Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1957)

8 Motion Picture Daily Monday, July 8, 19= Booking-Plan Film Promotions Are at New High Lawyer-Study For New York's Summer Festival (Continued from page 1) successful, because the Butterfield circuit takes the films immediately after the first concentrated exploitation campaign. Simultaneous runs in two or three downtown Los Angeles houses have been common for years. Openings in outlying districts have been used successfully. Boston a Good Test Area Boston is an excellent area for concentration of prints, because an advance campaign on the big radio and television stations there assures coverage in Providence and Worcester and other important cities. As everyone knows, the first of these big splurges with swift movement of prints from one section of the country to another was in 1943 on "Hitler's Children" by RKO. Variations of the plan have since been used on revivals of "King Kong" and other pictures. The recent limitations on multiple runs may have been due to reduction of prints. With the print supplv down to 200 nationally on many pictures, staffs of shippers are necessarv in New York. The plan is to keep every print in action every day of the week and to ship by air— a feat comparable to the job of the men in the La Guardia Field control on a foggy night. One Week Grossed $130,000 Drive-ins and neighborhood houses can now turn in grosses comparable to the biggest first-runs in many cases where the downtown booking situations block the clearance pattern. A recent multiple-run booking on a picture below the super-special classification brought in $130,000 the first week. Seven features have been given the multiple run treatment in recent weeks in widely scattered areas. Two are scheduled this month in Manhattan—Elvis Presley's "Loving You" from Paramount, and "Bernardine" from 20th Century-Fox. The Presley film will be shown in 90 theatres and "Bernardine" will go into 100. This by-passes the Broadway first-runs. Al Daff, executive vice-president of Universal International, has contended for years that he doesn't care whether he gets a Broadway showing ahead of all the neighborhoods on most of the U-I product. The more showings, the better, he insists, no matter where they are. Detroit Case Cited Allied Artists stimulated the present trend by multiple openings of "Friendly Persuasion" in Detroit. Matinee business was a surprise, especially in the neighborhoods. Irving Sochin, general sales manager for Rank Film Distributors of America, used to be with Universal in the heyday of territorial openings. He was quick to grasp the attentiongetting possibilities by the city area type of selling. He tried it first in Southern California with "Check By JAMES M. JERAULD New York's Summer Festival, designed to put the summer tourists on the que vive and at the same time keep the natives aware of what's going on in a promotional way has put the film advertising and publicity departments into a state of feverish activity. Both old and new ideas are being used. Warner Bros, promotion experts delayed not a moment in inviting Skipper Alan Villiers and his crew aboard the Mayflower II to the opening of "Band of Angels," at the Paramount Wednesday. Star Yvonne DeCarlo will greet them wearing $2,210,000 worth of diamonds, according to the Warner experts. These will be from the Baumgold collection and include a necklace valued at $450,000; two rings priced at $370,000 and $295,000, twin brooches, a floral spray, tiara and. earrings. She ought to sparkle. Five Models for 55th Street The Warner men also have five models ready to attend the premiere tomorrow of "The Rising of the Moon" at the refurbished 55th Street Playhouse. The girls were provided by the Irish Free State to help popularize Irish fashions and materials. They will tour the United States. The Playhouse had been, closed since June 23 for a remodeling job. Twentieth Century-Fox publicists will stage a shipboard premiere of "An Affair to Remember" on the Constitution, U.S. Lines shhip, Thursdav. Tomorrow night Universal will premiere "The Man With 1,000 Faces" at the RKO 86th St. Theatre with suitable and impressive ceremonies. Paramount opened Jerry Lewis's first solo starring picture, "The Delicate Delinquent," at the Mayfair last week. Lewis and a group are on a 10,000mile tour in behalf of the film in a United Airlines' Executive Convair which reached New York last week. It left for Philadelphia the following day and continued on to Washington. It was a strenuous schedule in Philadelphia— motorcade from the airport to the Oldsmobile branch (Lewis' TV sponsor), to Warwick Hotel for interviews by Daily News, Bulletin and Inquirer critics and reporters, an appearance at the Stanley Theatre, tape interviews for broadcasts over WRCV and WIP, followed by a Decca Records cocktail party, then a TV appearance and a second stage show at the Stanley. Documentary from U.A. In the midst of the avalanche of exploitation news United Artists announced it was making a 45-minute documentary with advice from the National Education Ass'n in Washington on "The Vikings." It will be used in schools and elsewhere, as it shows Viking ships, weapons, daily living articles and costumes worn by the actors, on location in Norway. point" and "Black Tent" in 12 theatres. Now he has ten more cities scheduled for similar openings. Sam Pinanski booked "Johnny Tremain," Disney film, into seven houses on the American Theatres circuit and 11 theatres of other groups went into the arrangement. One downtown house was included. He will take the Presley film on the same basis starting July 17. Ben Marcus in Favor Ben Marcus, Allied president, is in favor of multiple bookings, especially on pictures that do not require major advertising budgets. Charles Simonelli, eastern advertising and publicity manager for Universal, has developed his own techniques for staging exploitation campaigns in connection with these openings and has been putting them on regularly since January 1954 when he staged openings for "Six Bridges to Cross" in the New England area. This year "Tammy and the Bachelor" was booked at the Joy Theatre, New Orleans, with 25 circuit exhibitors taking part in a contest at Pontchartrain Beach on Memorial Day. A few days later the exploitation effort was moved to Boston. That was a territorial saturation campaign with 60 bookings in the Boston and New Haven exchange areas. The intricate Rank Short ( Continued from page 1 ) two weeks at Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and in the New York metropolitan area. Highlight scenes from "Hell Drivers," "Across the Bridge," "High Tide At Noon" and "Miracle in Soho" are included, along with views of the Pinewood Studios showing Belinda Lee, Peggy Cummins and Flora Robson acting as hostesses. schedule was handled with between 12 and 15 prints. Twenty one or more Chicago neighborhood houses and some in the immediate surrounding area will simultaneously book 12 new Universal features. This new setup began in late June. For this drive large ads will be used in the Chicago dailies and nearby newspapers. Personality tours stir up neighborhood excitement and help get merchant cooperation. Six of the theatres on the schedule are drive-ins. Old clearance patterns are kicked around in these current releasing plans of all companies, but nobody seems to care. ( Continued from page 1 ) analyze that company's figures wit generalizations supplied for oth companies. The present form of distributio by exchanges would be scrapped ur der the plan. The consultants estimate that would take from one to three yeai to complete the short term featun of the proposals and from five to te years to get the rest of it into op eration. The six companies for which fif; ures were studied had an aggregat domestic film rental of $239,000,00 for 1956. Branches cost $34,000,001 with the expense of field forces an other distribution costs running up t 14.1 per cent of the receipts. Horn office sales and advertising forct were not included in the study. Recommendations Outlined The recommendations in the sho term plan include: Centralization of billing and ac counting into a single building witl data processing facilities. It is fi ured this would save from $1,600,001 to $2,400,000. Integration of centralized billini with home offices. Modification of credit and collet tion practices. It is figured central ization of these would save $442,00( annually. Installation of a credit system witl savings of $900,000. Consolidation of the existing back room and inspection systems, witl savings estimated between $876,00< and $1,440,000. Establishment of a timetable foi starting these changes for a perio of 34 months. Sales and booking offices would be cut sharply. All inspection practice would be systematized. All account ing functions would use electronic de vices. Computers would be used t< control scheduling of prints in orde to reduce the number of shipments. Telephone-Selling Suggested The engineers say that after centralization of billing, accounting credit and collections, office space for branch managers, salesmen, bookers and some clerical help could be lo cated in any part of a city. This would make it possible, the report states, to transfer Albany, New Haven and Philadelphia offices to New York. It is also urged that salesmen in fringe areas do their selling by tele phone from their homes, and also that the booking could be done by telephone and mail. Under the suggested plans, the engineers state, the confidential data of each company could be kept from every other company. Wesley Schram Dies DETROIT, July 7 Wesley R. Schram, who operated the Columbia, Echo and Bijou Theatres here, died last week. He is survived by his wife, Anna, and a son, Norman.