Motion Picture News (Jan - Mar 1914)

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[6 THE M< >TI< »N PICTURE NEWS Novel Campaign Planned Universal Aims to Educate Public Admissions Will Be Paid AN AT [ONAL campaign, in which every progressive exhibitor in the United Stan-, will be inter, 3ted, to win for the motion pictures the same patronage which the legitimate theatres now enjoy, will shortly be undertaken by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, in connection with the release of their six-reel film masterpiece, •'Samson and Delilah." The object of the campaign is the education of the photoplay public up to the point where it will be willing to pay a twenty-five-cent admission fee for rial.., rate and costly productions such as "Samson and Delilah. To bring this about the picture will not be released to any exhibitor who will not consent to raise the price at his theatre to twenty-rive cents while •'Samson and Delilah" is being shown. \.s an aid to the exhibitor, a lively publicity campaign will be waged in the daily papers of every large city in the United States for weeks before the picture is ready for the public, so thai curiosity will be whetted until the increased price of admission can have no possible effect in abating the general demand for the drama. IT is only with such lavish and imposing production- as "Samson and Delilah" that the motion picture producer can hope to bid successfully the patronagi oi wealth and so. which now finds its entertainment exclusively in legitimate theaand the opera houses oi the nation This fact is fully realized by Carl I aemmle, the president of the Universal, and to make a direct appeal to this hitherto inaccessible class is one oi his motives in the campaign. At the same nine. \i r I aemmle and his publicity manager. Joe Brandt, who is carrying out the details of the program, feel it necessary to make the public realize that the present scale oi prices, with their consequent narrow margin of profit, make it impossible for the producer to meet the expen -< oi Midi a production, > ••.■ i pi at rare intervals With the twenty-five-cenl rate prevailing, the radius of the picture's appeal will be vastlj widened, and the w hole standard o creen-dt amas will be inc> itablj rai si '1 Finer productions, more magnificent than ever, will become the rule instead "I the exceptii n and i \ i i > ■ me connected « ith the motion picture industry will be bi im tited then bj W.QAMSON AND DELILAH" will be ■d* ready for release in about eight to Point Where Twenty-five Cent for Superior Productions weeks. Fifteen hundred people participated in the scene in the Temple of Dagon, the Philistine god, which the blind Samson pulls down about the heads of the heathen revelers. This is the largest and costliest interior setting ever constructed by a motion picture company in the United Stales. J. Warren Kerrigan appears in the role of Samson, with his sister, Katherine Kerrigan, as the pagan temptress. The scenario for the production was written by James Dayton, scenario editor of the Universal Pacific Coast studios, after months of research into, and study of. Biblical lore; into the life and habits of the Jewish people. Mr. Dayton has aimed to render every detail historically correct, and the somewhat disjointed incidents of Samson's life, as related in the Book of Judges, have been carefully and logically joined into a story of compelling interest N. Y. THEATRE LEASED BY MORRIS The New York Theatre, FortyFourth and Forty-fifth streets and I '.roadway, New York City, has been leased by William Morris to the Anglo-American Film Corporation. it will continue to lie operated as a motion picture theatre, under the name of The Kinen i The Kinema opens on February 23 with a feature production of "The Three Musketeers," taken from Alexander Dumas' famous novel. The theatre will be run on lines similar to the New Gallery Kinema. of London, where i he finest European productions i regularly presented The London Kinema is said to include many of the most distinguished members of British society in its clientele, and an endeavor wil be made to obtain a corresponding patronage here for the New York Kinema. BRADY AT ECLAIR The Eclair studios at Fort Lee, New Jersey, had the honor of entertaining recently some distinguished guests in the persons of the famous theatrical power, William V Brady; Mr. Miller of the Shubert forces, and Edward S. Curtis, tilt author of a wonderfully interesting treatise, entitled "The North American Indian." The visitors were shown through the studios and factory, and watched with great interest the taking of a scene in a forthcoming Eclair release, entitled "The Kangaroo." a six-reel feature TWO BROADWAY HOUSES FOR MUTUAL following the opening of the Vitagraph Theatre at Forty-fourth street and Broadway. New York City, the Mutual Film Corporation has obtained an outlet on the Great White Way through a ten-weeks' contract for the booking rights at Weber's Theatre, and a similar arrangement with the old Metropolitan Skating Rink, at Broadway and Fifty-second street, which is shortly to be opened as a motion picture playhouse. Both these transactions have been made through the Continental Feature film Corporation, which books and distributes the feature productions of the Mutual. A frank bid will be made for society patronage at both Weber's and the Rink. Private boxes will be installed at the latter theatre, as well as other features designed to give the house a claim to rank in appointments with the "legitimate'' playhouses along Bri ladway. The arrangement with Weber's, as has been noted, is upon a ten-weeks' basis, with tin possibility of indefinite renewal In the case of the old skating-rink, the arrangement is a permanent one. One of the features ,,f the reconstructed building will be a large pipeorgan. Another will be a carriage entrance leading n> the boxes. The first Continental booking at the Kink, which will be ready within four or five weeks, will be "Dope." a feature drama, by Herman l.ieb. with l.ieb. Laura Nelson Hall, Ernest Truax, Christine Blessing. William H. Tooker, and Gaston Marvale in the cast. \t Weber's, th< opening production will be "The Gangsters," featuring II. B. Walthall and Consuelo Bailey. This will be succeeded by "The Battle ot the Sexes," a phfotoplaj by Daniel ('arson Goodman, author of "Hagar Revelly " FILM PASSES CENSORS Frank C. Wolfe, manager of the Chicago offices of the PanAmerican film Company, has succeeded in passui'-; the five-reel feature entitled "From Dusk to Dawn." with the Chicago, Board of Censorship, without having one foot of film clipped from the picture. i Mi account of the class question involved, and the amount of strikes now active in Chicago, there was considerable controversy over permitting the picture to pass, but after three gatherings ,,f the Censor Board it finally secured an unanimous \ote. Ibis picture contains the first scenes of violence that have passed the Censor Board of Chicago since L907.