Motion Picture Herald (Apr-Jun 1931)

May 2 3, 1931 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 63 LEAPER'S SLANT ON GENERAL CONDITIONS {Continued) of operating cost. Don't beat around the bush on this, by basing your adjustment on what you have done, what you think you will do, or on your ideals of De Luxe operation. Adjust to your BOX OFFICE— NOW. You will lick the red or it will lick you. Your box office may be made of bronze but it can stand only so many punches ; and always keep in mind that the boss is watching for knockouts and no box office will take the count, for he will be just a few rounds ahead of you. You have reached the stage where your expenditures and earnings have a most pertinent relationship. Your job means making your expended dollars work profitably. This is positively your first step up. If you have a future it is a prerequisite. Diversified Shows The next punch is readjustment of merchandise. There will be a lot of blood spilt on this round. My personal contention is that diversified entertainment is the soundest solution at this time. No one strata of fans can support your theatre. You have got to diversify your entertainment so that you can appeal to a greater group of entertainment seekers than you have ever appealed to before. Try to appeal to every dollar that is spent for entertainment. Some seats are going to be vacant for a long time. They will be yours or your competitor's. The time is past for Alodel T methods of manufacturing amusement merchandise. If I am going to put my theatre on a sound, profitable operating basis I've got to take every possible advantage. I can no longer share my problems and profits with associates. Every theatre must exploit every available resource. It can no longer be hampered with routine discipline. If the New York Paramount has definite competitive conditions they must be licked regardless of the cotton crop in Texas. I have to intensively develop my property to the maximum. Remember that the morale and economics of the people have been revolutionized, and we have got to begin at scratch and build up in the face of the new outlook on life. No one can say now what the outstanding vogue of entertainment will be for to-morrow. The people themselves don't know and don't care. It is a conservative question of leadership on our part. We must avoid a hysteria of attempted forced feeding with a highly unbalanced diet of amusement. Never before have we been faced with a graver necessity of institutionalizing our theatres along sane, sound lines of entertainment in keeping with the mood of the people and in keeping with the great traditions of this business as a powerful factor in our civic, social and commercial life. Our task is to make the most efficiently and masterly use of those sound and true principles and elements of entertainment upon which we must draw to keep our theatres in leadership and prosperity. Know Your Values The third punch is going to be the heartbreaking one of knowing values. This takes in everything that contacts the several senses of patronage. In these hysterical times your judgment will be severely tested. You must have a definite objective for every expenditure. Every one of your departments is on a merchandising basis. There must be no doubt about the values you are buying. If your service department cannot handle your patrons so that the contact will materially increase the entertainment value of your merchandise, then throw it out, for it has little other function nowadays. They are no longer traffic policemen. Take every item you are buying and selling from the box office to the stage wall, and check coldbloodedly on values. But, don't forget, the drop curtain has started to rise, bringing to you the most prosperous, constructive and happy years of the show business. REGIONAL CHAIRMEN of the Managers' Round Table Club If Jack O'Connell Northern Ohio If E. E. Bair Eastern Ohio Tf Fred E. Johnson Western Pennsylvania If Eddie Hitchcock Eastern Pennsylvania Tf Jack Allan Eastern Canada If Pete Egan Western Canada If William A. Levey Long Island, N. Y. If Frank M. Boucher Maryland If M. R. Blair Iowa If Wallace R. Allen New York t Fred Meyer Wisconsin If Frank B. Hill Washington If Frank Drachman Arizona If Earle Holden Florida If C. H. Chidley Wyoming ^ Bunny Bryan New Jersey Tf Lorenzo Gelabert Porto Rico t J. H. Stodel South Africa ^ Mel Lawton Australia If Lorrie Webb England Bill Levey Says: "Why I believe that the 'Managers' Round Table Club' is a valuable aid to showmen. "That I know that the organization is a valuable aid to showmen goes without saying, since if it were not I most certainly would not be a member. The numerous tips and the many aids that I have received from reading the club pages in the Motion Picture Herald have convinced me that the "Managers' Round Table Club" fills a long-felt want in the motion picture industry. "No manager of a motion picture theatre can afford to ignore this organization, composed of "I believe showmen derive benefit from belonging to the MANAGERS' ROUND TABLE CLUB and hope it continues to thrive as zvell as it has in the past." HOWARD DIETZ, Director of Publicity & Advertising, Metro-Goldzuyn-Mayer. AN OPEN LETTER TO THE M. R. T. C. Born May, 1928. Congratulations ! You are three years old and now that you are such a healthy youngster I want to pen a few words of congratulation and praise to you and to wish you heaps of success. May you continue to be the showman's best friend — The Managers' Round Table Club. What a help you have been to me ! You know, Buddy, every picture is not a solid box office smash and sometimes we rack our humble brain to get an idea that will make Mr. and Mrs. Public come to the old box office and leave the coveted admission price. That's where you come in. Through your pages I go, and sure enough, there is a "tie-up" that will fit right in with the picture — it may be a swell cut-out layout, a tie-up with the press, maybe a nifty ad. or some novelty. But it has clicked for someone else and he (or she) was kind enough to write to Chick and he made sure it was mailed to us. During the year I'll bet I have used your "stuff" about a dozen times and in almost every instance it helped to make the "boss" believe I was still on the job. During the year we admirers of yours put our heads together and we worked out a dozen or so schemes that were practical and would incite public interest. After they were a proven success — we had a pal of ours photograph them — we rushed them on to your dad and he found room for them among the other treasures in your book. You know that old phrase — two heads are better than one — is a true saying, and when fifteen or sixteen hundred get together you are bound to get a lot of ideas that you or I may never have thought of. It's ideas that make the world move. So listen to me, young and true friend — keep on getting the boys and girls to write you — ^get photographs of all their good deeds and record them in your scrap book. So that from time to time that great army of your admirers can read and reflect and profit by the wise deeds of your pals. Tell your Dad we are having a great time down here in Altoona — ail his friends, Alvin Hostler of the Warner, Jack Maloy of the State, Arthur Himmelein of the Capitol and the humble writer, who is with the Olympic, and Mishler are all like one big happy family — each boosting for each other — trying to uphold the dignity of the greatest business on earth. There is no jealousy existing here — we pull with each other and our business is great and the town folk think we are all "great fellers." Again wishing you the best of all there is to be had — and assuring you I will keep in touch with you, I am, Sincerely, CARL B. SHERRED. showmen and edited for showmen with invaluable aid for all who read the pages. These pages contain a wealth of information for the newcomer into the field as well as for the oldtimer (if there are any of the latter type left). "The Managers' Round Table Club is now ■ celebrating its third anniversary and the fact that it has lived and grown to a tremendous size during these three years proves emphatically that the club is an invaluable aid to showmen, since the critics (and we had plenty of them in our beginning) were none too kind in their remarks concerning our future welfare and the club has not only withstood the storm but has come out on top bigger and better than ever with the spirit of 'One For All and All For One.' We are still in our infancy, watch us grow." BEACON THEATRE, Port Washington, N. Y.