Exhibitors Herald (1925)

August 15, 1925 EXHIBITORS HERALD 47 Short Feature Campaign On SHORT features are getting the test of fire. Exhibitors who never advertised them before are advertising them now to see if they are worth it. Exhibitors who advertised them before are advertising them more. Signed Cooperation Pledges continue to arrive in every mail, indicating a firm determination to settle the matter once and for all. Incoming letters continue to reflect divided opinion as to the responsibility for inadequate short feature ad representation in the past. Some of these letters are published herewith. Press Sheets Are Needed All this talk about boosting short subjects is all very well and good, but I think the producers or distributors would help us to put them over a little better if they took a little more pains in sending press sheets on them. About all we get is titles, and it’s hard to tell our patrons what they are all about if we don’t know ourselves. And then there are the news weeklies. Sometimes they advertise things on the one-sheets that are not in the reel at all. For that we are bawled out more than once. I suggest that with each news there should be a slip telling what is in it, so that it can be exploited in advance. For instance, when the Santa Barbara earthquake happened, wouldn’t it have been fine if you could tell your patrons about it in advance? But then, again, with such features cut out of the weeklies at times, isn’t it great that you didn’t tell them about it? I think the exchanges should be more careful about these matters and pay some attention to what is left out of the weeklies. Also, they should send a small press sheet on all comedies, etc. Jack Green, New Geneseo Theatre, Geneseo, 111. Short Features Please Patrons I enclose herewith Cooperation Pledge on short features, together with copy used some weeks ago, which proves I have been giving a great deal of space to short subjects. I find the more I advertise my short features the more money the box office shows and the more my patrons are pleased. If you don’t tell them in a big way about the short features, they don’t think they are so good. I am a great believer in putting short features over big. E. F. Ingram, Ingram’s Theatre, Ashland, Ala. Says Exchange Men Don’t Know Product What do you mean “adequate representation” for short features? In the small towns we cannot see each comedy — cannot even see each feature. We have at various times tried playing up the comedies. Result : The exhibitors’ friends in the exchanges would, about every so often, slip us something in one or two thousand feet, styling it a comedy, that would not contain a laugh and of which we would be thoroughly ashamed as well. Just this week we ordered a comedy “suitable for Sunday.” They sent us a one-reel subject, throughout which two slobby females hammer each other in a prize ring. Not a laugh in the whole thing and a long way from being suitable for Sunday. When the exchange employees are given the proper information — and use it — on their short stuff, we will belive that it pays to play it up. If we could afford to play the comedy headliners all the time it would, of course, be different. As it stands, my experience has been discouraging, many times as well as on this recent occasion. P. E. Este, S. T. Theatre, Parker, S. D. Gives Short Features Even Break in Space I have read your article on short subjects in the July 25th issue of the Herald and I think it is a great idea and one which I have practiced to a great extent, as you will note from the ads which I have sent in to you from time to time. On all of my ads I give the short subjects an equal portion of space with the feature. I refrain from use of the words “short subjects” and I incorporate them as “supplemental features.” I think it is a great thing, as the short subjects are rapidly coming into their own and are at last being recognized both by The Long and Short of It By WILLIAM R. WEAVER It begins to look as though it were not entirely — as maintained by various concerns — the exhibitor’s lack of interest in short features which brought about the lamentable custom of hopelessly subordinating the less lengthy attractions in theatre advertising. It begins to look like the first fruit of the HERALD’S campaign is to be an investigation and overhauling of short feature service machinery. Frequent announcements of short feature concerns emphasize the service supplied exhibitors using the product. Exhibitor testimony not only indicates plainly that such service is not being received but also that exhibitors do not even know it exists. Something’s wrong, somewhere. There is little reason to expect betterment while this condition prevails. It would seem to be about time for some of the short feature concerns to get busy. the producer and the exhibitor, and especially by the public, who, if they don’t see a number of short subjects on the same bill with a feature, think the program incomplete. I enclose my Cooperation Pledge. H, Browning, Olympia Theatre, New Haven, Conn. i — i 1 I i Cooperation Pledge < | EXHIBITORS HERALD, I | 407 So. Dearborn St., | 1 Chicago, 111. I GENTLEMEN: 1 Cooperating with the Herald to determine definitely the box office value | | of short features, I shall give what I believe to be adequate advertising representa j | tion to all subjects on my programs for such a period of time as I find such ■ advertising representation to be justified by box office results of the same or . until I shall consider that a sufficient test has been made. ■ (Exhibitor) .". . (Theatre)