Exhibitors Herald (1927)

October 8, 1927 EXHIBITORS HERALD 47 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. A Vote Against Non-Stop Flights Nashwaxjk, Minn. — To the Editor: In the words of Will Rogers, all I know is what I read in the papers and the papers sure have been bubbling over with news of late, including thq Tunney-Dempsey fight, and the nonstop flights act. I have noticed other exhibitors air their views in the reader department of the Herald and I just feel as though I would bust if I didn’t say a few words. I had hoped that I would be able to get down to Chicago last week and see the fight, take in a ball game and last but not least visit the Herald. I wrote a friend of mine regarding seats for the fight and here is what he said: “Friend Brown: Relative to seats for the big fight I find that all the good seats have been bought by producers and stars and am told that the price ran well into four figures. There are any number of $40 seats available and as you no doubt know the $40 seats are all in Illinois but the $10 seats I am told are in Indiana, while the $5 seats are four miles out on the Lincoln highway. The $40 seats have one big advantage as you will know when the fight starts as you will be close enough to hear the gong, but I am told that the referee has borrowed two flags from the naval station and will wig-wag the progress of the fight to the outlying districts. That, of course, will help.” Well, I decided the financial and physical strain would be too much and knowing that all the stars and producers were there backing Dempsey, just to be contrary I placed my money on Gene Tunney and stayed home and saw the fight via radio with Graham MacNamee at the “mike” from the ringside so we got the fight blow by blow with all its thrills. It is not a case of sour grapes with me because I could not afford to attend the fight. In fact, when MacNamee told us all the Hollywood bunch that was down at the ring side I felt glad I was at home. This brings me down to the point I was going to write about. I want to openly challenge any man connected with the film industry to a debate, “Resolved that producers are long on money and short on judgment,” the debate to be held in Soldiers Field sometime in January or February. I reserve the right to name three judges and will ask J. C. Jenkins, F. J. O’Hara and Philip Rand to act as judges. The trade papers announced that M-G-M would release “The Big Parade” to small town theatres in September. I should have known better but I didn’t so I asked our good natured M-G-M exchange manager to quote me the price for Nashwauk which is a very small town. He said I must play it four days, the admission must be 50 cents, the rental is based on two full houses per day, meaning it would cost me $400 per day or $1600 for four days. Perhaps they expected me to help finance that Coast to Coast non-stop trip of Leo, the flying lion, that ended in a canyon out in the wilds of Arizona. The plane, a duplicate of Lindy’s, piloted by Martin Jensen, winner of second prize in the Dole Pacific flight, must have cost a barrel of money, and if you can show me any sense or reason of a stunt of this kind I will show you a white hen that lays a black egg. Today’s paper states that M-G-M is interested in a broadcasting chain to start soon and will spend $5,000 per week broadcasting. This is practical and sound sense and I hope to be able to tune in with my one tube crystal set. Seriously speaking, I know many a small town exhibitor in this section that has never been able to spare the time and money to see the inside of a film exchange in Minneapolis only 200 miles away, much less Soldiers Field, Chicago. We small town exhibitors in order to keep open must of necessity be our own operator, janitor, bill poster, and manager and handy man, and a great number of the boys have side jobs to help out, and I am stating the truth when I say any number of them have had to draw on their salary at other work to pay film rental. For my part I have no complaint to offer and during the past year I have bought very sparingly, bought only such pictures as I felt sure would appeal to my patrons and furnish entertainment for the family trade. I have insisted and got a price that was fair, and in return gave the pictures to the public at popular prices and only four times during the year did I raise my admission above 25 cents. The results have been most gratifying and my attendance has been the best in years. It is my honest opinion that the picture-going public has been over-fed the past five or six years on mediocre pictures at advanced admissions. To my way of thinking one of the greatest improvements the past year from the small town angle is the cutting down of footage, as most all features are now confined to six or seven reels. In closing will say that if producers and distributors will cut the non-stop flights of wasted dollars and pass it on to us little fellows in the form of lower film rental we might be able to keep open this winter which in this section has already set in with our first blanket of snow. The sheriff is a friend of mine but I don’t like to have him hanging around. I move that we give the fellow who devised and promoted the flying stunt for “Leo” a furlined hippocket flask as a prize for the best bonehead publicity stunt of the year. I will be on the air again as soon as somebody contradicts my statements. This is Crockett Brown announcing and signing off at 4:20 p. m. Good night, everybody. Grand theatre, Nashwauk, Minn. Agrees With Cohen KISSIMMEE, FLA. — To the Editor : In reply to the letter of D. Silis Cohen, Jr., in your September 17 issue, I am inclined to agree with Mr. Cohen that your percentage reports or “The Box Office Ticker” is not worth the page that it is printed on. The only thing it is good for is a lever for the producer whose pictures stand at the top of the list. This becomes more apparent to the man who operates more than one theatre. We have two in towns nine miles from each other, and we can never tell from one town what the reaction to a picture will be in the other. The former owner of one of our theatres never failed to write up a picture for the Herald. He even went so far as to say that he would pay several times the price his competitor would for a certain star. Certain officials in New York saw that report, and he paid the price next time. That exhibitor is now out of business, and we re-bought his contract at LESS THAN HALF of what he paid for them. An honest report, we feel, will help, but a percentage, never. One man may exploit a flop and make good money, where an honest exhibitor will hesitate to fool his public. Another exhibitor, taking his cue from a dishonest exhibitor, boosts a picture to his loss, financial and otherwise. Any report or review is the view of but one man, and is not to be relied upon. Pete Harrison has the reputation of being honest in his convictions, but checking up on Pete we find that while his reports may be true for New York and some other places they are often the bunk for us. Our plan is to digest everything we can on a picture and then take the average opinion and play a picture on that basis. However, you are to be commended for your attempt to give the exhibitor every aid you can. We take most all of the trade papers, and while some of the others may be ahead of you in news value, as far as exhibitors aids go you lead the field. We feel that if you would devote that space to practical hints for the showman or copy that could be used by the small exhibitor, that the space now used would be more valuable than any reports you might publish. We wish to express our thanks for the good work that the Herald is doing, and the pleasure of being one of your subscribers. With best wishes. — LaRoy H. Zehrbach, General Manager, Lago Vista Enterprises, Inc., Bon Air theatre, Kissimmee, Palm theatre, St. Cloud, Fla. 10 Mediums Used in “Rough Rider ” Drive ( Continued from page 46) booklets were also passed out to those who attended the screening. Over 50 special window displays were obtained by Metropolitan ushers, using the colorful 14x17 lobby photo for tieups with merchants. Trailers, in teaser form, were run two weeks in advance, and the regular trailer, made up in a special form, one week in advance. Paul Spor, the director of the bandshow, announced the picture one week in advance from the stage during his program. Newspapers Co-operate Newspapers were especially co-operative in publishing stories and cuts on this picture, owing to its state and local interest. One of the papers, the Chronicle, found a veteran of the original Rough Riders company residing in Houston, and carried a series of stories and interviews on this character. Theodore Roosevelt was played up in all stories, and the great similarity between him and Frank Hopper, who plays the part of Teddy in the picture, was the medium for feature stories. Newspaper ads were started five days in advance of the showing, with the utilization of white space the predominant note in their structure. Ad space was increased from six to 15 inches on each ad. One personal indorsement ad by the staff of the Metropolitan was used on the date of the opening of the show. Pictures of each member of the staff was used in the ad, with their indorsement. Very little type copy, and a majority of white space marked all the ads. Gus Grist Promoted ( Continued, from page 46) publicity campaigns that would do credit to some of the biggest boys on Broadway. He made friends of patrons beyond counting, and he had met the infinitely harder test of making friends of the newspaper boys. When the New York promotion came every one of them gave Gus good stories in their papers. The Atlanta Constitution called him "the Prince of publicity men.” Any publicity man can well listen to the story of Gus Grist, the boy who climbed from doorman and office man to a berth on the advertising department of one of the country’s largest theatre chains in seven short years.