Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

Spring at 1540 Broadway IN THE SPRING, a young man's fancy may, as Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote in his "Locksley Hall," turn to thoughts of love, but in the den of Friendly Leo, the Lion, vernal thinking is more concerned with those lovely grosses that bloom in the Spring, tra la. . . . And with the pictures which earn 'em, . . . And the campaigns which assure — or should Phil M say insure? — that said grosses will be earned, to the satisfaction of all concerned, down to and including John Q. Public. T ▼ ▼ • • • DURING THE NEXT FIVE MONTHS, Metro will be sending out a total of 18 features, and you don't need to be an Einstein to figure that means almost four pictures each month. . . . What's more, eight of the big ones will be in Technicolor. . . . And you don't have to be told the box office potential of Technicolor. ... Or that John Q's interest in color, per se, has been stimulated not a little o' late by the rhubarb over rainbowed television systems. ... But Phil M is digressing —this little homily draws its inspiration from some of the promotional activities presently under way at 1540 Broadway. . . . And, as someone surely has remarked ere this, one thing at a time. T T T • • • FOLKS AT 1540 are especially excited these mid-March days over "Father's Little Dividend," which will be going into release in April, and "Go for Broke," scheduled for availability the following month. . . . And. of course, there's the continuing drum-beating for "Quo Vadis." . . . (They will tell you. and proudly, too, "THIS is the year of 'Quo Vadis'.") . . . They think rather highly of "Father's Little Dividend" at Metro, and it wouldn't surprise them at all if the picture shaded "Father of the Bride" at the box office. . . . Which admittedly would be quite a feat. . . . Metro and its agency. Donahue & Co.. have come up with a swell newspaper teaser ad campaign for the picture. ... It comprises a series of cute baby photos, with text restricted to the three words of the title, lettered on the tyke's training panties, as they're known in the infants' wear trade. T ▼ ▼ • • • THE TEASERS WILL BREAK in some 150 newspapers of large circulation in 75 important cities. . . . Donahue & Co. estimates that over the course of the advance build-up the title of the picture thus should receive a circulation of 55.000,000 per insertion, or for the entire campaign something in the neighborhood of 250,000,000 impressions. . . . That, you will admit, is newspaper's pre-selling with a vengeance. . . . Metro is not slighting the national magazines, of course. . . . The first copy already has broken in some April issues, and by the time the last ad appears in May issues some 32 mags, will be represented in the campaign It's Phil M's guess this means an aggregate circulation of upwards of 62.000,000. . . . Promotional tie-ups for the pic by the way, are figured at Metro as accounting for a further astronomical 670,000,000 readership! T T T • • • AS FOR "GO FOR BROKE," Metro's "Battleground" successor, Phil M caught a glimpse of some of the roughs for the magazine ad campaign the other day, and they're corking. . . . They know how to key copy to picture content at 1540. . . . Meanwhile, "Quo Vadis" is in motion in a big way tie-up-wise. . . . Already some 40 manufacturers are set to turn out a varied array of products from a special set of 200 "Quo Vadis" patterns developed by the Knickerbocker Textile Corp. The <\ S65