The Exhibitor (1960)

MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR EX-285 January 1 1, 1961 I EXPLOITATION I ACTUAL PROMOTIONS, accomplished by Experienced Theatremen, that can be applied with profit to many other Theatre Situations. This, special section is published every-second-week as a seporately bound saveable service to all theatre executive subscribers to MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR. Each such cumulatively numbered saveable section represents current submissions that have been judged by the Editorial Board as having the originality and ticket selling force to warrant placement in the 1961 SHOWMEN OF THE YEAR CONTEST (explanation elsewhere). It is recommended that theatremen save complete annual consecutively numbered files of these EXPLOITATION sections, and on the last page of each issue will be found a complete cumulative index for the year. Address all communications and submissions to the Editors of MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR, 246-48 N. Clarion St., Philadelphia 7, Pa. JANUARY 11, 1961 v^OL^s, NO? 6 individual ACHIEVEMENT CITATIONS have been hsued for each of theses B KIDS' MATINEES NUMBER B1 Special Kids’ Shows, etc. THEATRE: SW DeWitt, ADDRESS: Bayonne, N. J. MANAGER: Nyman Kessler Recent showmanship activities here includ¬ ed a Three Stooges’ Fun-O-Rama kiddie matinee show. This consisted of our showing four different Three Stooge two reelers; plus five color cartoons; and the feature, “Smiley” and the giveaway of a Three Stooges’ Comic Book. The kids certainly go for bargains. The more you give them the better they like it; and this combo, which was plugged by a special throwaway given out near the schools and in shopping bags at the super-markets, went over nicely. One week before we played the cartoon feature, “Snow Queen”, we gave out a 64page Snow Queen Coloring Book free to each child. This helped boost our show during the giveaway, a Walt Disney cartoon and feature combination; and, of course, served as an ad¬ vance plug for “Snow Queen”, which had the voice of Bayonne’s own Sandra Dee for the heroine character. We duplicated the Three Stooges’ idea with four different ‘Little Rascal’ Comedies, plus 10 cartoons, to equally satisfactory results. Our annual School Supplies Grab Bag giveaway went over well this year, too. It was sponsored by a local sporting goods store. Each child received a sealed bag with each one containing about six different items in the school line. This is always popular, as well as useful, for the chilfren. We had a religious picture recently, “The Song Of Sister Maria’’, which we plugged with a special herald. We tied up with various Catholic Churches and they announced that this picture had an A-I rating from the Legion of Decency. We doubled it on All Saints Day with a dog picture, “Big Jeeter”, which bore the same rating; and tied-up with a local dress shop for the giveaway of 15 “Sister Maria” dolls free to the 15 lucky children holding the lucky numbers. The merchant also used a display in the store advertising the giveaway as well as our play date on the picture. We also used larger ads than usual in the local newspaper to pub¬ licize these films as “First Run In Hudson County.” A novelty show which went over better than average was our “Parents and TeenAgers 3-Feature Program.” This consisted of three older releases, “Summer Love”, “Hound Dog Man”, and “Going Steady.” Our local newspaper gave us extra free space to pub¬ licize “Going Steady” as we gave them a special mat on this about the Inquiring Photographer asking the various stars of the picture about their ideas of young folks “going steady.” When we played “Pollyanna”, we used punchy catchlines to boost this family-type picture. This was “Something Special Hap¬ pened^ In Bayonne”. About 1,000 of your neighbors got a wonderful lift when they saw ‘Pollyanna’ here yesterday. They forgot Model Martha McQuown as she appeared as "Esther" to bally 20th-Fox's "Esther And The King" for the Walter Reade Theatres in New Jersey. newspaper headlines, their bills, their pills and the tensions of the times as soon as they met that most considerate young lady named Pollyanna. They also met her friends on both sides of the tracks . . . sharing their various secrets . . . and recalling a rare feeling that is simply known as happiness. Their enthu¬ siastic applause proved that this was the finest of Walt Disney’s piost joyous pictures. If you could ask our patrons yesterday about “Polly¬ anna”, we are confident they would say, “This is something special. You’ll be glad you saw it!” Enjoy it . . . and be happier for it!” We know this was a bit wordy and a lot of reading matter to crowd into limited regular theatre ad space; but the try plus word of mouth put this family show over for us in a terrific manner. With all these type of shows we used special advance trailers to publicize them better than the average booking; and in many of these shows our candy concessions did above aver¬ age, even though some of them did not go over as well as we wanted them to. But we keep punching all the time to blitz people out of their homes as much as possible. We also had on a midweek matinee recently what we called the biggest entertainment bar¬ gain ever — a penny a cartoon show consisting of 25 cartoons for 25 pennies. Likewise, a spook and horror show for kiddies. All of these ‘added attractions’ were at¬ tractively heralded by a 40x60 lobby board; by special heralds; etc., in addition to our special trailers. NUMBER B2 Ties In With Newspaper’s Kids Club THEATRE: Hollywood, ADDRESS: Ft. Worth, Texas MANAGER: LeRoy Ramsey With the help of a tie-in with the Ft. Worth Press and its attendant promotion on MGM’s “The Time Machine”, I was able to extend the run, of this picture for two weeks. This is something great for a science-fiction pic¬ ture in this house. Not only did we get the kids, but at night we also got adults. This is also not usually the case with sciencefiction. The newspaper has a club “Kid’s Press Club”, made up of children through the sixth grade. By making application a child is issued a membership card good for a year. The Press and the theatre staged a back to school show for the club members. The Sunday prior to the kids’ show on Saturday we obtained the following breaks: a six colunm by 8 inches art break; and a house ad measuring four columns by seven inches. The art break is the biggest that the Press has ever given anything. Also a four columns by 12 inches house ad was used on the back page of the weekly television log. This was kept in most homes the entire week. And on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday prior to the show a Press Club application and story were run. On Friday prior to the show a four columns by seven inches ad was run. The newspaper has 10 weekly spots per¬ manently on the leading television station and they devoted the 10 spots to the promo Ray McNamaro/ Allyn, Hartford, Conn., recently hosted Hartford Times newspaper carriers at a special morning screening of Paramount's "O. I. Blues"; and some of the pleased audience is shown above.