Exhibitor's Trade Review (Nov 1925 - Feb 1926)

December 26, 1925 Page 91 SELLING THE PICTURE from Behind a Desk By HANK LINET Exploitation Editor Exhibitors Trade Review and Exhibitors DAILY REVIEW In which the writer will try to explain that all is not gold that comes in bricks; nor is a man necessarily blind because he carries a cane. I NEVER really have received the letter that follows, but it is a pretty fair composition of many that have come to my attention: "Exploitation Editor, — Sir: I am a reader of your paper. I would like to stage a special exploitation campaign for the showing of "Sweet and Sour." Will you please lay one out for me. (Signed") Exhibitor." Now, lest you misunderstand me, I have no quarrel to pick with the exhibitor who wants help. After all, he is the one that is making it possible for me to draw my weekly check. But I do wish to use the above as an illustrative example of what an exploitation man, working from behind a desk, has to contend with. Usually, if time permits, I answer such requests for guidance with a number of queries. "What is the size of your theatre?" "How much are you willing to spend ?" "What is the exploitation boundary of your theatre? that is, do you exploit the whole city or town, or just some isolated section nearest your theatre?" "What are your facilities for exploitation? Have you the cooperation of your newspapers, of your neighboring merchants, of your local civic organizations?" There you are. These questions may all seem strange to you. An exploiteer comes to your theatre to cooperate with you on some picture. He does not ask you anything like that which I must put before you. The exploiteer working in your territory can find those things out in very few hours — a little observation, a few phone calls, several personal calls. But you, Mr. Exhibitor, are located in Peoria, and I am sitting behind a more or less comfortable desk in New York, banging out copy. What am I to do? I get a good idea: frame a fake arrest of some bathing girls who appear in one-piece suits on the sandy beaches. Great tie-up for "Miami." Bust into front pages with the story. Maybe get some photographs of die bathing girls. Advertise the fact that these girls will appear in the same costumes as a prologue for the picture when it plays your theatre. Then you laugh — as though this month were Laugh Month instead of January. Why do you laugh? Because there isn't a bathing beach within seven hundred miles of your theatre. All right, I'll try another one. I give you a long, detailed explanation about the working of my favorite stunt, Rain Insurance. Ha-haha-ha-ha! Mr. Florida Exhibitor •says that for four months they never see rain, and for the four following months they see nothing because of the rain. Trump that. Sorry, then, old man. Suppose you try a cut out for your marquee. "I have no marquee for my theatre." Now, in the words of Milt Gross, "Is diss a system?" Exploitation, or "Selling the Picture" from behind an office desk is quite another problem than field exploitation, or writing press oooks. Of the latter two, one concentrates on the resources of the theatre, the other concentrates on the exploitation value of the picture. But my particular problem is to combine them. I must sell the whole picture to every theatre, from 800 seats up to 5,000. Nor is it a "political" job. I must make no false promises, nor false Henry A. (Hank) Linet, whose "Selling the Picture" is one of the daily features in Exhibitors Daily Review. Mr. Linet is also responsible for the National Tie-Up Section appearing in the Exhibitors Trade Review. representations. I must not chance putting over any fast ones. Exploitation men in the field are too prone to catch me on any fast ones. Especially in the writing and planning of the National Tie-up sections that are featured in the Exhibitors Trade Review am I at times oorely tempted to spread my wings. Sometimes I do succumb; but then I will usually qualify my writings with a warning that what has been offered is meant only for the exhibitor who can afford the time or money, or whatever the strings might be. Exploiting from behind a desk is a calling of itself, I have always tried to be very careful in the choice of my offerings. I have tried to make my suggestions meaty, and at the same time of a nature that could be adopted in any and every variety of theatre. In the tie-ups, aside from the times that I mentioned above, do I find the happy medium. A store window does not cost the Capitol Theatre, New York, any more or less than a store window would cost the Arcadia in Squeedunk. There is the perfect medium for exploitation ideas from behind a desk, and sometimes I am inclined to think tie-up displays on store windows are the happy exploitation medium for the field exploiteer as well.