Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1943)

August 28, I 943 MOTION PICTURE HERALD EXHIBITORS TO MAKE THIS THE PEOPLE'S" WAR LOAN Theatre Men Are Mobilized as "Cash Registers" for Treasury Campaign Exhibitors across the land were this week making their plans for participation in the United States Treasury's Third War Loan drive, September 9th to 24th, to sell $15,000,000,000 in bonds directly to the people. The campaign is addressed primarily at the estimated fifty millions of persons with incomes under $5,000 a year. The slogan of the campaign is: "Back the Attack." The approach is using all the available media, including radio, stage, printed page and the motion picture — with the accent on the motion picture and its theatre as the institution closest to the people. Morgenthau Stresses Industry Leadership "It is through the motion picture theatres that those American millions can be reached with our bond message," Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, wrote to S. H. Fabian, chairman of the Theatres Division of the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry in New York. "You can not only sell vast numbers of bonds yourselves, but by your exuberant leadership you can provide a general overall enthusiasm. . . ." It is the motion picture and the motion picture exhibitor who are expected to make the loan the intimate concern of the whole people. Additionally the campaign planners calculate that nearly 15,000 hours of radio time and perhaps a hundred million lines of advertising space in newspapers and magazines will be given by various stations, publications, and sponsors, to the big drive. This promises to be the biggest selling campaign in American history. Drive to Make Public "Stockholders in U.S." The place of the motion picture in the pattern is indicated by an expression from L. C. Griffith, of the Griffith Amusement Company, named by the WAC as chairman of the drive, in which he quoted Theodore R. Gamble, former Hamrick Evergreen circuit executive, now National War Finance Director for the Treasury, as saying that exhibitors were "the cash registers of the war effort." A special and not especially exploited aspect of the campaign to sell the bonds to Cavalcade of Stars Scheduled To Tour Fifteen Cities Washington Bureau The Treasury Department plans to make good use of the "most glamorous salesmen in America" in selling $15,000,000,000 worth of War Bonds next month, Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., said last week when he announced the 1 5-city itinerary of the film industry's Cavalcade of Stars. Including many of the industry's top personalities who last September did yeoman duty in the "Stars Over America" tours, the group of 9 leading men and women in the cavalcade will include Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Mickey Rooney, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell and Kay Kyser and his orchestra. "L. C. Griffith, general chairman of the Motion Picture Industry Third War Loan Campaign, and Kenneth Thomson, chairman of the Hollywood Victory Committee, have assured Mr. Morgenthau that the Cavalcade of Stars will include the outstanding celebrities 'even if it is necessary to close down a studio or two' to release the stars for service in the Third War Loan," a Treasury spokesman commented. "Producers and stars have offered full cooperation." The long train tour across country from Washington to Los Angeles, in the course of which 13 other cities will be visited, will open in the national capital on the eve of the campaign, September 8th, and end in Los Angeles September 24th. The itinerary calls for visits to Philadelphia (September 9th), Boston (1 0th), New York (Nth), Pittsburgh (12th), Detroit (13th), Cleveland (14th), Cincinnati (15th), Chicago (16th), Minneapolis (17th), St. Louis (18th), New Orleans (19th), Dallas (20th) and San Francisco (23rd). Planned in cooperation with the Hollywood Victory Committee and the War Activities Committee of the industry, the program calls for parades and giant mass meetings in each city visited by the cavalcade, at which the stars will put on shows, admission to which will be by bond-purchase only. The program in each city will be arranged by the local war finance committee. citizens in the lower income brackets — differentiating this drive from those previous loan campaigns which have laden the banks, corporations and investment trusts with bonds — was touched upon in a speech at a New York Bond drive meeting of picture executives addressed by W. Randolph Burgess, vice-chairman of the board of the National City Bank in New York and the state's loan drive chairman for the Treasury Department. "All over the world," remarked Mr. Burgess, "there is a trend to totalitarianism, to a process of the state taking over everything, toward state socialism and state capitalism. This drive can help in two ways. "First, it can help in providing by its investment savings a cushion of resources and some security for many who possibly might in the aftermath find themselves out of work and otherwise in despair. There is nothing that so tends to create social discontent and disturbance as being broke and out of work. Bond investment can protect many. "Second, the bond drive can help to make many millions more consciously stockholders in the United States and interested in maintaining it as the land of free opportunity that we have known. They are all stockholders now, but when they put their money in and get certificates they will be more sure of it." Under the chairmanship of Mr. Griffith the motion picture is answering the War Loan appeal with action. On his desk at (Continued on following page) ^B&ck the Attack f