Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

Tuesday, February 20, 1951 Motion Picture Daily 3 National Pre-Selling A HUGE tieup with Matson Navi gation Co. will promote 20th Century-Fox's "Bird of Paradise" in more than 100 cities from Coast to Coast. The steamship company, which sends luxury liners to Hawaii, where the picture was filmed, will offer display and poster material to its offices and travel agencies in all parts of the country. Over 1,000 agents have been informed of the tieup and have received promotional material with instructions to work closely with theatres on cooperative campaigns in local situations. • An unusual promotion kit, containing 716 pieces of material in 18 sections, has been tailored for the special use of roadshow engagements of Stanley Kramer's "Cyrano de Bergerac" and issued to advance agents and field men for the exploitation of the Jose Ferrer starring vehicle. The kits, with emphasis on focusing interest of educational and cultural groups, include film strips, feature stories, radio spots, TV trailers, publicity and advertising mats, posters and special material. • American Airlines has completed the distribution of the first 1,000,000 fullcolor postcards plugging the M-G-M comedy, "Three Guys Named Mike," and has also distributed a sindlar number of booklets on the same subject. The Airlines campaign includes fullpage, full-color ads in leading national magazines, display ads in more than 200 neimspapers, and 1,000 window displays for airline and travel bureau tieups, all timed for local playdaies. • Unprecedented support from the Florists Telegraph Delivery Association will give 20th Century-Fox's "Bird of Paradise" free advertising in 225 key-city and small town newspapers from Coast to Coast. Large scale ads built around Debra Paget, who stars in the picture, will reach an estimated readership of 62,000,000 throughout the country, in addition to magazine ads in April issues of Look, Redbook, McCall's and Parade. At the local level, the FTDA's 8,500 retail florist will cooperate. • McCall's magazine announces an increase in its advertising rates, based on the fact that it is delivering a circulation of over 4,000,000 copies. A special rate is now quoted for McCall's and Better Living in combination. This is a "package" amounting to 5,400,000, said to be the largest guaranteed circulation available to women and homemakers. • Seventeen magazine is the highest ranking monthly in amusement lineage, according to the Lloyd Hall Editorial Analysis Bureau's 1950 report. With 43,295 lines of articles, features and stories of screm, theatre, radio and television, Seventeen zvas 3,000 lines ahead of its nearest competitor, and 83,400 lines over any publication in the women's service category, it was said. In addition to its motion picture reviews, Seventeen gives a "Picture of the Month" Award and regularly carries feature stories, interviews and picture layouts on movies, stage and entertainment media. Something New Is Added EAGLE Lion Classics and Motion Picture Daily break new ground today with the publication of a streamlined pressbook, fully contained in this edition, for the first time in trade paper history. The pressbook is on "Volcano," is in eight pages, and incorporates all of the essentials required by the exhibitor to plan his campaign. But what this innovation does, and what other pressbooks have not done, is this: It gives the exhibitor unprecedented opportunity to study and to weigh in advance of playdate — and, in fact, in advance of his film buy — the selling tools which the distributor has evolved. Available to him are newspaper ads which set the thematic approach for appeal to the public, boiled-down stories for newspapers, and other channels of publicity, exploitation tie-ups and accessories. In short, all of the established pre-requisites of the oldline pressbook with this one pivotal difference: A concentration on the essential values presented concisely and definitively without the need to wade through limitless pages of material expanded beyond its worth or its practical application. For some time now, many exhibitors have found many pressbooks, unwieldy, cumbersome and ineffective. The fresh approach conceived by Eagle Lion Classics is direct, concise, hard-hitting — and realistically designed to meet the customer's needs. KANN Columbia kicks off its national preselling campaign on "Valentino" with a full-page ad in the Feb. 27th issue of Look magazine. From then until a full-color page runs in the Easter Sunday issue of American Weekly, there will be national advertising in Life, Modern Romance, True Confession, True Story, Screenland, Silver Screen, Seventeen, Movie Life, Movie Stars Parade, Modern Screen, Screen Stories, Movieland, Screen Guide, Motion Picture and Movie Story. The film, which had its world premiere in San Francisco on Feb. 15, is scheduled for April release. • A national tieup in behalf of "The Mating Season," set for March release, has been completed by Paramount Pictures with the Groshire Clothing Co., manufacturers of men's clothing. The promotion will include half-page ads in Esquire, Holiday, Time, and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Stores throughout the country will be supplied with blow-ups of the ads, which feature John Lund and Thelma Ritter. Groshire is also planning giveaway suits in special promotions at the point-of-sale. • Look Magazine's annual motion picture awards will be presented on Bob Hope's radio show on Tuesday evening, Feb. 27. The Paramount comedian, currently co-starring with Hedy Lantarr in "My Favorite Spy," will "emcee" the affair. This will be the Wth consecutive year that avuards have been presented on Bob's radio program. • An unprecedented "merchandising tie-in" TV campaign making use of more than 20 fashions created for 20th Century-Fox's "Bird of Paradise" is netting a large number of free "plugs" for the Technicolor film. Fashion models are heralding both "Bird of Paradise" and the creations inspired by the film over scores of TV programs reaching an "interested" female audience of millions throughout the country. United Artists' new picture, "Queen for a Day," is featured in a page-anda-half picture story, "Twin Babies — One Movie Role," which appears in March McCall's — on the newsstands Feb. 23. In a series of nine pictures the McCall's article tells of the safeguards used to protect the health of babies and highlights the precautions which are taken. These include: maintenance of nursery for infant performers by the producer, physical examhiations, work permits, etc. The article points out that babies can work only two hours a day — only 30 seconds before the camera at any one time. Heavy fan magazine advertising will herald the release of 20th Century-Fox's "Bird of Paradise" as an Easter attraction in approximately 500 theatres. More than 30,000,000 film fans from Coast to Coast will read advertising copy in the March issues of Modern Screen, Screen Stories, Motion Picture, Movie Story, Movieland, Screen Guide, Movie Life, Movie Stars Parade, Photoplay, Screenland and Silver Screen. Four color, double page spreads have been especially designed to appeal to readers of the screen publications. In addition, four-color pages will appear in the mass-circulated Sunday newspaper supplements, This Week and Pictorial Review. Paramount has completed arrangements with the Marlboro Shirt Co. for a national tieup plugging Bob Hope's new comedy, "The Lemon Drop Kid" which is set for release in April. Coincident with the release, Marlboro will introduce a Bob Hope sport shirt, backed by a strong promotional campaign. This will include color posters, stills from the picture and special newspaper mats. The promotion will be kicked off with national advertising in large-circulation magazines. ■ — Walter Brooks Senate Bill Seeks Expansion of Overseas Program Washington, Feb. 19. — Senators Benton (D., Conn.) and Wiley (R., Wise.) today introduced a resolution calling for an investigation by a Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee of ways of expanding and makingmore effective the State Department's overseas information program, which embraces motion pictures and other media. Benton, in a long Senate speech, said that even the recent expansion in this program fell far short of what was needed. He suggested that it was a mistake to keep the "Voice of America" program in the State Department and that the government's propaganda activities aimed at overseas audiences should be carried on by an independent government agency or by a government corporation. Such an agency, Benton said, would be more attractive to top people from the radio, motion picture and other related industries, and they would be more likely to come in and work for the government. Lipton Due Here on Product Promotions David A. Lipton, Universal Pictures vice-president in charge of advertisingpublicity, will arrive in New York from California tonight for conferences with home office executives. While in New York, Lipton will set promotion campaigns on "Air Cadet," Bill Mauldin's "Up Front," "Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm," "Francis Goes to the Races" and "The Prince Who Was a Thief." Flaherty to Direct Cinerama Picture Robert Flaherty, veteran director, has been signed by Thomas-Todd Productions to direct the first fulllength feature to utilize the new Cinerama process. The film, as yet untitled, is scheduled for September release. Michael Todd, stage producer, and Lowell Thomas, author and radio commentator, recently formed the producing unit which will pioneer with commercial Cinerama films. Study TESMA Slate For Officers, Board Hollywood, Feb. 19. — Nominations for officers and a board of directors of the Theatre Equipment and Supply Manufacturers Association are being considered by the nominating committee, Roy Boomer, secretary, reports. The election will be held by mail ballot. Members of the nominating committee are : V. J. Nolan of National Carbon, chairman; L. E. Jones, Neumade Products ; Thomas E. LaVezzi, LaVezzi Machine Works ; J. F. O'Brien, RCA ; E. J. Vallen, Vallen, Inc., and E. Wagner of Wagner Sign Service New Variety Hospital Minneapolis, Feb. 19.— The Heart Hospital Committee of the local VarietyTent has announced that the dedication of the heart hospital, located on the campus of the University of Minnesota, will take place on March 20.