Exhibitors Herald (1927)

April 2, 1927 EXHIBITORS HERALD 47 1 THE THEATRE O^yiJDepartment of Practical Showmanship i i _1 Press Book Is Mayer’s Topic And What He Says Is At Least a Mouthful By JOE H. MAYER (Advertising Manager, Palace Theatre, Hamilton, Ohio) ^‘Send it down for screening — I’ll look at it.” The theatre manager in a town of forty thousand thus answered a film salesman who, for the better part of an hour, had been enthusing about a picture he wanted to sell. The manager had politely and patiently listened, and when the salesman stopped to get his breath the manager offered to screen the picture. At this reply the salesman seemed offended. “Why screen it?” he asked, in a tone that plainly showed his irritation. “I’ve told you all about it, and you can take my word for it. This is the biggest hit of the season.” The manager walked to a filing cabinet and took out half a dozen press sheets on half a dozen pictures he had under contract. He picked out the first six he came to. “There,” he replied, “are the six greatest pictures ever made, and if you don’t believe it. I’ll show you some more, which are also the greatest ever made.” “The facts are, every picture we play in this theatre is the best ever made. If you doubt that. I’ll show you some more press sheets and trade paper advertisements to prove it.” The salesman hesitated. The press sheet on the picture he was trying to sell was just like all the others — “the season’s greatest romantic production,” was the glowing description on the front page. “All right. I’ll send it down,” was about all he could say. ❖ ❖ ❖ Why is it necessary thus, i£ necessary at all? When exhibitors are told, week in and week out, year in and year out, that such and so is “cleaning up,” when the exhibitor knows for a certainty that many of the socalled “best bets” are positive duds, I ask you, how can he have faith in anything a salesman tells him, or believe what he sees in a press sheet? The intent of this yarn is to discuss the verbiage of press sheets and not enter into a discussion of selling representations made by producers and their salesmen. To cover that subject with anything like adequate consideration would require a volume. The old cry, “You don’t exploit them,” is always hurled at an exhibitor when he fails to break house NOTE: Ye Ed of this department being perhaps the only journalist in the picture business zvho has not written so much as a line of a press book in all his many and indispensable years of sendee to the industry, he is free of heart and mind as he turns over the microphone to the equally outspoken gentleman whose signature appears below and extends to all and sundry readers the same wide open rebuttal rights which he proffers token he speaks in the first person. — Ye Ed. records with a picture that is entitled to do only average business. On this subject, I might say that all the exploitation in the world will not put a picture over, if the picture itself is not there. Ask any exploiter, and he will tell you that the best he can hope for with the most extensive advertising campaign is to get an opening. If the picture is good, those who saw it the first day will go out and do the advertising. If the picture is poor, they will also do some advertising, and a page ad cannot counteract the effects of a hundred people telling the truth. You just can’t put over a bum picture. (Ask Harry Reichenbach.) :!= * Mr. Shakespeare wrote some interesting copy in his day, and got by pretty well without using all the superlatives in the language. Had he been acting as press agent for a picture concern, he no doubt would have been told that his stuff lacked “box office” value and that he would have to inject more snap and pep into his copy or there would be a new boy in his place the following morning. Just what started picture advertising writers to use nothing but superlatives in their copy is a question which some research hound should take up. (Page Bert Adler.) Since the industry is young, it is possible that the original perpetrator of this crime might be living and, if found, he should be punished in a measure commensurate with his offense. I would suggest that a suitable penance would be the reading of a dozen press sheets issued by any twelve picture distributors. Should he emerge a sane person from this ordeal, he automatically becomes a candidate for the Carnegie medal. Has there ever been a picture released in the last five years that was not the greatest ever made? It is either, “The Most Glorious of All Screen Romances,” “The Season’s Greatest Comedy Success,” “Mightiest of All Thrillers,” or if a particular star is featured it is “His Biggest and Best.” Supply your own additions to these classifications, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Adjectives piled on adjectives, sesquipedalian superlatives heaped upon each other in all fonts of type from 8 point light face Cheltenham to 48 point Gothic Bold, shriek at you the moment you open a press sheet. ❖ ^ Before me is the press sheet on a picture which, having previewed, I can say will do a fair, average business. By that is meant sufficient business to jus