The Exhibitor (1966)

MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR EX-809 "Arrivederci Baby" Aids Italian Flood Victims NEW YORK — New Yorkers had a unique opportunity to aid the victims of the devastat¬ ing floods in Florence, Italy, by attending a special benefit preview of Paramount Pictures’ “Arrivederci, Baby!” yesterday (Dec. 13) at the Forum Theatre on Broadway. A contribu¬ tion of a dollar or more to the American Campaign for Italian Flood Relief was the ticket of admission to any one of three show¬ ings of the Technicolor comedy at 6:45, 8:45 or 11:30 p.m. Contributions were collected at the Forum Theatre boxoffice by leading Italian and American personalities from the fields of show business, civic government and communica¬ tions, and 100 per cent of all contributions went to the fund. Fortune Pope, chairman of the American Campaign for Italian Flood Relief, has just returned from Italy following meetings with government officials on the needs of the flood victims. The goal of the campaign, which is already underway through the Italian language newspaper, II Progresso, is to raise funds to buy household necessities for all families that suffered severe losses during the recent floods in the provinces of Venice, Florence, and Udine. Enough funds have already been raised to provide 1,000 families each with a kitchen stove, table, four chairs, and two beds. December 14, 1966 Walter Reade, Jr. (second from right), president of the Walter Reade Organization, and Eli Landau, president of the Landau Corp., chat with three of the new Walter Reade Hostesses (l-r), Anita Screen, Terri Chase, and Mary Kealy. Such hostesses will welcome and assist guests at six Reade theatres in Manhattan. December 14, 1966 SECTION THREE Vol. 76, No. 18 ACTUAL PROMOTIONS from the fertile minds of exhibition and dis¬ tribution that can be applied with profit to the theatre situations. This special section is published a very -second -week as a separately bound, saveable service to all theatre executive subscribers to MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR. Each saveable section represents current submissions by theatremen and promotion plans from distributors that have originality and ticket selling force. Exhibitors are invited to submit campaigns on specific pictures or institutional ideas. Add EXPLOITATION to your permanent theatre library. Address all communications and submissions to the Editors of MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR, 317 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, Penna. —19107. Trans-Texas Managers Go All Out To Tie-In Films, Local Campaigns DALLAS — The following campaigns have been submitted by managers of the TransTexas Circuit. They are successful examples of local-level promotion activity: “A MAN AND A WOMAN,” the most frank and daring love story of all time had a tre¬ mendous four week engagement at TransTexas’ Fine Arts Theatre in Dallas. The en¬ gagement was the southwest premiere and played from Oct. 18 through Nov. 15. Much of the success of this attraction was because we were able to sell out the premiere night to the Mental Health Association of Dallas County. Another big boost was the fact that we were able to tie-in with the Neiman Marcus French Fortnight. Neiman’s is one of the nation’s leading department stores. When we found out that their theme for this year’s fortnight was to be French and that we were playing a French movie at the same time, we felt that there just had to be a natural tie-in. We contacted Nei¬ man’s and made arrangements to have 20 one sheet posters posted around the store and in windows. Also, it was through Neiman’s that we found out that the Dallas Mental Health Association was looking for a way to raise funds for their organization. We contacted them and presented the idea of buying out premiere night for a benefit showing for char¬ ity. The charity benefit showing was mentioned along with the other coming events in the offi¬ cial bulletin for the fortnight, given to all cus¬ tomers and mailed to charge customers. The Dallas News ran a beautiful story and two three column cuts on the premiere activi¬ ties in their Society Section, Sunday, Oct. 9. The premiere activities consisted of a cham¬ pagne party at the home of Judge and Mrs. Robert Hughes preceding the 8:30 p.m. per¬ formance. A trip, for two to Jamaica was awarded to a lucky couple at the champagne party. French chanteuse Mirelle Mathieu sang at the premiere. Neiman-Marcus models were in the lobby wearing the latest in French fashions. Champion French poodles were also on hand in the lobby. The French Consulate arrived in full dress uniform with French flags waving on his car. The motion picture sound¬ track album provided the intermission music, and patrons were served gratis coffee and pas¬ try from several pastry carts in the lobby. We carried copy in all of our ads prior to the premiere night calling .attention to the fact that the premiere night was sold out to the Dallas Mental Health Association. We also carried copy through the entire fortnight, read¬ ing: “Presented as a part of the NeimanMarcus French Fortnight.” Throughout the entire month of October, we carried copy in our ads tying in with “October is National Movie Month,” even though we were not play¬ ing movie month presentations. We received wonderful reviews from both papers — John Neville of the Dallas Morning News said, “Among the very best!,” and Virgil Miers of the Dallas Times Herald said, “Bright and beautiful!” We kept improving upon the ads each week to keep the film alive. This gave us a very suc¬ cessful four week run at the Fine Arts. In fact, we could have gone on into a fifth week, but a film commitment on our next attraction kept us from doing so. “FANTASTIC VOYAGE” had a very suc¬ cessful six week run in its Texas premiere en¬ gagement, playing to capacity crowds from Sept. 28 through Nov. 8 at Trans-Texas’ deluxe Capri Theatre in downtown Dallas. There were many tremendous art breaks and stories in many leading magazines. These ad¬ vance stories and art breaks were compiled onto a setpiece used in our outer lobby for four weeks prior to opening. This was really an attention getter. We were fortunate enough to set up a “Fan¬ tastic Voyage” contest with Virgil Miers, the amusement editor of the Dallas Times Herald. The contest consisted of a clue to a fantastic object, place, or thing to run for five consecu¬ tive days on the amusement page. This went over very big as each day the story had a bold heading reading “Fantastic Contest.” The entrants in the above contest who cor¬ rectly solved the clues were given tickets to an advance midnight showing. Everyone at that screening had a chance on the drawing for a portable stereo record player. We had thou¬ sands of entries and were able to fill the house for the midnight show. Besides the terrific art breaks in the Times Herald on our contest, they ran a nice two column cut Sunday ad¬ vance, and a two column cut with the review on opening day. Both the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald had excellent reviews, as both papers thought the pictm-e was great. During our engagement, the great State Fair of Texas had its two week run. During the State Fair engagement we tied in with special copy in our ads. Here are ,a couple of ex¬ amples: “After you see the FUN-TASTIC State Fair of Texas, be sure and see FANTAS¬ TIC VOYAGE” and “Complete your FUNTASTIC State Fair weekend by seeing FAN¬ TASTIC VOYAGE at the Capri Theatre.” To start our fourth week, we decided to change our ads a little and include one of the scene mats from the press book into the body of the ad.