Moving Picture World (Jan-Feb 1927)

104 MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 8, 1927 THE consensus of the forecasts for 1927 indicate a season of unrivalled prosperity in all lines of industry, including the motion picture, but while the expressions of optimism and the expectations of progress from all sides, are practically unanimous, • there may be observed an occasional warning note, that the industry must measure up to its lesponsibilities and opportunities, if it is to reap the full benefit of the promised prosperity, predicted for the rest of the country. OYER-extension in certain directions must be avoided, without a commensurate development in others, or we may find at the end of the year that many expectations have been unrealized. • THE tremendous advances in theatre building and in the technique and number of our big, outstanding productions made in the past two years, will doubtless be kept pace with during 1927, but it also may be noted that in this time the attraction quality of the average program picture has not been greatly improved, although studio and selling costs have considerably increased. • THE number of theatre seats, in proportion to population, is multiplying rapidly, much faster, according to some in a position to know than the number of nezv patrons, although there are no evidences at present of any diminishing interest in the motion picture as the public’s favorite entertainment. as conditions today may be, however, should not lead us to overlook the tact that the prime requisite for a continuance of our present prosperity depends in no small measure upon the ability of the theatres to attract new patrons and to steadily broaden the field of their appeal. • O this end every branch of the industry should concentrate its full showmanly ability, for it is going to be showmanship, and nothing else, which is going to make motion picture history in the coming year. • MORE effort and more careful thought must be expended upon our ordinary, week-in, week-out productions, than .ha,s seemed to be the case in recent seasons, a factor which has ed to a certain standardization and a seeming sameness in story and plot in many instances, that will be directly reflected m the box office intake of the theatre, more and more as time goes on, unless it is corrected. • THERE is no need to worry about the many splendid attractions, the “specials,” the elaborate productions of roadshow quality, of which we see plenty on the Hollywood horizon, for they will doubtless do their part in creating new picture-goers and retaining the old, but the program feature is what the theatre must depend upon to pay its overhead, to keep its old patrons and attract new ones, and it is here that more production gray matter and showmanship must be injected, if satisfactory progress is to be made. by the way Forecasts For 1927 Indicate Year Of Unrivalled Prosperity For Entire Country Wide Public Interest In Motion Pictures Shown By Recent Associated Press Dispatches To Newspapers Concerning Film Activities Film’s Future Progress Largely Contingent Upon Creating New Patrons And Closer Co-operation Between Press And Theatre, Better Program Features And Advertising ATISFACTORY T THE motion picture, with its daily appeal to some 17,000,000 Americans, who pay for their admissions because they enjoy its unique entertainment qualities, is just as staple merchandise, in its way within its peculiar field, as textiles or automobiles are in theirs, but with the added quality of possessing a tremendous public interest in all that pertains to it, which no other industry enjoys in the same degree. HITHERTO, the motion picture has not received the full recognition which is its due among the great industries of the country, the Annual Business Survey of the New York Evening Post, published this week, to cite but one example, nowhere mentioning the motion picture, except perhaps in its statistical tables of the stock and bond markets, while reporting on practically all other industries of the first rank. MORE significant, however, is the fact that on last December 26th, the Associated Press filed to its membership upwards of one thousand words on the manner in which the moving picture stars of the West Coast spent Christmas Day and a few days later, with those of other leaders of finance and industry, the forecast of Mr. Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players-Lasky, on business conditions for the coming year. NEWSPAPERS everywheie published both Associated Press dispatches, not as publicity, but as news of the utmost interest to their readers, and this universal interest in the motion picture and its personalities, might fairly be said to augur that 1927 may well see the film’s greatest development and its fullest recognition to date among the country’s other great industries. T-^JF other essential for continued welfare and develonment is advei tising intelligent, educational, constructive newspaper and trade paper advertising and exploitation, and it is here that great possibilities are often overlooked. • EY ERY individual and company in the motion picture business will not hesitate to admit that the essence of showmanship is m advertising, that the stability and prosperity of the industry, the selling of pictures to the exhibitor and the public, depends quite as much, if not more, on the advertising element, as it does on the entertainment quality of the pictures advertised. • THE farsighted must realize that if this industry is to continue to progress in the future, as it has in the past, it will have to advertise more and more and that a closer and more sympathetic understanding and a more intelligent co-operation must be developed between the theatre and the newspaper everywhere, if. motion picture patrons are to continue to increase in sufficient numbers to assure the industry’s permanent prosperity. AS we view it, the progress and healthy growth of the motion picture during nineteen twenty-seven chiefly depends on showmanship. AND that means how intelligently, constructively, and understandingly it is advertised — first to the exhibitor and then by the exhibitor to the public.