Chapter 19

By 1943, Cary Grant was eager to escape from the contract he had signed six years earlier with Columbia Pictures. It was a non-exclusive contract, but studio boss Harry Cohn exercised an options clause that prolonged Grant’s obligations to the studio. Cohn was incensed when Grant delayed returning to Columbia in favour of working at Warner Brothers, where he was cast in the patriotic war drama Destination Tokyo (1943). Grant’s performance as an upstanding yet gentle submarine captain was one of the most earnest and restrained of his career. He returned to Columbia to make Once Upon a Time (1943), one of the slightest films of his career. When Jack Warner offered to buy out the remainder of his Columbia contract, Grant jumped at the offer. Meanwhile, he was making None but the Lonely Heart (1944), a gritty melodrama about working class life in the backstreets of London, written and directed by the left-wing dramatist Clifford Odets. Grant’s personal connection to the films tough working class environment was signalled by placing a picture of his own father on the wall of the tiny house his character shares with his dying mother. The film was not a hit but it earned Grant his second Academy Award nomination. Ironically, at the time he was reliving his humble origins on screen, he was married to the extraordinarily wealthy Barbara Hutton. Her insistence on living lavishly and entertaining frequently made him realise what a poor match they were. She, in turn, complained that he cared about nothing other than his career. They divorced in 1945.

Chapter 13

In 1937, Cary Grant’s career as a freelance star began with three screwball comedies that established him as the master of this genre. Topper (1937), made by the independent producer Hal Roach, initiated this sharp upturn in his career. This stylish screwball comedy brought out a new playful, wry, ironic dimension in Grant’s performance style. Improvisation on the set was key to his new screen persona, and he was given even greater reign to improvise in his first Columbia film, Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937). Legend has it that he was uncomfortable working with McCarey, but McCarey helped him to mould the Cary Grant star persona, unique for combining debonair and slapstick qualities. He signed a contract with Columbia Pictures that gave him the power to choose which films he made, and control over both his publicity and his wardrobe, but it was a non-exclusive contract, allowing him to make his next film at RKO Pictures. In Bringing Up Baby (1938), director Howard Hawks encouraged a frenzied edge to his performance. This is perfectly exemplified in the famous scene in which Grant leaps in the air, shouting “I just went gay all of the sudden”—a line he improvised on the set and one that demonstrates the liberated, unconventional mores of screwball comedy. Bringing Up Baby had a mixed reception on first release in 1938, but in later years, through repeated revivals and screenings on television, it became one of his best known and most admired films.

From Multicriterial Data Analysis Up to the Exclusive Contract

In the present paper, we propose a heuristic for identifying the key supplier of a company. In order to develop the supplier’s evaluation tool, we use the multicriterial data analysis. The main statistical instrument here is the principal component analysis. Using the data from all realized orders of a chosen company in Slovakia from the year 2017, we identify its key supplier. Hence, this study helps to close the gap between theoretical work on principal component analysis and actual practice. The importance of the present work underlines the fact that the company is planning to sign an exclusive contract with the recommended supplier.

Rajan Overseas: An Entrepreneurial Quest for Growth

Rajan Overseas was founded by Rajan Makhija in the year 2014. It was into export of handloom products like rugs, throws, etc. Makhija wanted the company to grow from INR 7.6 crores to 100 crores in the next five years. However, the plan hit a roadblock as one of the largest customer of Makhija wanted him to sign an exclusive contract. Makhija was evaluating various growth options in the light of this new hurdle. The case can be taught in courses on entrepreneurship, internationalization and strategy for SMEs to teach topics related to effectuation and challenges of international business.

Vanished Dreams

After purchasing various film properties that went nowhere, Curtiz decided to produce a Technicolor musical, Romance on the High Seas. Flummoxed in his attempt to cast stars, including Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall, Kathryn Grayson, and Betty Hutton, he gambled on a little-known band singer, Doris Day, whom he nurtured to stardom.Curtiz’s My Dream Is Yours followed Romance. Although both pictures appeared to be successful, Curtiz’s production company was sinking in a sea of red ink because of his own financial mismanagement and Jack Warner’s predatory business practices.His final production, Flamingo Road, was a box-office success that Curtiz was forced into making after a major confrontation with Warner Bros. that went public. As the studio cut back under the dual assaults of television and the antitrust divestiture of its movie theaters, Curtiz sold his company to Warner and signed an exclusive contract with the studio. After being forced to make the abysmal Lady Takes a Sailor, Curtiz directed Young Man with a Horn (1950), a critically acclaimed film whose success was tempered by Jack Warner’s obdurate insistence on a happy ending.

Re-reading Propertius’ Arethusa

This article argues that in poem 4.3, Propertius depicts Arethusa not as a citizen wife, but as a concubine or an elegiac courtesan under exclusive contract to Lycotas. The Roman lexicon of marriage was frequently used to describe relationships other than iustum coniugium, especially in love elegy. That is the situation presented in Propertius 4.3. Arethusa’s anxieties are primarily sexual, and thus identify her as something new in elegy: not a wife but a faithful puella. This poem gives us the poetic voice of a loving, loyal, contracted courtesan.

Exclusive Contracts, Innovation, and Welfare

We extend Philippe Aghion and Patrick Bolton's (1987) classic model to analyze the equilibrium incidence and impact of exclusive contracts in a setting where research and development (R&D) drives industry performance. An exclusive contract between an incumbent supplier and a buyer arises when patent protection and/or the incumbent's R&D ability are sufficiently pronounced. The exclusive contract generally reduces the entrant's R&D, and can reduce the incumbent's R&D. Exclusive contracts reduce welfare if the incumbent's R&D ability is sufficiently limited, but can increase welfare if patent protection and the incumbent's R&D ability are sufficiently pronounced. (JEL D86, L14, O31)