This article pertains to to a dust-up that took place between movie exhibitors and movie producers involving the Hollywood practice known as "block-booking", which required theater owners to commit to movies they knew nothing about and had never seen. The article refers to how Hollywood employed their stars to fight legislation in Washington designed to overturn this scheme:
"The Neely Bill...proposes to prohibit compulsory block-booking and blind selling, thus making it possible for the independent independent exhibitor to to select the pictures he will show without being compelled to accept a specified number of other films for which their is no demand."
The bill was defeated.
Read about the 1940 American film business here...
