanket of anxiety which overhangs Hollywood. Some executives live in fear that people are ganging up on them. In one studio, if an actor asks for a particular director the executive immediately fears the latter. On the other hand, if it is known that the actor does not want that director, then the executive is more confident of the director. Some executives are jealous of their own employees who have been outstanding. There is a whole collection of folk tales about one producer who won an "Oscar" for a picture and so incurred the jealousy of the executive head of his studio. The latter according to the tale did not want to fire the producer outright immediately after he had won the "Oscar," but did everything possible to annoy and irritate him. Of course the producer quit after a short time. Among the stories of the execu-

tive's techniques of annoyance are that he had the plants dug up around the studio in which the producer worked and substituted fertilizer in their place; that he caused the interoffice telephone in the producer's department to be cut off, or to work very poorly; that he forbade the studio publicity staff to give the producer any publicity.

One cannot vouch for the exactness of the above tales, but they are heard over and over again. Their significance lies not in the degree of veracity to be attributed to them but in their reflection of the executive's attitude toward an unusually gifted employee who brought both prestige and profits to the studio.

The roots of such fear can only be speculated on. One hypothesis is that executives are not completely satisfied with their roles, and, although they pretend to look down on artists and creative people, are at the same time jealous and resentful of them. Another possibility is that their insecurity and strong drive for power causes them to fear anyone, artist or not, who receives so much prestige that he may become a threat to the executive's power. Neither explanation excludes the other, and there are probably still more.

Fears are not limited to the studio and are even greater toward anything which threatens from the outside world-such as pressure groups, whether religious, racial, business or political. Toward all the pressure groups the answer has been uniformly appeasement; again, these are opposing forces that appear to be in the world of the supernatural and therefore impossible to oppose successfully. Publishers, newspaper owners, and theaters may take a stand, and fight any attempted censorship; they do not think defeat inevitable. But the aggression of the movie showmen evaporates at the first sign of any threatening forces from outside their little bailiwick. They can only appease and try to retreat further into their safe cocoon on the West Coast, cushioned by isolation, large bank accounts and the flattery of an incestuous backslapping.

Another characteristic of executive existence, not unrelated to the blanket of fear, is the frenzied tempo in which the important people live. After they have made their millions, the same mad

pace continues for a prestige picture, for one which will win an Oscar, for one which will be sensational over and above all other sensations. There is no sitting back on laurels, no rest for even the most successful. They carry on in an atmosphere of excitement, flying back and forth to New York and Europe and continuing to meet one crisis after another. One man, with a beautiful home and swimming pool, says he likes to swim but that he hasn't had time to go into his pool more than four times during the past year.

Always there is a fear of being outdistanced by competitors. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland might have been describing Hollywood executives: it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. Always there is that struggle, for more and more of something, whether money, prestige, power, sensations, or what not, until the man drops dead. The game becomes the end, and is played compulsively.

1. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, P.115 3rd Ed. New York: The Macmillan Company.

2. New York Times, March 14, 1948.

3. Ernest G. Schachter, "Projection and Its Relation to Character Attitudes and Creativity in the Kinesthetic Response," Psychiatry, February 1950, pp. 75-76.

4. New York Post, February 21, 1948.

5. Variety, February 5, 1947.

6. Ibid., March 25, 1948.

7. New York Times, July 24, 1949.

8. Variety, June 2, 1948.

9. April, 1949.

10. Variety, March 26, 1947. Italics ours.

Link to Chapter 5