The Film Daily (1932)

20 DAILY Saturday, Sept. 17,1932 The Ideal Program Exhibitors are steadily getting away from the double feature practice and adopting "ideal" programs of diversified entertainment, says Norman H. Moray, Vitaphone sales manager, who returned a few days ago from a trip up north. Moray says: "Exhibitor consensus is that the ideal motion picture theater program is a feature, two one-reel shorts and tworeeler. It is ideal as to both time and material. It is for that type of program that Vitaphone has aimed its production, attempting to produce sufficient variety so that the exhibitor may always have a 'fresh' supplementary show of the calibre of the best possible feature he plays." OUR GANG TIEUP MADE WITH MC KESSON-ROBBINS Our Gang Tieup Arranged With McKesson & Robbins Under the supervision of Howard Dietz, M-G-M's New York office has just completed a promotion tieup with McKesson & Robbins, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products, and Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies. As a result of this cooperation the characters of Our Gang will be used in a cut-out jigsaw puzzle to be given away in a nation-wide campaign in behalf of McK. & R. Milk of Magnesia. The initial order for puzzles placed with the Einson-Freeman Co., lithographers, calls for 1,000,000 puzzles to be delivered in 250,000 lots. It is estimated that a total of 2,000,000 puzzles will be distributed during this campaign. Plans are now being developed which will make it possible for theaters playing Our Gang comedies to participate in the campaign to the mutual advantage of all concerned. MICKEY MOUSE DISPLAYS All the W. T. Grant department stores throughout the country will have special display features on Mickey Mouse on his birthday, Oct. 1. (^<S>tla*.uf±tTTi4*/ UI^L^lU > cd by T\ WALKER, / ' 0E GOLD, J, 0«\<e o-e° Eclipse Proved a Newsreel Triumph By TRUMAN H. TALLEY Vice-President and General Manager, Movietonews, Inc. TF THE eclipse of recent date was a "scientific flop" as one caustic headline writer boldly announced in a screaming banner line of type across the front page of his paper, it attests the wisdom of the venerable adage about the "ill wind." Disappointed scientists to the contry, the eclipse was one of Fox Movietone News' greatest successes from more than one point of view. Two weeks before it was due, Movietone was made aware of an exhibitor consciousness regarding the newsreel's activities that was encouraging to behold. From the first peep, until almost 24 hours after the first contact of the moon with the sun, letters, telegrams and phone calls from exhibitors literally poured into the office for information as to the handling and distribution of the subject. Luckily for the ledgers our solar friends chose a makeup day for its blackout and the subject was included in a regular release, doing away with the tremendous expense of a "special." Interest in the eclipse was so great, a "special" would have been the only way to satisfy it, had the widely advertised phenomenon taken place on any other day, with the negative arriving in the office with only seconds between it and a deadline impressed by the carriers, the subject got every bit as fast distribution as the most hysterical of "specials." (Movietone first-run accounts at the most distant points are serviced with the current reels within 36 hours after first print is struck off in our laboratory, a coverage it is justifiably proud of.) That a squeeze play was necessary to include the subject in a regular issue was due to what in modern parlance is called "the breaks." With the sun and moon acting most obligingly, the weather turned, like a woman scorned, and did everything possible to upset the apple cart. Not satisfied with its thwarting of the scientists earlier by placing obscuring clouds between them and the heavenly happenings, it lowered these clouds to create an impenetrable fog just as the newsreel men clambered into their planes to fly the negative to New York. Every plane that left New England was forced down somewhere along the route. Larry Ellis, veteran Fox New England representative, delegated with the duty to get the negative to New York as expeditiously as possible was forced down outside of Boston. To make it worse he was told that an opposition cameraman who had been forced down a moment before, had, during a slight rift in the fog again ventured forth. As he pondered this the fog descended with a pea-soup venom that made all his arguments with his pilot futile. The man would not dare it under any circumstances. He combed the field for a plane equipped for blind flying with none to be found. Desperate he started for the old South Station for a train to New York. He didn't have time to buy a ticket for the train that was about to pull out. Aboard he considered his fate arriving in New York a beaten man, when at Providence a familiar rattle of film cans attracted his attention to a new passenger, his opposition, forced down at the Rhode Island city. In the meantime, fuming and fretting editors, mopped and stamped. Ellis finally turned up and saved the day by the proverbial whisker. Naturally the negative from New England which was made in the path of totality at Fryeburg, Me., was all important and the success of these pictures are now a matter of record. Movietone News has received a number of letters from people in the trade and scientists congratulating it on the splendid results. Weeks of careful planning and intense study, in cooperation with a group of scientists from the Dearborn Observatory of Northwestern University, were amply rewarded. Of exceptional character was the negative turned in by John A. Bockhurst, cameraman attached to tb' New York staff, who worked on the Maine peak at Fryeburg. His was the only motion picture negative to fully photograph the hitherto unpictured burst of the corona down the valleys of the moon creating what is known as Bailey's Beads. This was the result of a solid month of testing niters that would eliminate extraneous light and would bring out in the celestial spectacle a phenomenon within a phenomenon. In addition to the expedition at Fryeburg, Fox Movietone News had 16 other cameras photographing tht eclipse from every angle. It had a crew at Conway, N. H., another vantage point, and an aviation unit flew in the totality path during the elapsed time from the first to the last contact. Another crew was aboard the S.S. Manhattan on its maiden voyage. Capt. Fried, famous sea hero, at the request of Movietone, timed his passage to arrive in the totality zone during the heighth of the phenomenon. Other crews obtained angles of the partial eclipse and ground activities in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. With the subject titled, scored, and edited the Movietone producers took a seat in the wings and watched exhibitors strut their stuff. It was here they triumphed. Their ken is limited between Tenth Ave. on the West Side and First Ave. across town. But, if the exhibitors here may be taken as criterions, the whole country came through for De Luxe Press Book For "The Last Frontier," 12-episode western serial by the Van Beuren Corp. starring Creighton Chaney, RKO Radio has issued a de luxe 12-page campaign book in two colors throughout. With a rousing cover design as a keynote, the book presents a wealth of showmanship material such as a line of vivid paper in full color featuring combats, covered wagon trains, stampeding buffalo herds, and hordes of hostile Indians. Many special accessories are listed; also a double spread of attractive exploitation stunts. An unusual amount of pictorial and text publicity is included about the production by Fred J. McConnell and the large cast, which comprises, besides Lon Chaney's son, Creighton, such serial notables as Dorothy Gulliver, Francis X. Bushman, Jr., Pete Morrison, Yakima Canutt, Slim Cole, Joe Bonomo, Judith Barrie, Claude Peyton and Benny Corbett. them. From the little exhibitors on Tenth Ave. near 50th St., Ninth Ave. and 54th St., to the operators of the cathedrals and palaces on Broadway, art and letters shrieked the showing of the subject. There were few exhibitors who shelved this subject until a change in program. To a man Mr. Exhibitor went after the additional admissions represented in the sky-minded attitude of the public. It is because of this Movietone News producers regards the eclipse as a newsreel triumph. This is the first time in their years of producing newsreels that exhibitors as a body have shown such wholehearted enthusiasm for a newsreel subject. To them it represents a battle won. But they are not joshing themselves that it is all over. There's still plenty of fighting to do and still some exhibitors who can't see their newsreel as anything more than a filler or house clearer. They will not stop until they have this state of mind completely mopped up. The newsreel is an indispensable part of present day screen entertainment, they believe, and it is the one medium by which motion picture theaters can build up a state of mind which will give them the respect and power in their communities that is enjoyed by the press. And, properly exploited, newsreels have box-office value. t>e y ONE REEL