Exhibitors Herald (Mar-Apr 1924)

April 19, 1924 EXHIBITORS HERALD 57 LETTERS From Readers A forum at which the exhibitor is invited to express his opinion on matters of current interest Brevity adds forcefulness to any statement. Unsigned letters will not b« printed. A First Letter COLBY, WIS.— To the Editor: This is the first time that we have ever undertaken to write a letter to your columns, but we have been reading with interest the several letters from exhibitors all over the country relative to the several grievances and bad conditions that all us exhibitors have to buck up against, which have been in the Herald the last few weeks, and especially the comeback by different ones to Mr. Ballin's article in the March 8th issue of the Herald. And right here I wish to congratulate Hilda H. Angell for the nice comeback to this article which appears in the March 22nd Herald. She certainly had a comeback to all of Mr. Ballin's remarks and handled it in a nice way. Her argument as to the block booking system and calling attention to the matter of the distributors insisting on the exhibitors booking all or none, or rather insisting on the exhibitor booking the older pictures of a certain star before or at the time you book their later productions, has been brought home to all the exhibitors, I expect. We know it has to us, as one of the exchanges we buy a great number of pictures from hands us the same line. They have one or two of this certain star's pictures that we must buy before we can buy this star's later pictures, although we know the later pictures would be money makers for us. Hilda H. Angell brought out this matter in a very nice way in citing the Jackie Coogan "Oliver Twist" picture. We have only been in the exhibition game for a couple of years, but have learned a lot of things in that short time and know we have a lot more to learn. In looking back over those two years we often wonder how we would have managed to even exist if it had not been for the Herald (the only honest-to-goodness paper in the field that covers all the exhibitor wants), and in this connection will have to recite how it happened that we got started off on the right foot. We had just leased the theatre which we now operate and before there had even any of the salesmen got to us to stick us for a contract for some of his box office smashing pictures. Exhibitors Herald got to us first. When we saw this fellow coming and before he had introduced himself, we said, ''Here is where we get stuck the first time in the moving picture business." He showed us a sample or two of the Herald and a copy of The Box Office Record. We didn't know what half of his talk was about, but figured we would have to buy it, as we were in the game and had to get stuck for everything that came along until we had learned something, so we subscribed for the Herald. We have lost the receipt he gave us for the subscription, but we would sure like to meet that guy and thank him many, many times for getting us on our first and what has proven to be our very best investment we have made in the moving picture game in the two years, and if we stay in the game another 20 Marion Davies as Princess Mary in "Yolanda" the new Cosmopolitan production, distributed through Goldwyn. years I believe it will still top the list for good investments. To say that because we got the Herald first kept us from getting stung in buying pictures at the start would be claiming too much, because we did get stung a few times, as we fell a few times for some of the bunk that the salesmen hand you, but we have learned considerable by getting stung a few times and by following the Herald and the "What the Picture Did For Me-' department we know what we want in pictures, even if we don't always get it. Referring to the matter of the "Herald Only" Club Favorite Star campaign: We did not get to it in time to pick one of the stars for a candidate soon enough, for our favorites have been nominated before now. There are several of our favorites already nominated, but we won't say at this time who we will finally vote for when the ballot is out, but will give all due credit to several of the brother exhibitors in knowing how to pick out the beauties. For instance, Jenkins, Rand, Creal, and whoever it was that nominated Claire Windsor. Also our upstate brother exhibitor that nominated Colleen Moore. Have forgotten where he was from and have mislaid that copy of the Herald, but think he was from Wisconsin, which accounts for his good judgment. A word about the poor print question. We note that in certain territories the exhibitors more or less complain of poor prints. Now we get practically all our prints out of the Milwaukee exchanges and wish to say that they have never given us, with but one exception, a poor print in the last two years. We refer to the First National, Universal and Goldwyn exchanges. And we believe if you will check up the reports from the exhibitors in this territory getting service out of Milwaukee exchanges that you will notice there are but few complaints of poor prints. We have noticed this of late and believe that if the different distributors throughout the United States would check up in the territory where there are so many complaints of poor prints and get after their exchange managers or look into the manner of their inspection departments in these different exchanges, and get rid of the employees in these departments that are careless in the inspection of films returned by exhibitors, they could improve the conditions of prints and eliminate a great deal of the bad print complaint from exhibitors. We, for one, extend a vote of appreciation to the First National, Universal and Goldwyn exchange managers and employees at Milwaukee, the good condition of prints they are furnishing exhibitors in this territory, and here is hoping they continue the good work. We arc enclosing a few reports on pictures we have run recently. We are in a small town and run but one or two pictures a week, so our reports don't cover the whole field, but we sure look forward to each copy of the Herald each week and the first thing we look for is the "What the Picture Did For Me" department, and we are now looking forward to when we will receive the March issue of The Box Office Record. — Crosby & Schwierske, Rex theatre, Colby, Wis. The Objection to Block Booking MARION, N. C— To the Editor: We want to express our hearty agreement with Mr. B. P. McCormack's letter to you concerning expensive press books, and your editorial on the matter in your issue of March 22nd. Unquestionably, there is a large sum of money spent by the producing companies on press books which is entirely unnecessary and of no use or help whatever to the exhibitor, who, as you state in your editorial, only wants as information from the producers, a plain statement of what the picture is. This is one of a number of needless forms of expense which go into the cost of a picture and keep the price up on the exhibitor. And furthermore, it is in a wav, as practiced by some producing companies, a rather "shady" business, to say the least. They send and show Mr. Exhibitor expensively gotten up and ornate press books calculated to make him think that he is going to get something bigger than "The Birth of a Nation," whereas he often finds after he has played the picture that he has bought an ordinary program picture for a special. Another condition in our trade that you should keep hammering on editorially is the block booking system, which certainly is unfair to a small town exhibitor. The big town exhibitor can use nearly any kind of picture and find a certain amount of patronage for it; but a small town exhibitor has to pick out and use pictures as nearly as possible to please his entire drawing patronage and give offense to none. And certainly no producing company is selling any block of pictures which are all of this kind. In our experience, every one of the producing companies includes in every block some of their "mistakes." We cannot buy on the block system because we would almost always have to take some pictures that would positively injure our business to show. To our mind, it is a clear and undeniable fact that any producing company making a picture which cannot be sold on its individual merits is making a picture that is not desirable to the general run of exhibitors, and this block system is only used to force pictures on exhibitors that they do not want. — E. J. House & M. L. Justice, Oasis theatre, Marion, N. C. He Bragged Too Soon GOTHENBURG, NEB. — To the Editor: In a former letter I "bragged" about the amount of experience I had accumulated in the short time we have been in the show business. Reckon some of my friends in Omaha must have read it and decided it was time to teach us a few more things. Anyway, we have been treated to another practical joke — as per this way: Being in a settlement of Swedish and Danish people, largely, thought it would be smart to book a good