Boxoffice (Apr-Jun 1937)

PROVIDENCE APPARENTLY discouraged in its battle against Demon Rum the WCTU in Rhode Island has decided to bend its efforts along other lines. At the annual meeting of the state units of the organization held here April 2, largest gathering of the White Ribboners in years, resolutions were passed condemning gambling and its licensing in any form, expanded budgets for military forces and compulsory military training in schools and colleges. Also — and this of interest to theatre men— a resolution requesting an early hearing and consideration of bills now in Congress regulating motion pictures “to protect our children and youth, as well as our own good name abroad against the low moral character of movies detrimental to the best training of home, school and church.” RKO-Albee is displaying in its inner lobby samples of new upholstered seats such as will shortly be installed in the house. Police have found no clues to date on the safe-cracking job done at the Union Theatre, Attlesboro, last month. Manager Albert McEvoy, to spur action on the case, came out with a $50 reward offer April 1, but it’s an on-the-level offer, not an April Fool stunt. Ted Rosenblatt has just installed two projection machines and within a few days work will start on an air-conditioning system for his Community Theatre in Centredale. Fays has an all-colored revue on its stage this week which judging from opening day and weekend business is likely to hang up a house record. Bailey Set to Build New Haven — Maurice Bailey has set up a large sign on his recently-acquired Westville property, at the corner of Blake and Whalley, announcing the plot as the site of the new Westville Theatre, and advertising stores for rent. Plans have been drawn, and it is reported construction will proceed at once. More "Earth'' Dates New York — Announcement of 19 additional roadshow bookings for “The Good Earth” brings the total two-a-day dates for the film to 60. The new dates, extending from April 7 to May 4, cover theatres in California, Arizona, Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Canada. Fanless "Fanner" Not Dancer, Either Hollywood — 20th-Fox announces that June Brewster will play the role of a fan dancer in “Escape From Love,” with the exception that she will not use fans, nor will she do a fan dance in the picture. Otherwise, she will be a fan dancer. EDUCATOR ADVOCATES SOUND MOTION FILMS New York — “There is a great deal of truth in the old Chinese proverb that ‘one picture is worth a thousand words,’ ” said Dr. H. A. Gray, research associate, Erpi Picture Consultants, in advocating the application of modern teaching aids, particularly educational sound motion pictures, in an address to the students of the New York University motion picture course last week. He said that sound films, knowing no geographic or political boundaries, can “bring the world, so to speak, to the individual learner.” The wealthiest of colleges and universities are restricted in the number of learning experiences they can provide by the cost and space requirements of necessary faculty, apparatus and supplies, according to Dr. Gray. “Obviously the sound film can transcend these difficulties and make available to all students the facilities of the world’s outstanding scholars, finest laboratories and the most advanced scientific thought,” he said, and “this can be done for a relatively small pittance when compared to the tremendous investments in human and material resources involved in the whole.” NEW HAVEN (Continued from page 52) Bridgeport, add Jack of the West End on the expectant daddy list ... At the Lamperts in Taftville the third baby is a boy. Earl Wright says she was no lady . . . the one who with unsteady eye steered right into his fenders last week. And she bawled him out! Jay MacFarland, in town this week in the interests of National Screen Service. Loew’s College Theatre reinstates a Saturday Kiddie Revue from the stage of the house, beginning Saturday at 1:00 p. m. The revue will be conducted by James Milne, studio manager of WELI, and will be broadcast over this station regularly as the Poli Kiddie Revue. I. J. Hoffman is in the New York office substituting for Joseph Bernhard, president and general manager of Warner Theatre operations during the latter’s absence of a month in Europe. DECORATING JOB TO FIORI New London, Conn. — Vincent Fieri will redecorate the Lyceum Theatre, old legit house which has been acquired by Lou Anger of Bridgeport and Sal Adorno of Middletown. Fieri works through Modern Theatre Equipment. WORCESTER DISTRIBUTING MOVIEGOER Worcester — Loew’s Poli here has been added to the list of Loew-Poli houses now distributing the Loew’s Moviegoer. Hartford and Waterbury will use the publication at a later date. Babies Boom Business (Continued from page 48) we have sold more papers because of it. I hope you will continue to make the Baby Contest an annual affair for many years to come ...” And why not? “It’s tremendous,” one M. & P. remarked conservatively, speaking of ballyhoo’s trend toward capitalizing upon infancy. “Some people are already preparing to have babies next year in order to enter them in our contests.” The angles on this stunt are many and variable. It's the lact that the rejuvenated model of the old biz is clicking so strongly in New England that it's startling. M. & P. is preparing to inaugurate it in other spots. History is being written with baby carriage wheels. A baby contest may be a beauty contest, with the populace voting by numbers for unnamed pictures and therefore saving losing parents possible embarrassment, or it can be a regular popularity race. How Scheme Works The scheme, briefly, is to tie in merchants and a daily newspaper, the theatre having the final say on any problems that may arise. The merchants come in on a prorated basis, each one paying his share of the newspaper ads, theatre trailer, heralds, newspaper cuts, ballots, and each donating a prize. Tieups are fundamental. A furniture store, for instance, wants to sell cribs and the like. A drug store has a message of medicines. Even an ice company is a natural, the gag being that, inasmuch as ice keeps food fresh, health rides with the iceman. A photographer should be simple to obtain, both because of advertising possibilities and of the chances he has of selling extra pix to fond parents of hopeful offspring. As for the ballots, each adult theatre ticket should be accompanied by a ballot good for one vote. This will mean that many parents attending the theatre with their progeny will go for the higher price in order to get another vote. Each edition of the cooperating newspaper should carry a one-vote ballot. Other ballots, for 10 or 20 or so votes according to the amount of the individual purchase, will come from merchants. The various 10 or 20 vote ballots, etc., should be printed on different colored paper in order to facilitate counting. Special triple-vote days will build up theatre intakes on the weaker days of the week. Strategically situated ballot boxes, located only at the theatre, will bring the public into lobbies, as heralds, stuffed in bundles of everything from diapers to radio tubes, will bring the contest into potential patrons' very homes. There are angles to this thing, as Manager Barney Dobrans of the Crown in New London observed in making his report to the home office. “Our lobbies have been mobbed daily with doting mothers and admiring friends who have come to witness the display of babies we have set up,” Barney wrote. Picture displays will probably do, too. 54 BOXOFFICE :: April 10, 1937,