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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 7. 15 April 1975

[Introduction]

The third in our series of articles on the Kerridge monopoly by Bruce Jesson. Hopefully the licencing laws are shortly to be changed.

Typical of the Kerridge-Odeon Puritanism is the comment Jack Croft made on his return from Cannes, where he had been buying films for Kerridge-Odeon (Auckland Star. 6-6-74, 'It's sad about all that Porn'). Jack Croft came back ... saddened by the number of porn films being marketed; and the unnecessary amount of swearing ... in Continental films. Well, we will take Jack Croft's word for it because he saw the film and we didn't (in fact if he has his way we never will). But he has obviously got a funny idea of what is important in a film. You would expect a cinema chain to pick films according to their quality; Kerridge-Odeon apparently picks them according to the amount of swearing.

Which is no doubt why they don't appeal against the censor's rulings (and remember, no member of the public can appeal against the censor's rulings). An example of this was the prize-winning Japanese film Inferno of First Love which Kerridge-Odeon imported on behalf of the Auckland Festival Society Film Committee. Not only did Kerridge-Odeon accept the censor's banning of the film, according to an article in the Listener (24—5—71) it washed its hands of it altogether.

This die-hard philistinism doesn't only affect the choosing of films. It also affects the ones that are shown, in two ways, Firstly, as the censor (Mr. D.C.Mcintosh) has pointed out, "Theatre operators and film distributors often cut films to their own whims. Under the Censorship Act, films are allowed to be cut after they have passed through me. Many films are cut ... and we have no way of checking ...' Apparently the main reason for this is to make sure that there is time for an interval, because Kerridge-Odeon does good business in its Nibblenooks (which, incidentally, are being looked at by the Price Tribunal). No matter how good or concise a film may be it is still in danger of being cut to fit the two-hour time slot, for the sake of selling lollies. Still, at least they are consistent. Kerridge-Odeon has said that he regards films as commercial products, and he certainly treats them as such.

The second effect of the Kerridge Philistinism is more serious. He conspires with the censor, who has said that he would prefer to sit down with the distributor and agree to certain cuts, to avoid all the bother of the distributor lodging an appeal. For example, if a film has an R16 scene, he will ask the distributor if he wants to leave [unclear: it in] or whether he wants to cut tho scene so that the film can have a non-restricted certificate.

This is all very chummy, but it means that a lot of secret cutting is going on. Kerridge has said that he wants to show 'G', 'Y' and 'A' films only at his two new cinemas, so he will probably be encouraging cuts to make sure he has enough films. Kerridge's influence is summed up best by the following quote: 'In our modern society one of the most disturbing and disrupting phenomena is the strenuous effort of vocally persistent minorities to impose their will on the majority. This must not be permitted to happen in the cinema'. This was actually written by Kerridge in his Herald letter attacking Wynne Colgan. It would have been more appropriate if Wynne Colgan had written it in an attack on Kerridge. Especially as Colgan had merely drawn attention to one of the worst abuses of Kerridge-Odeon's and Amalgamated's commercial power — their long run policy.

The cinema chains operate on the assumption that the drop in audience numbers in the sixties didn't mean that less people went to the cinema. It meant that the same number went less often. So, if you keep a film running for six months everyone will eventually get to see it. Now this may be good business but it is certainly very bad news for the serious movie-goer. More films are piling up on distributors shelves than are being screened: films like Scorpio, Escape From Devil's Island, Billy Two Hats, Thieves Like Us, Busting, The Spikes Gang, Huckleberry Finn. The Long Goodbye and Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. Overseas this sort of bottleneck has been avoided by chains purchasing additional prints and releasing a film simultaneously at a number of suburban theatres. Kerridge-Odeon and Amalgamated seem to be too lazy to explore alternatives such as this.

The Kerridge-Odeon -Amalgamated monopoly was bad enough in the past. It is becoming intolerable now. In 1974 20th Century Fox, United Artists and M.G.M. had 62 films ready to go; only 31 were screened. Even the distributors are complaining: Thursday quoted Columbia-Warner's Nick Smart as saying that Queen Street could easily take another three theatres.

Pressure is building up for change, and there are two possible lines of development. Firstly, some of the independent, suburban theatres could get a new lease of life. The Capitol for instance has been done up with the idea of turning it into a first-release theatre. It is still having problems with the major distributors, and has even imported its own films at times (which is generally beyond the resources of an independent). However if a distributor could be found with enough enterprise — and enough independence from the two chains — it would probably pay him to put some money into some of the suburban theatres.

The other possible line of development is institutional as much as commercial: that is there might be enough resentment around to nourish the development of a political campaign aimed at scrapping the licensing system. The effect of this, if it was achieved, would be to allow anyone to show films commercially. Anyone so inclined would be taking on an entrenched monopoly and, apart from the normal financial problems of setting up in business, would have to cope with unco-operative distributors.

The immediate beneficiaries would in fact be people like Jan Grefstad and organisations like the New Zealand Federation of Film Societies.

The Film Societies together with the film festivals and student groups have in a small way been providing an alternative to Kerridge-Odeon and Amalgamated. They have been showing some of the films that the chains won't show, films like The King of Marvin Gardens and How I Won The War (which the chains probably thought would offend the R.S.A.)

Unfortunately these non-commercial outlets are very limited in their finance and are staffed by unpaid volunteers, so they can bring to New Zealand only a tiny percentage of the films that can be brought. The film societies supplement the films they import with offerings from embassies and consulates. The film festivals are [unclear: auually] forced to work through the chains — which as can be imagined sometimes causes problems.