Exhibitors Herald World (Oct-Dec 1930)

December 27, 1930 EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD 47 w THE VOICE OF THE INDUSTRY LETTERS FROM READERS Valuable to Entire Industry CERTAINLY NO ONE THING SINCE the advent of sound could have stimulated so many exhibitors throughout the nation towards attainment of sound perfection as had your plaque idea. Its value to the industry as a whole and especially to those theatres fortunate enough to receive the plaque, is inestimable. We sincerely thank you and highly value its presentation to the Colonial, but I first wish to compliment the Herald-World in conceiving this splendid idea, and the great amount of benefit which has accrued through its execution.— W. B. McDonald, Colonial theatre. Inc., Eugene, Oregon. Recommending — WE JUST PLAYED DAWN PATROL (FN) three days and I want to reservedly recommend it to all exhibitors. It is quite a wonderful picture that will please and should do good business if boosted hard in advance. It has no women, yet they will not be missed. The story tells the ruthlessness of war, its horrors, its glories, and great heroism of the aviation corps in face of terrific odds and risks. The story is fine, the cast is perfect, photography wonderful, sound good, dramatic appeal exceptional. Be sure and get it. Barthelmess, Neil Hamilton, Douglas Fairbanks, ]r., do fine work. Other recent fine plays are Montana Moon (MGM), with Joan Crawford; Top Speed (FN), with Joe E. Brown's great big mouth (which seemed to captivate everyone) ; The Unholy Three (MGM), Chaney's last, which will draw; Road to Paradise (FN), Way Out West (MGM), Sweet Mama (FN), and Scarlet Pages (FN). They Learned About Women (MGM) failed to draw. Chasing Rainbows (MGM) was a disappointment to us. We picked it for 'best nights, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, but it flopped. Not as good as we expected. Probably a good picture once, but we got a print all chopped up, which spoiled the continuity and gave a half-finished picture. "They Learned About Women" is not a big picture. It has a poor ending and poor vaudeville acts. Sons of the Saddle (U) with Ken Maynard, who is not an all-around actor (hut he can ride and shoot well) is a pretty fair picture. We tried out Universal's first comedy in Paries Vouz. It's a knockout ! [f they have more like it, it will be grand. Metro's Our Gang in Bear Shooters is pretty slow but went over fairly well. Metro's Colortone, Shooting Gallery, a musical toy doll act, is very pretty and pleases. Educational does not seem to give us just what we want. Match Play, a golf comedy, is fair. Bulls and Bears is fairly funny. The trouble is with their action. It is slow, and the stunts are hooked up together in a slow, forced manner. Too much talk, not enough speed. Andy Clyde is in nearly everyone, and we out here do not think Andy is a bit funny, which is just too bad for us. We wish Educational would put Lupino Lane in more of their comedies, for he is fine. People seem to like the animated cartoons best of all. Business in November took a nosedive, and we are having a hard time to get by. The three actors in the last two months to please my patrons most were Walter Huston in The Bad Man (FN), Ramon Novarro in Devil May Care (MGM), and Joe E. Brown in Top Speed (FN). No actresses have pulled for us of late, what's the matter? Are there no drawing NOTICE D. J. Harkins is not an authorized representative of EXHIBITORS HERALD-WORLD. cards among the women anymore? Nancy Carroll is the last to register, and now that she is going in for society drama, she will cease to draw soon. I have Bebe Daniels in "Rio Rita" this week. Maybe she will bring 'em in. — Philip Rand, Rex theatre, Salmon. Ida. Most of 'Em Went Over HERE ARE A FEW PICTURES 1 would like to report on. Troupers Three (T). Did good business on this and everyone was pleased. Lots of laughs but too much Rex Lease singing and love-making. Border Romance (T). Viery weak picture. Classed by some as the weakest talkie every played here. The Unholy Three (MGM). Excellent and did extra good business for this year. Broadway Hoofer (Col). Seldom has a picture drawn such consistently good reports as this. Unfortunately it was not known in this territory and I did not do the business the picture warrants. Women Everywhere (Fox). Some liked it, some didn't. Would class it as just a picture and it just paid out wages. — B. R. Johnson, Orpheum theatre, Kerrobert, Canada. Book Shop and Reviews! DO PEOPLE IN THE MOTION Picture industry ever read a book, even a bookthat may contain extremely valuable information, pertaining to their own business? And what does your company, the leading periodical in the field, do to encourage them in the habit of dipping their noses between the leaves of a book? The answer to the above are "no" and "nothing." I read in the December number of the Journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of which I am a member, a notice stating that the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., had brought out a volume No. 8 of the Harvard Business Reports containing descriptions of sixty-six (66)' actual problems in the motion picture industry and the methods with which they had been met and solved. Having a soft spot in my heart for the motion picture industry (reasons too lengthy to enumerate here) and being, like a goodly percentage of electrical engineers today, unemployed, thought T, T would read this volume and perhaps write a review for one of the leading papers in the field and thus turn an honest ten or twenty dollars. So I perused all of the papers available at the New York Public Library, and horror of horrors, none of them had anything that resembled, in the slightest degrees, a book column, and most of them didn't even carry advertisements of books pertaining to the industry! How do you account for this condition? And don't you think that it is incumbent upon you, and the other trade journals, to do a little more than merely carry blurbs and long trains of adjectives coupled together describing latest film production. (Golly, I bet Some of those advertisement writers don't know of the existence of such books of Roget's Thesaurus, which would help them in describing their latest pets.) I don't know whether I will ever again be employed in the motion picture industry, but I tell you that the volume in question makes intensely interesting reading. It contains some six hundred and eighty (680) pages and describes cases ranging from the economic studies made in selecting sites for prospective theatres to such subject as "marketing studies in film distribution" and "consumer advertising of motion pictures." And the book has been made possible by the financial assistance of Mr. J. P. Kennedy of the Pathe Co. Yea, verily, a prophet is not without some honor save in his own country. Yours truly. — Louis Mackler, Mem A.I.E.E., 33 West 39th St., New York. TV". Y. Acoustical Concern Opens New Philadelphia Branch A complete sales, servicing and engineering unit has been opened at 1734 Ridge avenue, Philadelphia, by Kendall and Dasseville, Inc., of New York. The new branch office will handle acou stical equipment for Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Twenty houses in the Comerford circuit have already contrasted for the Kendall and Dasseville equipment, while Lewen Pizor will use it in 11 of his theatres. Nine houses of the George Kline chain are to get similar improvements. Five theatres, the Ridge, Grand, Jackson, Diamond and Ritz have already been acoustically corrected by the Kendall method. 27 Dynamic Reproducers Required for Amplifying In Double Dance Studio Twenty-seven dynamic reproducers have been hooked up in a novel sound amplifica tion system installed in the Arthur Murray Studio of Dancing, New York. The studio occupies six stories in two separate buildings, creating a definite technical problem in amplification to provide adequate dance music for the large classes