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40 MOTION PICTURE THEATER MANAGEMENT
the stage. Animated by the spirit of one merely out for an interval of diversion, he adds his own conscious, active inspection along the lines of what he knows to be the best. Whereas the patron drifts to a seat before the screen, urged by an unanalyzed mood of excursion, the manager dissects and notes with every ounce of judgment he can bring to bear. This is no guesswork. It is brain work and the moment a manager deteriorates into a poor judge of the public's desires, he ceases to belong to this business. The moment he finds himself waiting for the competitor to show him what to do, instead of going him one better or showing him the way, he has fallen behind the march of the times and dropped back to a rear rank in a parade that is always moving ahead of him.
If the foregoing objectives are to be summed up in one expression rather than in any other, they are to be put best in the two words, Good Will. No theater can be successful without good will. Very few institutions are so sensitive to public good will as is the motion picture theater. The entire staff, from the manager down to the porter, must have an instinct for hospitality. Each constitutes an important part that makes the whole staff one perfect host. The ideal service should be as unobtrusive as it is kindly, permitting the well-behaved patron to make use of the theater undictated. It is not good hospitality to direct or drive the patron in a direction opposite to the one he wishes to take. In some theaters the idea of service is carried to an extreme because of the so-called military training of the staff. The result is a stiff and artificial machine that gives the attaches an uninviting manner. Perhaps it is impressive. But do patrons come to be impressed, or to have an enjoyable time? Is it not the recollection of that enjoyable time that brings them back again and again?
A public mint and a picture theater both make money; but the former manufactures it, and the latter earns it. That's the only difference, but it's all the difference in the world. No manager has a right to think that he has raw material and that he is going to turn it into dollars by machine methods. He has to win his public and hold it. Let him get them to come, to come in crowds and repeatedly. But the electromagnet of