Exhibitors Herald (1927)

40 EXHIBITORS HERALD March 26, 1927 rHIS department contains news, information and gossip on current productions. It aims to supply service which will assist the exhibitor in keeping in touch with developments in connection with pictures and picture personalities — and what these are doing at the box o&ce. No prophecies on the entertainment value of pictures are made. Opinions expressed are simply those of the author or of his contributors and the reader is requested to consider them only as such. — EDITOR’S NOTE. Minority Report w ITH considerable more than the customary certainty that I‘m wrong, I begin this week’s bill with the statement that I have seen “Orchids and Ermine” and "The Red Mill” and was disappointed in both. Having early reports from exhibitors as my basis for believing that they are really very good pictures, I utter this statement with special emphasis on the “minority report” label visible above. And I sincerely hope that the exhibitors are right and I am wrong. For quite selfish reasons, I should rather have the majority in accord with my incomparably better half than with myself. She liked both pictures very well. I went to see “Orchids and Ermine” with anticipation of viewing the matchless Colleen in something better than she had appeared in to date. Perhaps that is one explanation of my disappointment. At any rate, I came away with the feeling that it was too bad they couldn’t get more story into the picture than they did. I like Cullen Landis, Gwen Lee, Sam Hardy — and of course I love Colleen as much as you do — but the picture left me wishing it had been something else. The audience got several good laughs out of it, as did I, but it just wasn’t the better picture I expected. “The Red Mill” was disappointing in precisely the same way. Exhibitors had written in to praise it. My wife nudged me frequently (and she’s not addicted to nudging) in its behalf and the folks around me had the time of their lives. It was my misfortune, as I well knew, that I remembered the brick-on-cow’s-tail, hauntedhouse, windlass-well gags and a dozen other Sennett veterans not wisely but too well. I was sorry that they stood between me and the no doubt good acting of Marion Davies, Owen Moore, Karl Dane, Louise Fazenda, George Seigmann and others — but they did and I can do nothing about it. % 5}: After re-reading the above in an effort to find out what I felt must be something wrong with me, I trace my discontent to a quite unsuspected source. I now am certain that the blame rests with the gag titles with which both pictures are strung like Mrs. Rockerbilt’s necklace. And, reflecting on that remark, I believe the comparison is fairly good. There are too many diamonds on Mrs. Rockerbilt’s necklace and they are By T. O. SERVICE MINORITY REPORT When to St.4y Home Advertising Listerine Incidentally too big. There are too many comic titles in these pictures and they are too comic. Making this statement, I cringe in fear that my many paragraphs in praise of the captional wisecrack as an asset to the motion picture may turn out to be responsible. If it develops that I am felled by a boomerang of my own loosing, I can hope to find comfort only in conviction that I am alone in my dissatisfaction with the pictures mentioned and in the thought that I have labeled this dissertation as I have labeled it. WHEN TO STAY HOME J NEED not add to the above remarks, perhaps, that my contrary reactions to the two pictures mentioned were sufficient to keep me from looking at more pictures the week past. I may not know nearly so much as I like to believe I know about motion pictures, but I do know when to stay home from the theatre. If everybody knew that, more theatre tickets would be sold in the land and buyers would be better satisfied with their purchases. Of course there’s no way of teaching it, but I’m going to speak to the editor of “The Theatre” and see if he’ll not slip the idea to the so-called general public via the excellent copy he writes for exhibitors to publish in their house organs. ADVERTISING LISTERINE O NE of my confederates came in the other day to tell me what he thought of “Tell It to the Marines” — which I had broken a rule in urging him to see — -and he had plenty to say about William Haines’ use of Listerine in the Pullman scene. I was cold to his protest, perhaps because I had passed over the incident blindly and perhaps because he didn’t agree with me about the merit of the picture, but I warmed up to it last week when the lady in “Orchids and Ermine” gave the same lotion a captional 24-sheet. I got warmer later on when Rolls-Royce showed up for the third or fourth time in the repartee which provides the picture with subtitles, and when Appolinaris followed I think I steamed a bit. My confederate — a pretty important member of the staff — and myself now are one. This advertising gag used to be a pretty hot topic in exhibitor-producer arguments. The exhibitor said it seemed unfair to charge full price for a picture if the national advertisers had financed it; the producer replied that the national advertisers did not kick in with the wherewithal or any part thereof and that use of trademarked articles rather than elaborately nameless substiutions therefor contributes to realism and, therefore, the value of pictures to all concerned. Both arguments being pretty good, and evidence markedly absent, the issue has been dropped by all but a few die-hards. Perhaps it is just as well, since battles of this kind set up antagonisms usually more expensive in the long run than the evils charged, but these facts remain: 1. — Too many 24-sheets in a picture make it a bore. 2. — If they aren’t 24-sheets in fact of due payment — they should be. (Think of the distribution!) 3. — If they are 24-sheets in fact of due payment — the fellow who owns the billboards ought to get a break. 4. — The whole proposition is wet from the standpoint of the public that pays the bills. INCIDENTALLY ^ ' HE best gag of the week was set off by the exhibitor reporting to “What the Picture Did for Me” that his house was so full “you couldn’t cuss the office cat without getting a mouthful of fur.” After breaking into this department last week. Eagle Eye Joe got a shine, a haircut and highhatted the Western Union boy into a pretty good fistfight. Joe won. No doubt the sudden onslaught of Spring in the Temperate Zone is my contributors’ alibi for not contributing this week.