Boxoffice (Jan-Mar 1962)

Movie Jingle Platters Set for Distribution Al Boudouris Offers Plan Whereby: Industry Can Attain New Heights Of Progress for All Branches NEW YORK — Si Seadler’s jingle, “Go Out to the Movies Tonight,” on 45 RPM platters has been sent to 1,500 key radio stations throughout the country. Seadler, eastern advertising manager of Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, said that starting on February 26, a percentage of each overall cooperative advertising budget with theatres will have a radio campaign consisting of a ten-second spot devoted to a given picture preceded by the ten-second radio jingle. He said exhibitors may use the jingle in other ways, combining it with their regular radio programs. Seadler said that all of the major distributing companies, with the exception of Allied Artists, were joining in an industrywide radio campaign to stimulate the habit of going out to a theatre. The ten-second radio jingle was processed at cost by MGM Records and is being handled gratis by National Screen Service. Exhibitors who wish to participate in the campaign on a station where the platter has not been received may obtain them through National Screen’s Central Distribution Center, 601 W. 26th St., New York 1. Company field men will have samples of the platter to play for exhibitors when discussing a co-op radio campaign. Pa. Exhibitors Organize New TOA Affiliate PHILADELPHIA — A new organization, Theatre Owners of Pennsylvania, has been formed here and has affiliated with Theatre Owners of America. The unit is TOA’s first in Pennsylvania although there have been individual members in the Keystone state for many years. It also is the 28th state and regional unit affiliated with the national organization. Exhibitors representing 200 Pennsylvania theatres, including both circuits and independents, met in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel to organize the unit on February 19. David E. Milgram, head of Milgram Theatres, was elected president and Thomas F. Friday, head of Comerford Theatres of Scranton, was elected chairman of the board of directors. Both have been members of TOA’s executive committee for several years. John H. Stembler, TOA president, hailed the new unit as one which brought to TOA one of the few remaining exchange areas which had not been represented by a national trade association. Milgram said that TOP would hold its first general meeting in Philadelphia on April 16 when Stembler and other industry leaders would be among the speakers. Claude Schlanger of Schlanger Theatres, Doylestown, was elected vice-president; Norman Silverman of Silverman Theatres, Philadelphia, secretary, and Martin Ellis of A. M. Ellis Theatres, Philadelphia, treasurer. The officers plus Jack Greenberg and Frank Damis will complete the executive committee. Nathan Feinstein, an attorney, will be executive secretary of the new unit. Max Korr of Allentown was elected chairman of the membership committee and Milgram was designated the unit’s representative on TOA’s board of directors. TOLEDO — The establishment of a central, industrywide library and statistical organization, where information can be assembled, audited and analyzed and the results made available to all segments of the motion picture industry was among the concrete suggestions made by Al Boudouris, president of Eprad, Inc., before the Theatre Equipment Dealers Ass’n session held in Chicago recently. This organization would study motivation, analyze the results of motion pictures by type, analyze advertising, picture titles and picture content. FOR PROPER ATMOSPHERE Boudouris asserted that “the industry’s failure is in providing the proper atmosphere at a location that is convenient, properly adapted to our present mode of travel, and in providing movies that stir and interest people in sufficient quantity at a reasonable percentage to the exhibitor.” “If the film producers would produce two to three times as many pictures as they do today and offer them at reasonable percentages,” he said, “the industry gross boxoffice would increase not by two or three times but by ten times. Nothing succeeds like success.” He predicted that under these conditions the next five years would bring construction of approximately 5,000 new indoor and 2,000 new drive-in theatres, on top of refurbishing and re-equipping with modern equipment of about 25,000 indoor theatres and 1,000 drive-ins worldwide. “This, coupled with proper admission price increases,” he continued, “would again make the motion picture industry one of the world’s greatest businesses. In the next ten years, more people will make fortunes in our industry than in all the previous years of our existence.” He called for re-establishment of confidence by lending institutions to open new funds for industry needs. To do this, he said, the industry must show profits, which must come through more, well -located modern theatres. “It is difficult,” he said, “even for a successful producer of films, to raise money if the bankers know that the producer’s customers are failing.” PLEADS FOR COOPERATION In a plea for cooperation between all branches of the industry, Boudouris pointed out that exhibition accounts for 94 per cent of the total industry investment, adding that “no segment of this business, whether it be producer, distributor, or what, can be great and successful, unless the largest (and most necessary) group can again be profitable and rich. If these people do not succeed,” he said, “we, all of us in the motion picture industry, will fail.” Enlightened, aggressive young people are needed in every branch of the industry, Boudouris said, to work cooperatively for the common good, and it is equally necessary that the various branches of the in dustry define their problems, their scope and boundaries. “We need more respected, unselfish, courageous leaders who have faith,” he continued. “Not men who just give lip-service, who are ‘running’ away, who made their money out of the motion picture industry and put it back in everything else but the thing that once gave them their great opportunity, wealth and power.” Fortunately, he added, some new men with vision, integrity and means are emerging in the industry. “We need more pictures in color, more pictures with magnetic stereosound, more 70mm prints,” he said. “We need to use the technological advances we now have, especially since the public is so tremendously interested in hi-fi, stereosound in their homes.” The exhibitor, Boudouris said, is a “retailer,” who buys at wholesale and sells at retail. “His job is to buy the best merchandise available at the lowest price possible, advertise and promote it effectively, package it attractively and sell it to the most people at the highest price possible. “In these efforts, he should be helped by his manufacturers, just as all successful industries do. Naturally, the interests of these people are in conflict. Here, then, is our trouble today, here is where our industry has failed miserably. These people — the retailers and the producers and distributors— refuse to work together for the common good.” The only answer, he concluded, is cooperation— between exhibitors themselves and between exhibitors and the other branches of the industry. Ten Theatres Affiliate With Allied of Illinois DETROIT — In line with Allied regional organizations reporting substantial increases in membership since the national convention in December, Jack Clark, president of Allied Theatres of Illinois, announces that the following new members recently joined the Illinois Allied unit: The Cascade Drive-In (Milt Levy, Bill Charuhas, Bill Galligan), Oak Theatre ( Harold Huchberger and Isadore Kamode > , Lake Shore Theatre < Dan Quinn), Golf Mill Theatre (Mort Find and Ben Stein), Grand Theatre Trying Franklin), Essex Theatre (August H. May), all of Chicago; Auburn Theatre (J. Albert Johnson) and Crest Theatre (James Torgerson), Rockford); Park Theatre (J. Albert Johnson), Loves Park. An unusual new member of Allied Theatres in Illinois is the Transfiguration Parish which owns the Elm Theatre in Wauconda. The theatre was recently purchased to relieve over-crowding of the adjoining church and school facilities. The church continues to operate the theatre evenings and weekends with bookings and other matters being handled by the Allied office. BOXOFFICE :: February 26, 1962 11