Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1948)

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<±An international association of showmen meeting weekly in MOTION PICTURE HERALD for mutual aid and progress WALTER BROOKS, Director QP J-IDITOR & PUBLISHER, in a page ri story commenting on a newspaper * * promotion called "Youth Talent," goes a long way down the same trail that motion picture theatres have followed in the development of "Youth Month." It is good to see similar ideas at work in so closely related a field as your neighborly newspaper. Federated Publications, operating the State Journal in Lansing, Michigan ; the Herald in Grand Rapids, and the News in Battle Creek, have issued a 16-page booklet which explains their "Youth" project and its organization and promotion in detail. "If newspaper promotion people are as alert to good opportunities as we think they are," says this newspaper trade journal, "you ought to have this booklet in your idea file." The demonstration cited began three years ago in Gary, Indiana, where high school groups commented that the only time they got their names in the paper was when they did something bad. The shot struck home, and now the newspaper plan to recognize "Youth Talent" will rival the justly famous and well established "Junior Achievement" as a constructive force in community relations. Reporting on the project before the Inland Daily Press Association convention, Federated's promotion manager said, "We sought the positive approach. We avoided like poison the expression 'juvenile delinquency' and we never mentioned character building. We told young people the world wanted to see the things of which they were proud, and we were right. We threw commercialism out the window . . . and the enhanced acceptances in our communities have repaid us many times over." Lesson to be learned by managers, from this story and the experience with "Youth Month" generally, is that scores of cooperative and participating groups, including your newspaper, stand ready and waiting to help with anything so beneficial to the community as youth effort. Don't let the project originate elsewhere ; make sure that youth pro STUDY GUIDE The Motion Picture Association's "Study Guide" on "Red River" is not only a good piece of sales literature for the United Artists picture, but also an argument for all westerns as entertainment purchaseable at your theatre. This "Study Guide" is purely a study of what makes the horse operas click at the box office. It is attractively done in 32 pages of gravure printing and should be available as business building literature, for the widespread and general use of theatre managers. Unjted Artists and the M.P.A. have shared the cost of 200,000 copies, distributed to editors, schools, women's clubs, civic groups, etc., throughout the country. The edition has been exhausted, we are told, and, if you want to see a copy, you can visit your library or we will show you our file copy privately. It seems to us that a book, as well gotten up, could have been provided on a basis that would have been self-liquidating, for the benefit of any theatre, at the point-of-sale, rather than as a flank attack, without contact through the local theatre manager, who might be able to find a profitable use for such an issue himself. Most theatres could afford to buy 100 or 1,000 copies of a booklet that so carefully sells the idea of enjoying western movies. grams start with your theatre, then you'll have all these groups and forces at work for you in the long range scheme of building community relations. The manager must be a leader if his theatre is to take and hold its place along Main Street. Youth programs are great door-openers, with city officials, civic organizations, school authorities, church groups, hard-boiled newspaper editors, hardto-get patrons and believers in motion pictures as the best kind of entertainment. £1 Nyman Kessler, advertising manager ^1 for Leo Brecher theatres in New York City, sends in samples of the offset programs issued by the Odeon and Roosevelt theatres of that metropolitan chain. Proof that managers with access to photo offset processes can produce art results without benefit of engravers or artists. The only skill required is showmanship and a pair of shears, to cut out the things you need from pressbook or elsewhere and paste them up. Almost any sizeable town has photo offset available, or should have. And photo engravers are limited to large cities — in fact, in plenty of states, you can count the photo engraving houses on your fingers. CSam Torgan and Frank Boyle, at the RKO Keith's theatre, Lowell, Mass., get out an interesting herald, "Your Preview of the Paradine Case," using pressbook publicity mats in sequence to tell the story. We don't know to what extent this was provided, intact, but we are sure that publicity mats are seldom available with any sequence possible, so this can't be copied as an idea, unless and until the material is in the pressbook virtually ready for use. So a good idea is referred back to the pressbook makers, who hold the key to this particular opportunity. ft Gertrude L. Tracy, manager of the J Parma theatre, Parma, Ohio, is another who has dressed up her publicity readers instead of merely clipping them straight out of the pressbook. She now has a by-line column, "Parma Theatre Notes" ' in the Parma Post. That's a lot better policy, for it gives the stuff a local appeal and a bit of personality. More apt to be appreciated, and believed, over the manager's own signature. Walter Brooks MOTION PICTURE HERALD, NOVEMBER 6, 1948 35