Exhibitors Herald (Oct-Dec 1920)

December 25, 1920 EXHIBITORS HERALD 143 Helpful Hints for Homely Hex-HiBiters If Business Is Bad Just Try This Exploitation Stunt on Your Theatre By JOE LEE {Handler of Happy Hoakem for Foolish Fellers in Films) AS the vaudeville actor remarks: "I will now step out of my character long enough to relate the following true exploitation incident. One that would make Percival Dubb, the exploitation expert of Exhibitors Herald, green with envy." Some years ago in a prosperous New England town, a showman had opened a motion picture theatre. Business was bad and the manager, becoming digusted, decided to sell the house which, as he expressed it. was "a lemon" which no one could make pay. He further remarked that the picture racket was no business for a showman. He wanted to sell out and get as far away from the theatre as possible. He asked my help in disposing of the place. Thinking that I could couple a little business with a whole lot of fun, I journeyed to the town where the house was located, and after looking over the situation carefully decided with the showman-manager that the house was a hopeless proposition and that there wasn't a chance in the world of it becoming a payer. An advertising campaign was decided on in an effort to catch a chump and unload. A series of ads were run in the local papers and in those of a neighboring city offering the theatre for sale. The prospective purchasers started coming and finally two showed who looked to me to have the biggest bundle of dough, and it was on these two that I concentrated. I slipped them the regular routine that is usually slipped to the sap looking for a soft bet to fall into. I told them that business was good but that the health of the man who was running the place was failing and his physicians ordered a complete rest in a warmer climate. They informed me that they would make an investigation of my claims. I tipped off the house manager, whom we will call Mr. Blank, and told him that a couple of live ones were on their way to look over the house and check up the business. Also that I thought that they might clock the house first and look it over afterwards. The next day Blank was advised by a rooming house keeper directly across the street from the theatre that a couple of strangers had rented a room but had insisted that they must have one where they would be able to see the theatre's entrance from their window. Blank, when he received this tip, wired me that it was "cold" for the suckers were clocking the house from the outside and with business as it was they would never buy. Right then and there I started to shake the brains together and the result was what I believed to be a master stroke. * * * The house was doing a certain amount of business but not near enough to close a sale on. I wired Blank to hustle to one of the banks and get $100 worth of new dimes and jumped on a train for his town. When I got there I grabbed the dimes, got about a block away from the house and stopped as many pedestrians as I could and slipped them a dime apiece and told them to drop into the Gem. This same routine was continued for three days. The result was that a couple of the dimes got away but for the greater part those that I slipped walked to the box office, and the result was that the two saps closed for the house. They told us frankly that they had clocked the business from across the street and decided to buy. Blank and I started to pack up to get out, congratulating ourselves on having put over a deal on the couple of simps. We made a hasty exit and beat it out of the burg. But there was a laugh to it all, and right here is the place to inform the kind reader that the story doesn't end as he thinks that it did. It wasn't one of those cases where the house ran for two or three weeks and then closed, for like the happy ending of the usual Laura Jean Libby novel, the couple of simps that we landed are now living in prosperity and the little Gem has been enlarged several times. They have also purchased other houses and a Rolls-Royce takes them around on a tour of inspection. All that was needed for the house was a little extra educational work with the public to increase the business and the stunt that I started by diming the dubs started them going to the house and they kept it up. From the day that we packed and skipped leaving the saps to what we supposed was their sad fate, JOSEPH F. LEE business grew by leaps and bounds. It was exploitation that was responsible, even thought it was crude and rough, it boosted business even though it wasn't directed in that direction. George M. Cohan says "I would rather be a Lobster than a Wise Guy," and it looks as though he was right, judging from the foregoing. Parker to Make Schenck Specials ALBERT PARKER, who has been directing Norma Talmadge in her last two productions, has signed a new agreement with Joseph M. Schenck, whereby he will make for him a series of special productions, all of them to be based on well-known plays or books. Parker recently returned from the West Indies, where he had been making exteriors in the sugar cane plantations for Norma's newest First National, temporarily ' titled "Satan's Paradise," founded on the book "On Principle," by Andrew Soutar. Previous to this story, Parker directed "The Branded Woman" and "Eyes of Youth." When Schenck produces "Smilin' Through," Parker will return to the Norma Talmadge Film Company, to direct this play by Allen Langdon Martin, in which Jane Cowl starred.