The Exhibitor (Nov 1938-May 1939)

BM-3 THE FRONT COVER — 1 ust as observance of the niceties of life mark the well-bred man or woman , so, too , docs the same conduct mark the smart, ably operated theatre. The same expressions of courtesy, as exemplified by the usher on the front cover, should, in the -well operated and managed theatre, obtain through the entire staff, from manager to porter. Service, which should anticipate a patron’s desires, can be spontaneous, rather than acts grudgingly performed on demand. By creating and maintaining an atmosphere of hospitality and friendliness, the staff can do much toward elevating the theatre. And, by the same reasoning, irreparable damage can follow the opposite course. SERVICE, OR ELSE! # NO PILE OF BRICKS AND STONE ever made a theatre. No complicated series of gadgets ever made sound and projection. No footage, however long, ever made a motion picture. These things happened because a human brain conceived them, human hands constructed them, and human intelligence understands and appreciates them. # AS IT IS with the physical properties of the theatre, so it is with the management of those properties for the presentation of entertainment to the public. A human being conceives the operation, and human beings carry those ideas into actual practice. How successful may be the conglomeration of humanity and physical properties will depend not only on the management, but also by the lower attaches of the theatre. # A FOOL can do more damage with a single sentence or act than a whole academy of wise men can repair with the combined resources of the world’s libraries and their entire lifetimes. Theatre attaches, by their very words, looks, and acts can do more to make or break the standing of a theatre with the general public than all the managers and executives can rectify. # CAN YOU, then, Mr. Exhibitor, afford to under-pay and over-work your cashiers, ushers, and other attaches? Can you afford to take chances with inefficient employees? Can you afford to employ those with no more interest in the theatre than the weekly pay envelope? Can you afford to run the risk, in the employment of those, not only unskilled in their jobs, but worse than amateurs in dealing with a finicky public? If you, Mr. Exhibitor, can afford these things, then you can afford to lose your business and your theatre; for, most assuredly, you will, if you treat so lightly the responsibility you undertook when you opened the theatre. 9 THE PUBLIC, of course, comes to a theatre to be entertained, but it does not leave all sensibilities at home and it by no means renounces its rights even as the buyer of tickets of admission. There may be no formal demands for service presented to you, but those demands exist from the time you sell your first ticket. Unresponsive as the public is, it still will patronize those theatres where it is received as a friendly guest and where the management unostentatiously bends every effort to make it comfortable during its stay by offering the best it can obtain in respect to pictures and equipment and the best in a service staff that ungrudgingly anticipates its needs. 6 YES, MR. EXHIBITOR, it is service, or else! Or else, you do not have a public to serve! THE EDITORS April 19, 1939