Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1944)

Published in every fourth issue of Motion Picture Herald GEORGE SCHUTZ. Editor RAY GALLO. Advertising Manager pisplay Improvement Now One department in which theatres can overome the ravages of war immediately, or begin leferred modernization, is that of attraction advertising. The necessary equipment for this rork is available. , Before the war the ''typographical" style |»f attraction sign was revolutionizing this tind of advertising. The silhouette panel had already rendered earlier types obsolete when :he multiple-line display using several sizes of nterchangeable letters came along. The silnouette letter itself had improved marquee advertising simply by making it more legible (and, of course, it practically eliminated breakage). Then the "typographical" method made the display more eye-arresting, more informative, more forceful, and we had genuine attraction advertising, in light, at last. Theatre designers working on post-war plans are providing for this newer type of ^attraction advertising as an integral element lof front architecture, either in immediate association with a marquee, or in closer relationship with the building. Thus the important function of program advertising at the point of sale is finally getting, along with other functions of the theatre, the creative recognition it has deserved. Among existing theatres there are many which would take on a livelier, fresh appearance with hardly more than the installation of this modern display equipment. Such theatres can take that step now in the direction of post-war improvement. Footnote on the Future j We moderns have become such spoiled j people, demanding as necessities things that ' once were rare luxuries, that the removal of a carpet industry from our world is something of a calamity. The American carpet industry' hasn't been altogether taken out of civilian ! circulation by the war, but nearly so ; and it is going to requiere considerable time to provide all of us with all of the woven floor fabrics we need, of the kinds we want, i Theatres need soundly made wool carpeting; so do hotels. Then there is the home market to supply with various types. Both hotels and homes, to pick just two classifications, need more yardage than theatres ; however, the requirements of theatres right now are estimated in some sectors of the carpet industry to be a million and a half yards, and we think this is low. It is probably based on normal replacement, whereas post-war replacement will be decidedly abnormal, while there will be an unprecedented number of new theatres to consider. The carpet industry, which is predominantly in war goods production, is short of just about everything that goes to make a good carpet; the reserve stocks are gone. No jute at all. Before carpet manufacturing can get to rolling again in normal fashion, raw materials will have to begin flowing in at something approaching a normal rate. It is estimated that from two to three years will be necessary for that industry to return to its 1941 level of operations. But as soon as military demands ease off substantially, carpet manufacturers will have fabrics for theatres as well as their other markets. They say that there is no intention to slight any group of buyers — each will get a share right from the start. Saleswise, theatres are in the contract classification, and in this, we are told, the manufacturing percentage is higher now than ever before. A Post-War Warning From the vantage point of a quarter of a century or more in close association with the motion picture theatre business, and some hectic months in wartime Washington as a motion picture official of the Office of Civilian Requirements, John Eberson, the New York theatre architect, advises exhibitors to get their construction planning done immediately. It is Mr. Eberson's belief that the theatre operator who waits until the Government lets down the bars to civilian building, to get a plan on paper, the necessary ground, and assured financing, will have to wait a lot longer to build his theatre. He says why elsewhere in this issue. Mr. Eberson's own organization in New York is already busy on 30 or 40 theatres, nearly all of them, of course, for post-war construction. This should be true of all architects competent to design theatres, he said to the writer of these lines — not for the benefit of the architects, he emphasized, but for the good of the theatre business. He sees the physical rejuvenation of this business long retarded unless a major portion of it is ready to go ahead when products and labor begin to flow back into civilian channels. John Eberson has so devoted himself to the creation of theatres for American exhibitors, many of them super-dupers, both here and abroad, that one identifies him as much with the film industry as with the construction business. Though working several decades in architecture, he talks box office like a conference of picture company sales managers, and approaches a problem in foyer design like Hollywood considering a story treatment. To Hollywood went his son Drew after getting his degree in architecture. Drew Eberson joined his father as a partner a year or so before Pearl Harbor. He is in India now, Colonel in the engineering division which built, among other things, including many airports, the gasoline pipe-line recently completed for supplying B-29's. He has some blemishes to recall the times the Japs came over to try to stop them. The father hopes the Colonel will be back soon to take some of the load off. Then he'll stop neglecting his bulbs, and may see what can be done about raising super-duper turkeys. How the Secbees Do It Just so that projectionists back home won't feel too badly about having to keep the show going with equipment held together with bobby pins (if any) and reprocessed prewar chewing gum wads, the Navy Department tells us about Ronald L. Harwood, electrician's mate, f/c, who used to be projectionist at the Ritz theatre in Crawfordsville, Ind. Harwood enlisted in the Navy Seabees in April, 1943 and sometime later landed at an advanced base in the Pacific, where he was placed in charge of one of the four base theatres. Like you and you and you, his major problem was maintenance. Three to seven months were needed to get parts from the States. Seabee machinists often made new star wheels and gears for immediate replacements.' Once four 2,000-foot reels got pushed of? a table, Harwood mentioned the damage in telling his troubles to a Seabee machinist. Later the same day the machinist brought him four new cast aluminum reels, beautifully machined. He had just made them. Another time a rectifier broke down shortly before a show. Harwood got hold of some d. c. welding equipment and hooked it up to Projectionist Harwood with tfie Seabees. his projector. When the stock of exciter lamps ran out before replacements had arrived, Harwood substituted automobile head lamps, fashioning jigs to align them. Of five failures to get a show on the screen, two were due to fumigation for bed bugs and sand fleas. Finding the art of finagling effective in jungle technology, Harwood tried it in other departments. He made friends with airplane pilots and talked them into transporting films II