Motion Picture News (Jul-Oct 1915)

September 25, 1915. MOTION PICTURE NEWS 61 Theatre Owners: Keep Step With Tomorrow! By Samuel M. Field, Secretary Mutual Film Corporation Opportunities for the Live-Wire Exhibitor Are Unlimited — The Man Who Is Not Contented with a "Steady Business" and Branches Out in an Enterprising Way Is Bound to Be Successful — Story of the Motion Picture Theatre Owner Who Would Not Stand Still in His Town ARE you running a 500-seat house in a 1,000-seat territory? A lot of motion picture exhibitors are guilty of just that mistake. You may wonder how it would be possible for you to get a bigger house. There is a way. If you have succeeded in a small way there is a way to do it big. The success of today does not insure success for tomorrow unless you keep step with tomorrow. The Mutual Film Corporation is interested in seeing every exhibitor who pins his faith to the new, better, stronger Mutual program make the most of his opportunities for success. You are familiar with the experience of business men in other lines. You have seen the man with the little cigar stand or the little restaurant, long contended with what he called a "steady business" finally put out of business by some enterprising chap who dashed in with a shop that was really designed to serve the needs of the community. The point is that the stranger, being a stranger, came in and saw things with an eye unclouded by familiarity with conditions. He saw the possibilities all fresh and new, not like the man who had walked down the street every morning for years and opened up his little shop to handle every day's business in just the same old way. The same thing is happening in the motion picture business every day. Just as President Freuler remarked in his "message" last week this motion picture business is a rapid-fire business. You have got to grade off the business right as opportunity offers. Every day is a new deal, with new possibilities fresh every morning. Laying a Film Egg Every Day Arthur Brisbane, the great New York editor, once said that the newspaper man was like a hen "because he has to lay a perfectly new egg every day." That is to a considerable degree true of the motion picture exhibitor. You have to stay fresh and young in the game. It means keeping alive. Now no amount of push and effort and advertising and publicity and fine pictures are going to help your business if you haven't the business capacity to handle it. In the exhibition business it means having a show worth seeing and enough seats to handle the people when they want to see it. Patrons are quick to learn and pay attention to the capacity of a house. How often do they say as they get to coffee at the family dinner table, "There's a swell picture at the Empress tonight." And then somebody breaks in with "Yes, but we'll have to stand up outside until the 10 o'clock show." That means that the Empress will lose its business to some other house and probably it also means that somebody with an eye to the main chance will build and give the Empress a hot line of competition right across the street. . Now, as I said in the beginning, there is no reason why an exhibitor confronted with these conditions cannot have a bigger, better theatre and take his rightful share of the business that he has built. It is of his creation and it is up to him to build the machinery to take care of it and take in the profits at the box office. We will take the case of Bill Jones— which isn't his name at all — who operates a motion picture house with a great deal of success in a certain midwestern city. Bill Jones had a lease on a house with 450 seats. He was doing pretty good business and as the word went "didn't have to worry none." But Bill got uneasy. He heard rumors that this fellow and that was talking about putting a big house in the district to make a big splash and go out after all the business. This worried Bill considerably, because he knew conditions well enough to realize that a little competition could do him a lot of harm. He felt his program was all right and he knew he could push his advertising and publicity stunts and get more business, but in his little house he could not handle much more. Seeks Help Where Money Is One day a bright light broke in on him. Why not build that big new house himself? Of course he hesitated some over that. He 'had been doing fairly well, but he hadn't accumulated enough money to finance a big house at all. How was he to do it. He felt sure he could handle it if he only had it. The neighborhood bank occupied his attention for a while. The bank had money. Money was what he needed. He knew that other business men borrowed money on their business. One day he got bold enough to approach the head of the bank — one of the regular patrons of Bill's theatre, by the way. "I've been doing pretty well, so far," he explained. "But I see a chance to do better with a better house. And if I don't do it pretty soon somebody is going to beat me to it. I was wondering if there was anyway you could help me get a better house, one that I could handle the business in? I don't exactly like to go in debt, but I'm pretty sure I can make it pay out." The banker, with considerable money that was "willing to work" on his hands, saw opportunity. He reflected that in the last few years he had always noticed a pretty fair run of business at Bill Jones' theatre, and recalled that he had often wondered just how strong this motion picture business was. Also he knew from his close personal knowledge of the bank's af fairs that Bill Jones had a modest but healthy account. He encouraged the motion picture man to bring his books. The showing that was made there resulted in. the bank's management of a deal that gave: Bill Jones his new house, The Empire, three months later. The Empire is a regular theatre and it seats 1,200 people. Bill Jones is doing business there with a wide smile and a. wonderful consumption of ticket rolls. The formula is very simple. There is. nothing hard to understand about getting; credit. The bank financed the deal and. took Bill Jones' paper because he had demonstrated his ability to run a picture house and make a profit. He had done it with a small house. His business demanded expansion. The bank came in for its normal function of financing business expansion. The bank stood no chance to lose. In the first place it knew Bill Jones for a careful, successful exhibitor. His booksand his history proved the worth of the business. It was a certainty he would pay out. But failing that, he had convinced the banker that the business was there. This being true, since the bank held mortgages on the new house as security, it wasanother certainty that if Bill Jones failed to deliver somebody would be found whocould deliver with that property — since it was established that there was an actual demand for that theatre and its service. Grasps Opportunity. That gave Bill Jones his opportunity. Now he has a big paying house, a long term lease on the site and is rapidly acquiring ownership of the building. There are a dozen ways such situation as his may be worked out. Often an exhibitor looking around for room to grow into can find a real estate owner with idle property eager to improve it with a chance of increased earnings. As, for instance, in a case I know of where an exhibitor with just enough money to pay a year's rent got a house built for him and put up the rent m advance by way of encouraging the owner. In another case an exhibitor leased the bare ground for a long term, borrowed money on his lease and put up a theatre. Another exhibitor had enough money tobuy the ground he needed. By loans on his ground and the new building he was able to borrow enough to put it up. In yet another case an exhibitor was given a deed to the land by the owner. The exhibitoi mortgaged the land for the cost of the theatre building. Then he deeded the land back to the owner, subject, of course, to the mortgage. Then the owner of the land gave a bond for the deed subject to payment of the price of the land and the cost Really it all goes back to the question of whether or not the exhibitor has demonstrated his ability to conduct a show