The Film Daily (1934)

THE esday, Aug. 29, 1934 &2 DAILY llPLOITETTES Iflanta R. R's Tie Up ik "Bulldog Drummond" [D MILNIKEiR, manager of a! Loew's Grand Theater, Ati:ata, ushered in the premiere it>j "Bulldog Drummond Strikes nek" with an outstanding excitation campaign. Stunts and t-ups backed up a barrage of fwspaper publicity never beBfj.*e accorded any picture in <al papers. A tie-up with five .jtal railroad companies on J sir cent-and-a-half a mile rate j.tthis city got displays of three ..mdred 14 x 36 cards in all ,:,lroad stations and the dis!;bution of 3,000 dodgers. This ffWp gave the campaign como te coverage over a radius of 7 miles. Both Postal and West2:i Union cooperated on Mil"nter's exploitation program. 'Fetal got out 2,000 cards, an'nmcing the engagement of fjrummond" at Loew's Grand Heater. These cards were deliered with each wire leaving 4ir offices. W. U. used 15 jiinbo telegram displays in each ■M the branch stores and gave rtl picture full credit. "Silver Speen Magazine" displayed on a| newsstands special cards pigging their issue containing■afeview of the picture and also njntioned the Grand Theater. IVinu cards plugging the enggement were placed in rooms O) leading hotels and 3,000 npelty throwaways, as well as 3|00 tabloids were also effectfely circulated throughout tl city. One hundred halfs|et cards were used on trolley dfhboards and 3,000 finger pint novelty sheets were disputed at the theater. Two fijeen-minute radio sketches wre arranged over stations \fcST and WSB with the thear and playdate used after e|h program. The picture also rqeived mention on the air. — Loew's Grand, Atlanta. aio Script Broadcast elures 'Missouri' Campaign pLISTING the aid of members of the local Little riater group, Charles Schlaifa manager of the Orpheum tflatre, Omaha, Nebraska, had brm broadcast the radio versih of "The Girl from Misscri" four days in advance of pjjydate. Also, for a week in Lrance there were daily plugs :\r three of the city's radio sttions. The life story of Jean Hrlow, star of the film, was plnted in the Journal. This ptjier reaches every home in tr| city. A contest was run wareby the girl from Missouri wb has made the biggest succe was sought. A special 24sbet was planted one week in a<iance at the heaviest traffic inl>rsection in the city. Orpheum, Omaha. • • • ONCE IN awhile some guy from one of the lesser film organizations emerges with a New Slant we found his angles on the Preparation of the Pressbook decidedly worth while and are setting them down herewith incidentally giving Arnold Rittenberg of Mentone Productions full credit for them although he modestly requested that his name be omitted T T T • • • THE IDEAS have been worked out in a practical demonstration in the company's pressbook on "The World In Revolt" two full length reviews from extremely different types of influential publications the description of the picture is strictly a description, and not a publicity blurb scene mats are reproduced in a group, for convenience's sake instead of using heads and sub-heads, which newspapers invariably ignore, all publicity stories are captioned, for the exhibitor's benefit, according to classification as catchlines are used first and most frequently in the selling of any pix, this pressbook contains almost two solid pages of catchlines, covering many different selling angles T T T • • • AND BECAUSE half-tone reproductions are a gamble in the big metropolitan newspapers as well as the hick towns, these pressbook ads have been made up in line cuts as they are practically printer proof there are 21 different ads, plus a number of accessory slugs, as the average exhib wants to select his newspaper ads from as wide a variety of layouts as possible so it is our considered opinion that if the average pressbook contained as many sane and practical innovations as that on "The World In Revolt" exhibitors generally would quit using pressbooks for chair cushions as so many of 'em do now they really should be READ T T T • • • IT WOULD be very illuminating to discover the ACTUAL cause of the interrupted projection tendered at the preview of Monogram's "Girl of the Limberlost" with the machine going haywire about a half dozen times while the audience sat in darkness and this at the Criterion right on Broadway for a preview that meant a lot to the producer ▼ T T • • • MEMBERS OF Chorus Equity will picket the Criterion this morning for the showing of Mascot's "Young and Beautiful" which they claim was produced in Hollywood on a deal with the WAMPAS who promised their publicity support for using their Baby Stars for the pix the picketing group seems to think that the pix should have been produced here in the East T T T • • • IN ADDITION to attending to the usual business of getting the company ready for location work Harold Godsoe, assistant director on the Hecht-MacArthur production now under way at Sloatsburg, N. Y had his hands full locating hotels and inns scattered through a dozen towns to take care of the 600 kids engaged in mob scenes with Jimmy Savo this is the toughest assignment Harold has ever had and he has done a grand job on location since Saturday with almost 1,000 people and not a major hitch in anything T T T • • • TO STAGE the special ballet numbers in "Romance of a People" at the Roxy opening Sept. 7, Blake Scott has been engaged "Believe Me", the song hit in "King Kelly of the U. S. A." will get its first air break Saturday nite with Orville Knapp's orchestra playing it from the Grand Hotel in Santa Monica « « « » » » TIMELYJOPICS Zanuck Denounces Program Pictures J HAVE no time for the program picture. It is one of the evils of the film business. If a program picture is good, it is usually an accident. Most program pictures are dull; they look exactly what they are — machine-made. They constitute a far worse menace to the film trade — and the filmgoer — than any agitation against "sex" pictures. Sex pictures will not kill the film industry, but program pictures might. They have had their day, and that day is past. My job has taught me, too, that cycles of similar films are a great mistake. Filmgoers demand variety, not rehashes of the same theme. I have been accused of being the man who started cycles. If I did, which I doubt, I hereby make amends by forswearing cyclic production from now on. My object is to make films as different from one another, in style and subject, as George Arliss is different from Bing Crosby. "Forty-second Street," which I produced, started a cycle of musical films. Some of the imitations were good and some bad. But the point is that the cycle must always end by burning the imitators' fingers. In order to keep up public interest, the imitator must try to go one better than the man who initiated the idea. He has to bring on a bigger oast and spend more money in order to make the picture more lavish. The climax is a picture which has cost ten times more than the one everybody is trying to copy — and a surfeited public with no inclination to go and see it. The big stores tell us that "the customer is always right." I do not believe this. I could mention several pictures which have been huge successes which deserved to be colossal flops, and I have known the opposite to be true of pictures which should have broken world box-office records. All because, in my opinion, filmgoers were at sea in their judgment. I do not think filmgoers are right in their attitude towards stars. The public wants stars and pays to see stars. Therefore, I have to fall into line. My own conviction is, however, that every picture should stand or fall by its own merits or demerits as entertainment without regard to the personalities appearing in it. — Darryl Zanuck.