Last Reel

After 14 years of litigation, the justice department completed its antitrust fight against the Big Five moviemakers. In a consent decree, Loew's Inc., owner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, agreed to split into two separate units: one for production and distribution, the other for exhibition. The producing and distributing company will keep Loew's corporate name and MGM's label on its products. President Nicholas Schenck, who has bossed the company since 1927, will probably continue to run Loew's. The theater company, its name still to be picked, will have a completely separate management.

The consent decree, like those signed by RKO, Paramount, 20th Century-Fox and Warner Brothers (TIME, May 17, 1948, et seq.), requires Loew's to sell 24 theaters outright, and possibly 50 others in its 131-theater chain, in order to encourage competition. Under the five consent decrees signed by the movie companies, more than 1,200 theaters will eventually be sold to independent exhibitors. Another 1,300 are slated to be run by the new theater companies that were organized after divorcement.

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