Exhibitor's Trade Review (May-Aug 1925)

May 30, 1925 Page 21 ■mm ii ii i minimi mmiii mi iiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmimiiniimm iiiiiuiihiimmiii i hum iiiiimi i mini EiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiM Keep Cool and Calculate HE LITERATURE of modern business is filled to overflowing with advice on selling but offers almost nothing on the subject of buying. Yet it is sound buying on which most large enterprises build their success. In the motion picture business, "buying," if we may call it that, is even more important, relatively, than in most commercial lines. The dry-goods merchant may make a mistake in buying some particular line of piece goods, but that mistake is apt to be offset by his shrewdness in purchasing other equally important merchandise. In this business, however, when you, as an exhibitor, take on a block of pictures that virtually fills your time, you must stand or fall on the soundness of that transaction. Pictures are your only department. If your one department shows a loss, you are squarely up against it. In the face of such a condition, it is surprising that so few exhibitors undertake serious analysis of the offerings laid before them, considering the quality of the product, the policy of the distributor offering it and all of the other points that go to make for eventual profit or loss on the transaction. No matter how rapacious a distributor has been in dealing with customers; no matter how bad his product has proven; no matter how far he may be going in building theatres, buying them or otherwise infringing on the exhibitors' legitimate prerogatives, it seems to be possible to put over almost any block of pictures. And by the crudest of methods. Superlatives are a normal part of our stock in trade, perhaps. Apparently we can't get along without them. Every picture is the greatest, the biggest, the most this and that. But surely the time has come when the trade ought to know better than to swallow its own hokum. There are some people in this business who go so far as to declare that it is time to quit Barnumizing the public. But that's a long step ahead, at least until we have quit Barnumizing ourselves. Nobody knows what a picture will be, in fact, until it is done. We haven't reached the stage, yet, where we shall be able to take an idea and definitely forecast what it will look like and how it will go over with the public when it is translated to the screen. Perhaps someone will be able to do it sometime, but it isn't possible today. For that reason, the exhibitor who pins his faith on hypothetical advance announcements of trademarked product is a gambler — nothing else. Which means that he may win and he may lose. But he stands a particularly large chance of losing, because in the majority of cases he doesn't know he is gambling. He believes a lot of things that are not so. He is trading on "form" that has been faked and fabricated. Fair analysis of the records of certain prominent trade-marks in this business will show this: That the pictures are frequently put over as "smashing successes" in a few controlled first-run houses, on Broadway and elsewhere, after which they are sold ( to exhibitors at fancy prices to turn up consistent S losses wherever shown without the high-tension ex 1 ploitation that put them over in the controlled houses. §j That is a kind of bunk that wouldn't go in anv [ other business and won't go much longer in this g business. Exhibitors in steadily increasing numbers ■ are waking up. They are beginning to realize that a g forced run on Broadway, with exploitation costing g more than the picture is grossing, doesn't prove any g thing as far as Altoona or Omaha is concerned. Then we have another kind of bunk that has B rendered long and useful service — the story that there 1 is going to be a shortage of pictures. It is undoubtedly true that if certain people continue to receive g the support of independent exhibitors wherewith to g build and buy theatres throughout the length and jj breadth of this continent, there will be a shortage of jj pictures as far as independent exhibitors are con g cerned. Ultimately there won't be any pictures at all — for them. H These points deserve consideration, because they point the way to a definite picture-buying policy for 3 every independent exhibitor: Keep cool and calculate. Take anybody's word when there is reasonable g ground for the belief that his word is good, but don't g assume that because he prints what he has to say in 3 large type or in four colors it is necessarily true. Put a reasonable valuation on picture trade-marks, 3 based on what they have meant in the past, what §j they have proven by past performance. Calculate g values on the basis of what you know about your 3 house, your customers and the advertising and ex B ploitation you can afford. g Enthusiasm is a great thing in selling, but it is something else again when you are buying. You 3 don't often meet an enthusiastic credit man; nor do 3 you encounter many enthusiastic bankers. People in g these lines of business are compelled to look beyond jj the hectic salesmanship of those with whom they j| deal. They don't accept every statement at face val g ue. They have to keep cool and calculate. As a picture buyer, your methods should be those H of the credit man. Or of the merchandise buyer. 3 You should know exactly what you are going to get 3 for your money, or, if that isn't possible, you should g have substantial reason for believing you are going = to get what you buy — not merely in footage and pic B ture quality, but in service and a fair deal. You are g entitled to that much and when you don't get it, g in by far the majority of cases, the trouble can be J traced to one thing: Enthusiastic buying — allowing g some distributor's sales department to hypnotize you g into believing a lot of things that better judgment g should tell you are not true. g Cut out the enthusiasm in buying. Get down to g facts. Keep Cool and Calculate. And 1926 will show g you a new record in profit and satisfaction. *3 Next Week: Whatan Exhibitor Thinks of National Advertising i 7diilMlllllllllllllllllllllllllllll|||||||||||||||!i||||||||i|im HIIHIIIIIIIII lul|IIIIIIIillll!!l!!||||l!lll|||||||||||!lH^ linniiiinnmiiimimmmHimnimmniinMiHwmS