Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1963)

I • ADLINES & EXPLOITIPS • ALPHABETICAL INDEX • EXHIBITOR HAS HIS SAY • FEATURE RELEASE CHART • FEATURE REVIEW DIGEST • SHORTS RELEASE CHART • SHORT SUBJECT REVIEWS U • REVIEWS OF FEATURES • SHOWMANDISING IDEAS I T HE GUIDE TO vvV BETTER BOOKING AND B U S I N E S S B U I L D I N G Trailer Is Featured At Dime Peep Show! Birdie' Fan Club of 100 Girls Works Great for Four Weekends, Costs Little A hastily organized "Bye Bye Birdie" Fan Club performed four weeks of stellar promotion for the opening of the film at the New Theatre in Baltimore. Peter Stewart says it cost very little, mostly time and effort. PEEP SHOW — See the most amazing 3 minutes ot film ever screened. Admission just 10c at 11:05, 1:15, 3.25, 5:30, 7:40, 9:45. This box insert appeared in the current attraction ad of the Stanton Theatre at Baltimore. The ad itself was for “Come Blow Your Horn,” but the insert was not. The dime “Peep Show” featured the trailer screens from “Women of the World.” John Bishop, manager of the Stanton, explains: “For a long time it was ‘Movies Are Getting Better Than Ever.’ Now in this age of condensed novels, abridged books. See Europe in Seven Days, etc., it’s the previews that are getting better than ever.” Bishop was so impressed by the “Women of the World” trailer that he arranged t:> admit patrons to the Stanton for ten cents just to see it. Patrons are seated in a special section of the theatre and once the preview scenes are over, they can leave at once without disturbing the regular patrons. The picture itself will not be shown at the Stanton, but at the New Theatre. The “Women of the World” peep show started August 12, a month before its opening at the New. A “Bye Bye Birdie” Fan Club, organized four weeks in advance, worked great as a kickoff promotion for the showing at the New Theatre in Baltimore, managed by Pete Stewart. And it’s a stunt that involves very little cost. The club, numbering 100 enthusiastic teenage girls, was gotten together with the help of a radio station and an attractive list of prizes. The station broadcast that the first 100 girls calling the theatre would receive free passes to the downtown JF circuit theatres for four straight weeks and many valuable prizes. For four weekends, Stewart had the girls and their guests, each with signs and placards reading, “Bye Bye Birdie, We Love You! . . . Come Along With Us to the New Theatre,” parade through downtown. Once inside the theatres — JF operates the Charles, Mayfair Stanton and New in Baltimore — the girls would raise all sorts of merriment when the “Bye Bye Birdie” trailers were being shown. Finally on opening day, the entire club assembled at the Stanton and made a two-hour march through downtown, winding their way all over the area, to the New. Following them was a soundtruck which played the “Bye Bye Birdie” song, “We Love You Conrad.” “This part really worked great because it looked exactly like the girls themselves were singing,” Stewart reports. “All in all, it was a good promotion and caused a lot of talk. The RCA Victor distributor furnished us with 100 records as prizes for the girls, while Hochchild-Kohn Co. gave us a wardrobe for the lucky grand prize winner, and Luskins donated a ladies watch for the runnerup, all chosen by drawing lots. “All it really cost us was a little time and effort. The girls, in addition to going through all the street ballyhoo and putting on the in-theatre merriment on the weekends before opening, also distributed some 10,000, 4x4-inch “Bye Bye Birdie” stickers for us, posting them all over the city and suburbs.” Sun Gazers Warned Alert staffers in the advertising department of Tri-States Theatres at Des Moines heard eye people and astronomers caution against eye damage and even blindness to persons who viewed the midsummer eclipse by peeking at the dimmed sun. So TriStates ads on the morning of the July 20 eclipse had this header: “MOM . . . DAD . . . KIDS ! ... Go Out to a Movie This Afternoon . . . Protect Your Eyes . . . DO NOT Watch the Eclipse of the Sun!” Ballyhoo for 'Party' On opening day of “Beach Party” at the Waco (Tex.) Theatre, two girls in bathing suits walked the downtown area carrying a valise and towels. Copy on the valise read, “We’re on our way to BEACH PARTY . . . Waco Theatre . . . Midnight Show Tonight.” Publicist on Radio, TV For Reissue Twin Bill Morrie Steinman, MGM publicist, personally took to the radio and television to get in some plugs for the reissue combo of “The Great Caruso” and “Showboat” at Atlanta. He appeared on the WSB Bob Van Camp Key Word program, WAOK’s Zenas Sears show and on the WAII and WSB television stations, recounting some of the interesting exploits during his quarter of a century in the press-agentry business. Occasionally he got in mention of the reissue double bill, which opened at Loew’s Grand in Atlanta. A Caruso’s restaurant was renamed “The Great Caruso” for the week’s run, and it served a special Mario Lanza dish. Steinman also had tieups with the Little Italy and other Italian bistros in the city. Sam Wallace of the RCA Victor Distribution Co. and Bill Brinkley of the Southland MGM record distributing firm helped in a saturation coverage of record shop windows, shopping centers and department stores. Patron Artists Compete John Scanlon arranged a “Patron Artists” contest in the lobby as a promotion of “PT 109.” BOXOFFICE Showmandiser :: Oct. 7, 1963 — 157 — 1