Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1931)

68 MOTION PICTURE HERALD May 9 , 19 3 1 Forhan Liked Short Subjects Issue, And Makes Suggestions Well, well! Here's Tom Forhan again and he's got some corking comments to pass along to us. Tom, many of the showmen know, is the manager of the Capitol Thea=^^=^=i^^^^== tre in Welland, Ontario, Can. He liked our recent short subject issue a lot, and he doesn't hesitate to say so in these words : "You hit the nail on the head about shorts, but you could have gone further and called the boys' attention to the many fine opportunities that every issue of the Motion Picture Herald has in illustrations that can be clipped, sent to the engravers and excellent cut material secured that will illustrate display and other advertising matter. The March 14 issue of the Herald contains matter that can be converted to good use for Mickey Mouse, Krazy Kat, Curiosities, Silly Symphonies, and many others. Naturally, I am speaking about houses in smaller cities that have not the facilities for getting out the work such as larger cities do. "On one page of the Herald, a Universal 24-sheet illustration contains material on Ruth, Sidney and Murray, Oswald, Hamilton, Pollard and McNamee, from which I have had cuts made for advertising shorts, also metal cut-outs for use on marquee and lobby. I have found that the use of small cuts plugging shorts secure for me much better results than do the old style of simply mentioning the title of the short and letting it go at that. Page 76 of the March 14 issue contains 14 names of well known stars appearing in shorts that do not take up much space in an ad, and that still plugs a short much better than the old ways of advertising shorts." (Editor's note. — We believe Mr. Forhan refers to the idea now prevalent of placing a group of stars in a theatre ad with a heading, "Shortly to Appear (Stars) in comedies, dramatic sketches, etc.) Oke, Tom. And we're always glad to hear your views on any subject. We hope to hear from you again, and we want to take this occasion to invite others also to pass along their slant, too. Multistamp Heralds Used To Ace Results By Hart In Edgemont M. L. Hart gets along pretty well with the natives living in and around the vicinity of Edgemont, S. Dak. We might go still further than this and say that he more than gets =^==^^^^-^^^^^= along with them, since the patrons are not backward about telling him what they thing of his pictures and his exploitation methods. This is evident in the herald we are showing. Here is a medium that Hart uses which costs him very little money. He makes them up with a Multistamp, printing them on any kind of cheap stock. He never buys heralds. This stunt of his goes over too well. He tells us that the natives all watch for the heralds to see what fool stunt he is going to pull next. But he got back on them recently, and more than that, he got in a plug for the picture he was playing at the time. It seems that they were featuring a depositors' meeting in town, the purpose of which was a post mortem held over a busted bank. Hart appeared on the scene with a thousand or so heralds. The copy on the heralds read : "You Can BANK on this: Joe E. Brown in TOP SPEED will give you CAPITAL entertainment and hold your INTEREST from start to finish." The words "bank," "capital" and "interest," being in big letters, you may be sure that the depositors all grabbed for them. It is not reported what they said after reading them. Oke, "M. L." ! We'd like to hear what else you are doing out in your shack whar them thar mountains kiss the skies. And listen ! How about sending in a photo of yourself so that we can give you a regular introduction? Mat Sat 2:»oPm, Something New in a Theatre Ad! We can well imagine how this ad looked on the pages of the Atlanta newspaper where it was used. And you can probably imagine it, too. Do you agree that it is unusual ? No question about that. Not so very long ago we carried an interesting yarn from a showman up New England way who took regulation production stills and by the clever addition of a small box or two made them up into outstanding advertising copy for his newspaper. If your theatre is located in a spot where such stuff can be used, we can heartily recommend it. It will pull your house's advertising out of the rut and give it a decidedly different twist. That alone ought to be an inducement to those showmen who are always so anxious to inject something new and novel into their theatre's advertising. Carter Barron (so we've been told) is the man responsible for this fine ad which ran five columns by five and one-half inches deep. It lends itself admirably to reduction for much smaller sizes as well. May we suggest that you try this idea just once? But be sure and select a still from the production you are selling that will work out well for such an idea. It should have one or two good spots for mortising where you can carry your type copy or sig. cut. FOX