Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1919)

EXHIBITORS HERALD to a weak heart at an opportune time and leaves her tree to find her happiness with Arnold. Bryant Washburn in IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE Five-part comedy; ParamountArtcraft. Directed by Donald Crisp. Published November 23. OPINION: "It Pays to Advertise" has to recommend it a successful run as a stage play, the presence in the cast of Frank Currier, Lois Wilson", Walter Hiers and other notables, a title that would be hard to improve upon for advertising possibilities and a star whose last half dozen pictures, and particularly his last, "Why Smith Left Home," have left decidedly pleasant recollections. To which must be added, the excellent production that Famous PlayersLasky has provided, the modern, likeable nature of the story, and a timeliness due to the great interest currently centered in business and business methods. There is, to put it briefly, no question as to the satisfaction which will follow the presentation of the picture upon the great majority of American screens. Unless local conditions must be taken into consideration, which is an improbable eventuality, every exhibitor should play the picture. And when you pla» it ■ Don't forget the title. Get busy with your local merchants and your editor or editors. Point out to them the wonderful opportunity offered to bring their advertising strongly to the attention of the people that advertising is intended to reach. Run as many pages or double pages as you can, using the title as the center of the display, merchants' advertisements as the surrounding. The editor or advertising manager who will not lend aid in promoting the enterprise is indeed a reactionary. Follow up the idea in your program, upon your screen in the trailers or advance slides that you use. And use billboards extensively. Get your merchant friends to use paper also. Make the connection clear in all cases. It should be no great feat to make the town or neighborhood ring with discussions of the general subject of advertising. Editorials written at the psychological moment will do much to further this circumstance. The play, inevitably, will be well attended. And it will please. SYNOPSIS: Rodney Martin graduates from college with a splendid academic education and is surprised to find himself absolutely unprepared for a business career. Yet business interests him strangely. Not so strangely, perhaps, when it is disclosed that Mary Greyrson, his father's secretary, is just about what Rodney considers the proper thing in girls. But she is a business woman, and he must, therefore, he reasons, prove himself a business man. He fits out a splendid office, before determining what line he is to follow. Then a friend suggests the soap business. He straightway launches an advertising campaign that achieves wonders. But the bills, when they begin to arrive, overcome him and he faces disaster. His father effects a rescue by appointing him advertising man in his organization and all ends as it should. Blanche Sweet in FIGHTING CRESSY Seven-part drama; Jesse D. Hampton-Pathe. Directed by Robert Thornby. Published November 20. OPINION : Some time has elapsed since we have witnessed a photo-play taking us back to the "sixties" and keeping us there throughout the feature. After the many current publications portraying modern warfare, augmented fights and the work of deadly explosives, the open country, where man fought man upholding his conception of principle, comes as a welcome diversion. Bret Harte's widely read book. "Cressy," would have been more appropriately significant, so far as the screen version is concerned, had the title not been changed to "Fighting Cressy," for Cressy doesn't appear as quarrelsome as the title implies, nor show a great amount of disposition toward feminine hostility. She does the natural contrary things girls of her age, at that time, in her environment, practiced. Director Thornby has exercised noticeable care in the lighting of his picture, with gratifying results. The exteriprs are especially commendable. A word in favor of the sub-titles, also, is in order. In the title role Blanche Sweet grows more effective as the picture progresses. In the last three reels, where she appears in feminine fashions of the "sixties," her particular type of beauty takes advantage of its opportunity to showto greatest advantage. The cast, calling for "types" of exacting requirements, has been well selected and adds to the distinction of an altogether entertaining screen interpretation of Harte's classic. SYNOPSIS : Cressy, only daughter of Hiram McKinstry, lives with her parents in a certain county in California. The time is the earlv sixties. A feud between the McKinstrys and the Harrisons has cast a cloud over the young girl's life. She becomes engaged to Seth Davis, a youth of the neighborhood, but decides, after she has bought her trosseau, that she prefers a man more nearly approximating her ideal. Joe Masters, a stranger who fits well into her mental picture of the man she wants to marry, joins the Harrison forces. Consequently she is unable to follow the dictates of her heart. But the attempt of the school teacher to win her affection, and the subsequent revelation of the school teacher's criminal past, brought about in dramatic manner, clears matters for all concerned and Cressy puts an end to the feud by marrying Masters. Montagu Love and June Elvidge in THE STEEL KING Five-part drama; World. Directed by Oscar Apfel. Published in November. OPINION : Montagu Love and June Elvidge, players whose long association under the World banner have made their names almost synonymous with the name of the organization, perform with characteristic ease and ability the leading roles in this rather involved but wholly natural narrative of men, money and emotions. It is the type of story that has come to be expected of the World studios. There is about it none of the "frills and furbelows" affected by many. No attempt is made to make up in showy dress what is lacking in story body. "The characters are presented for what they are. They are allowed to do the things that such characters would do under the circumstances established. The ending is brought about naturally and in due time, without stress or "playing for position." Revenge, rather than the customary Bryant Washburn in "It Pays to Advertise," a Paramount-Art craft picture, directed hy Donald Crisp. 81