The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

September, 194} Page 243 MOTION PICTURES- NOT FOR THEATRES By ARTHUP EDWIN KROWS Part 49.—Our non-theatrical history begins its fifth year of serialization with more about advertising pictures and the allegedly exclusive right of theatres to show films. IT HAS been one of the many inci- dental merits of Wythe's plan that he would have experts to assist in finding the interesting facts about advertised products. The advantage may be illus- trated by an incident. Through Albert Krippendorf, the interest of the Proctor & Gamble Company, whose headquar- ters were situated in his home city of Cincinnati, had been directed to our enterprise. One of the organization heads visited us during his next stay in New York, and made an exhaustive examination of what we possessed. "1 am satisfied that you can do all that you say," he admitted at last "Now, what sort of picture would you recom- mend for us?" We replied that to answer him properly we would have to know something about his organiza- tion and methods, so he bade us to ask him some questions, then—just to give a general idea of our probable approach. "Well," we ventured, "of course we are familiar with the slogan 'ninety-nine and forty-four one-hund- redths per cent pure.' Just what does your Company mean by that?" He looked at us sharply as though he thought we were joking, but ex- plained that it meant a marketable soap which was just about as pure as human knowledge could make it. We had the temerity to go on: "We gather that much, but what are the standards of purity? What is purity in soap particularly which isn't also purity in bread, for instance?" His expression changed. He stammered a moment and then burst into a laugh. "Funny," he said. "I know that there must be standards, all right, but I've just for- gotten them. I'll tell you what I'll do. We have a research division, and the experts there will know all about it. I'll send you the explanation as soon as I get back." But here Wythe interrupted, saying; "No need to. You see, we knew you were coming and we wanted to be in- formed about your product. So we asked our own expert. And she told us about not only the nature but the purpose of soap. The action of soap is not chemical—-it does not dissolve the dirt—but mechanical. It pries the par- ticles loose ,so that the water may rinse them away. On that account the picture we would recommend for you would tell people who have been taking 'ninety-nine and forty-four one-hun- dredths per cent pure' for granted about the important underlying fact. We would explain that good soap needs no chemicals. We would show them the action by micro-photography. We think that they'd be as interested as we are now." The figurative earth- quake in our affairs happened soon after that, but we were flattered to notice in due course of time that the Proctor & Gamble magazine adver- tising showed microscopically the action of an effective soap which needed no chemical reagents. But the real point which I wished to remark here concerned our staff of experts. There were to have been a number of these in time, especially in different lines. The first, and the con- sultant who bad quickly provided that soap explanation, was Miss Sarah Field Splint, former editor of Today's Houseivife, and then conducting an ex- The "Companion's" treatment of home problems benefited from the unfailing good taste and excellent business counsel of Sarah Field Splint perimental kitchen for testing the poten- tialities of food products for advertisers. In recent years this accomplished, busy lady has been one of the editors of Mc- Calt's. She now is on the staff of The Woman's Home Companion. The Screen Companion never had a better friend nor one more devoted in service. She it was who supervised the laying of the silver and, indeed the preparation of the meal which Carlyle Ellis otherwise di- rected, in "Setting a Formal Luncheon Table for Six." She and Ellis had been editors together on the old Delineator. She it was. also, who, when we felt that we needed a feminine point of view in many of our scenarios, sent me Miss Norma Kastl who was on the way to becoming a brilliant scenarist in adver- tising subjects when the collapse came. I had just taken on, too, Louis Raymond Reid, who, in later years became well know-n as radio editor of the New York American. About Reid I was especially disturbed. I had brought him to the Companion from the theatrical pub- licity ofiices of the Shuberts, on Broad- way. When the first rumors of our trouble came, he told me that he had an offer to go with Metro-Goldwyn Pictures, but would prefer to stay with us. I advised him to remain and he declined the offer. A week later and we crashed. Fortunately Reid was able still to join Metro-Goldwyn, but I fear that he has never forgiven me for the narrow escape I gave him with honest intention. The Down Grade The catastrophe, to which I have referred now too many times to delay the explanation longer, resulted from the sudden financial reverses of Albert Krippendorf. He had underwritten some mining securities and was suddenly called upon to put up a staggeringly large sum of money. Unable to shift other invest- ments at the moment, he turned to his bankers. But those same bankers, at- tributing his troubles to his dabbling in pictures—notably to his financing of the Holley Holy Land series—told him sternly that they would not stand by him unless he foreswore the films. We felt that the Screen Companion plan, which had been in operation then only a few months, had even in that short time begun to prove itself, and it seemed really not too much to ask help in establishing just the first cir- cuit. Out of that the other circuits might grow. But the bankers were adamant. Krippendorf, game and sympathetic though he was, had no choice but to withdraw. And the Screen Companion, the "magazine on the screen," was thus left high and dry. Wythe was determined, as usual, not to give up. He invited every employee —about twenty of us, I suppose—to dine with him at a little Greek restau- rant in the neighborhood. When the meal was at an end, he broke the un- happy news to us. But he reminded us that his plan had been devised to go on and expand with its own mo- mentum, and that possibly we were so close to what the original impulse had been expected to accomplish that just a little more concerted effort might carry us through. He could not pay anybody salary beyond the end of the current week. However, when money came in from any source, it would be divided among those who stood with