Exhibitors Herald (Dec 1924-Mar 1925)

February 14, 1925 EXHIBITORS HERALD 65 Louis Lighton. . Motley H. Flint, of the Pacific Southwest Trust and Savings company, was an honored guest at the Warner offices this week. XXX IN PREPARATION for their new season’s output the scenario staff has been increased with the addition of Charles Logue, adapter of "Ponjola.” . . . Irene Rich’s appearance in “A Lost Lady” at the Piccadilly theatre brought interesting comment, as follows: The Evening Journal, “A splendid performance of ‘A Lost Lady.’ " The World, “The performance of Miss Rich . . is one of the most vivid. . examples of character acting I have seen.” The Daily News, “It has charm in directing and brilliancy in acting.” Vitagraph AN ATTEMPT is made in “Greater Than Marriage” to delineate the real New Yorker in his native environment as he really lives. Unlike the author’s many stories about New York showing only gay parties and personified joy, Victor Hugo Halperin is said to have tried to picturize a cross section of life with its real cares and conquests A deal has been consummated by John B. Rock, general manager of Vitagraph, and Henry M. Hobart, of Hobart Pictures Corporation, for the making by the latter of four special pictures for Vitagraph. XXX NUMBERING AMONG the first of the productions to be made by the Hobart company for Vitagraph will be “Wild Fire,” the play in which Lillian Russell accounted for a large part of her success. T. Hayes Hunter is directing the production. . . . Nazimova has reaped many expressions of praise in “The Redeeming Sin,” which is being shown in many New York theatres at present. . . Considerable attention is being given to the celebration planned this month for Vitagraph’s twentyeight birthday. United Artists A DOUBLE LIFE is the way Donald Crisp describes the existence required of him in the making of Doug Fairbanks’ picture, “Don Q,” which was begun this week. Crisp will direct Fairbanks and in addition enact a role of the villian called Sebastian. The roles are difficult enough if attempted separately, said Crisp. . Sets are being designed by the same artist who had charge of the work in “The Thief of Bagdad.” Shooting of interiors will begin upon the completion of these now under way. Universal THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN was covered from all angles by International Newsreel cameramen, according to a statement issued by the Universal Pictures Corporation. Some were detailed to snap the crowds who watched the phenomenon ; some went into the clouds in the navy dirigible ; some went to the observatory at Yale University; others went into the air in planes. . . . Philo McCullough, popular in his roles of “heavy” characters, will have the unsympathetic part in Hoot Gibson’s next, “Rarin’ to Go.” XXX NEW FACES were seen at Universal City as the result of the engagement of a number of well known players. Hayden Stevenson, who played the fight manager in the “Leather Pushers” series, will be added to the cast working with Reginald Denny in “California Straight Ahead.” The Universal company has purchased the distributing rights of “The Last Laugh, A Page from Life.” Novel in this subject is the fact that subtitles are seldom ; so seldom in fact that the picture moves almost withotit them. 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 be printed. Speed Up Ticket Selling ROCKLAND, IDAHO.— To the Editor: I am just a small town exhibitor but nevertheless we small town exhibitors have ideas and if we do not let them be known no one will ever know whether they are bright or bunk or whether we had an idea at all. I have been a consistent reader of the Exhibitors Herald for two years and I consider it the one indispensable tool that the exhibitor uses or at least should use. Every time I pick up my new Herald I feel guilty to think that I actually derive so much benefit from its columns and never contribute anything in return. For this reason, I am sending this letter more to relieve my conscience than for its merit. Getting back to my first idea. It is this. 'I'hat every large theatre where the patronage will justifv it, should have more than one box office. In my estimation there should not be but comparatively few theatres that would need more than two box offices, and a much larger number that would not need two ; but I actually believe that there are a number of theatres running into the thousands, that really need better facilities for admitting patrons to their houses. The most of the box offices of the larger theatres are so well improved with modern equipment that the only way they could be improved would be to have more of them or to increase the ticket selling force at the window, or to increase the number of windows. I would suggest increasing the number of box offices just as a matter of the psychological effect upon the patrons. My argument in favor of this idea is, first that many hours of valuable time are wasted, by people waiting to be admitted to the larger theatres. For instance, if one kept one thousand people waiting at the box office for five minutes, there would be approximately eighty-three hours of one’s time lost. In many instances, the patrons that lose the time at the office, their time would be rated far more valuable than the party selling the tickets or possibly the manager or the owner. Much of this valuable time could not rightfullibe called wasted, if the patrons were in a position at the time of their waiting, so that they could be reading the exhibitor’s advance advertising while waiting; but in this respect according to my idea the plan of the modern theatre entrance is wrong. Many of our modern theatres have great long gorgeous entrances with their box office at the front of the entrance. In these cases, whenever there is a rush at the box office the patrons are waiting in the streets, and if the weather is anything like we have here in Idaho, it, as a rule, is not very agreeable to do much waiting in. In many instances of this waiting, one can look about him and notice the expression on the patrons’ faces and I think in most cases you will not find it agreeable, or at least not showing a pleased state of mind. After the delayed wait and the patron has finally procured the tickets he rushes through the long entrance, ignoring the exhibitor’s future advertising that has been carefully arranged for him to read on going in, hut dne to his frame of mind caused by his dela\, he in nine cases out of ten passes it up in haste. Now, if you sec fit to give this idea any space in your publication, you may use all or any part of it. In case that you do publish this, I hope that if any exhibitors take the occasion to criticize it that they will please sympathize with me in the fact that my travels have been rather limited and that there are a goodly number, qf thetres in this land of ours that I, haVe not had the pleasure of entering. I can just hear some of the exhibitors saying, “What’s the matter with his head, most of us do not need any box office at all?” But to him all I have to say is, “Cheer up, times may change, they have done so in the past.” But there is one thing certain whether my exhibitor friends agree with me or not, if I owned a number of the theatres that I have had occasion to attend, I would surely change the location of the box office and in a good many instances I would change the location as well as increase the facilities for faster ticket distribution. — T. M. Morris. Iris theatre, Rockland, Idaho. The Music “Tax” SPEARVILLE, KANS.— To the Editor: At last the much fought and discussed question of the music tax has been settled in Kaaisas and Missouri for the time being, by an agreement between the M. P. T. O. of Kansas and Missouri and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. But we still feel that it is an unjust tax and even the lawyers of the Society, in a letter to me, stated that they would probably have taken the same stand that we have had they of been in our place. But as it is a law we must abide by it and pay the tax for the present, but brother exhibitors, it appears that the Authors and Publishers are killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Mr. C. K. Harris, who wrote the song, “After the Ball,” stated that it cost him one-half cent to publish the song and he sold it for 19 cents (SOME PROFIT). How many of us exhibitors make that amount of profit on any picture we show? If we let the authors get away with this tax, we may expect numerous other holders of copyrights and patents to come at us for taxes on the articles they control such as our projection machines, screens, lenses, reels and even the advertising we use— anything we use if it is copyrighted or patented. It would be just as fair to the inventors of these articles to be allowed to tax us as it is to the authors of the music. We buy the music and should be allowed to use it. We also buy our projection machines and should be allowed to use them. If these inventors take it into their heads to make us pay them a tax for using their inventions after buying them as the music authors have done, YE GODS, WHE,RE WILL IT END? We as individuals cannot do much towards having this copyrighted law amended but as an organization 100 per cent strong, the Motion Picture Theatre Owners’ Association can carry W'eight towards having this evil corrected. So brothers, let’s make this Association 100 per cent strong and see if this copyright law can be amended. — W. I. Shoup. De Luxe Theatre, Spear\ille, Kans. Entire Floor Occupied (Special to Exhibitors Herald) NEW YORK, Feb. 3. — The entire floor of the building at 729 Seventh Avenue here has been placed at the disposal of First National since the move of the New York and New Jersey exchange offices two weeks ago into the same building.