Boxoffice (Apr-Jun 1961)

Is It Looks To M By KROGER BABB e A Showman' s Views on Me rchandi sing M otior Pictures There're Humor, Variety In Bill Samuel Heralds WANTED: Executive Director, 24 to 40, to sit at desk from 9:00 to 5:00, and watch other people work. Must be willing to play golf every afternoon. Salary $1,000.00 to start. This “want ad” appeared in a recent herald put out by Manager Bill Samuel of the Majestic Theatre in Eastland, Tex., Immediately following the “want ad” was this: “We DON'T really have a job like this — but we thought you would like to see it in print . . . the type of position everyone seems to be seeking. But we do have ENTERtainment ! Come and enjoy two hours of splendid relaxation on a large screen.” Samuel's heralds are four-page 51/2x8 V2inch booklets, with well-balanced layout of illustrations and copy, in color and including personalized messages on one or more pages, sometimes original ad copy. At one time he devoted a wThole page to: “Oh, the 'Irony’ of It All . . . Consider Poor Mom . . . There’s just one way for Pop and the kids to please her. When her household chores pile up until she has no time for leisure . . . Take her out of her humdrum routine . . . Take her to the Majestic.” Three or four more paragraphs were along the same line. Illustrations, of course. No two printings are alike; each herald can be distinctive fitting the season, and the people. Dallas News First With GWTW Color Picture The Dallas Morning News, which claims the distinction of being the first newspaper to run a still on “Gone With the Wind” before it was first released back in 1939, recently published the same still in color. The color still, which appeared in the Sunday issue (4 cols.) of the Morning News just prior to the opening of the reissued GWTW at the Majestic Theatre, is believed in Dallas newspaper and trade circles to be the first time that any reissue has been “honored with color,” and also the first color photo used anywhere on "Gone With the Wind.” Hal Cheathem, publicist for Interstate Theatres who forwarded the above item, also reports Interstate is promoting its annual Academy Award Sweepstakes in cooperation with the Dallas Morning News for the seventh consecutive year. 'King' Stills in Bible An exceptional promotion has been arranged by MGM for a tieup with Consolidated Book Publishers of Chicago, producer of Bibles and other religious publications, in behalf of “King of Kings.” Special editions, illustrated with color stills from the film, are scheduled for issuance to world markets at the time of the picture’s roadshow presentations. Included will be editions designed for children depicting the life of Christ from boyhood. Features Motorama Short Elmer DeWitt, manager at Defiance, Ohio, for Armstrong Theatres, booked the Jam Handy short, “A Touch of Magic,” which deals with the auto industry’s 1961 Motorama. General Motors has a foundry which employs 2,500 persons there. THE LOCAL ADVERTISING efforts of too many theatre managers are dying on dead-center. They just keep spinning their wheels. One of the basic secrets of productive showmanship is to continuously strive to reach and sell the millions who tonight won’t attend theatres. These are quite an assortment of folks. They’re difficult and costly to reach; it’s hard to gain their attention, and they’re naturally tough to sell. Like the coach of a small college team preparing to tackle the big national champion, it’s advisable that you divide the major problem and take on just one segment of it at a time. Then you have a chance to win! — 0 — POSSIBLY ONE OF THE most lucrative, untapped potential theatre audiences tonight are the 4,000,000 or so folks who are downhearted, road-weary or halfway out of their minds from children yacking in their ears, who are stopping at your nearby motels. No salesman sells everybody so let’s assume that half of these away-fromhome, lonely people might answer your invitation to relax at an exciting new movie, as a change of pace from pounding that concrete all day. They’d sleep better, feel more refreshed in the morning, to be sure. — o — AT A RECENT MOTEL OWNERS convention the subject of local theatres came up. About 1 per cent reported a meager tieup with the local theatreman, who put small programs on their registration desks or directory boards in their lobbies. This is like the small college coach telling his 150-pound tackle to smack the AllAmerican 240-pounder in the opposite line, “But don’t bruise him!” Anyone who has ever stopped at a motel overnight knows that he reads or retains very little that he sees in the lobby and cares less about the huge assortment of maps, other motel folders, theatre programs, etc. strung out along the registration desk. If you want to clobber the traveler, get your weekly program into his room. After a refreshing bath, a fuss with the wife and issuing orders to the kids, he lights a cigaret and begins to read anything he can put his hands on in the room’s desk. Motel owners almost unanimously agreed that they would welcome the local theatres’ weekly programs if they were neatly printed in two or more colors, in good taste and free of restaurant and/or bar ads. They calculated that their maids would be happy to keep same on each desk, in each room, daily, for perhaps two passes a week to the shows. Most motels have a maid for each 20 rooms. • — o — THERE ARE OVER 62,000 motels in the U. S. today, or roughly four for every theatre. They have over 2,000,000 rooms and their occupancy hits a national average of over 85 per cent annually. Some are full nightly. They host from one to eight persons to a room, averaging off at 1.9, their figure experts say. Of course, there are hundreds of back-streeters, secondary highway ones and resort units that aren’t -r calculated in the association’s national Y lists. If theatremen for one year would make a concentrated effort on reaching these prospective patrons-on-wheels it could pay off handsomely. If 50 per cent of our motels’ nightly guests could be sold to drive over to your theatre and relax and rest while enjoying a good show, it could mean a new 2,000,000 admissions nightly. Multiply this by 366 nights (this year) and here is a potential 672,000,000 moviegoers to add to our 1961 totals. If their admissions averaged 75 cents it would be a cool half-billion dollars of extra boxoffice revenue. So what if it did cost a staggering $100,000,000 to win them to your boxoffices, so what! But it wouldn't, as you know ! — o — MOTEL MEN AREN’T the worst people to know, either. They’re pretty sharp. It started out about when, or before you were born. Some farmer built a few sheds with beds back on a hillside. He ran a concession business, too; he sold whisky and Bibles. At the end of his first year he had sold $1,200 worth of moonshine and $2 worth of Bibles. Out of this operation grew a wonderful public-service idea. In 1925, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., the Milestone Mo-Tel opened to the public. It fascinated travelers and tourists alike. It got much publicity. It was simply a polishjob of the original idea along the Santa Fe trail where Jack Morrow and his wife had built the “outhouses” that they profitably rented to countless Mr. and Mrs. Joe Smiths. The Milestone Mo-Tel attracted so much attention, enjoyed such fine patronage and won such praise from the traveling public, that it has been duplicated and improved upon ever since. Today, million-dollar motels are as common as plum limousines. — o — RATES RANGE FROM $2.50 to $50 per day, per room. A bed’s a bed, yet it’s the trimmings that go with it! Like your pictures, perhaps. Some theatremen can’t attract a crowd at 10 cents, yet other boxoffices twirl at $2.50. Same show, a bit newer. Motel owners in 1961 will take in over $20,000,000 on certain nights — billions during the year. Actually, they’re not bad people to know! Why don’t you get acquainted with your motel men, see them once a week and drop off a bundle of programs and a few passes? Guardsmen Mop Walk Two hours before the late-show opening of “G.I. Blues” at Villa Heights Theatre in Statesville, N. C., the National Guard unit arrived with buckets and mops and scoured the sidewalk in front right up till past showtime. Don Coffey, manager, also had jj an enlistment display in a prominent spot out front. On Sunday the Guardsmen took up tickets, and on Monday the whole unit in uniform marched to the theatre for a free show instead of their regular drill. 4 — 80 — BOXOFFICE Showmandiser :: May 15, 1961