Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

An international association of showmen meeting zveehly | MOTION PICTURE HERALD for mutual aid and progress -'ESTER FRIEDMAN, Editor GERTRUDE MERRIAM, Associate Editor OP lanning Tomorrow ho Lately, we find there is an increasing number of managers w ire looking around with the intention of buying a theatre. It is the natural ambition of all theatremen to become exhibitors nd it is likely that there are a lot of people around with surplus cash o invest who are readily impressed with the way movie goers are smming the theatres. The truth is that there are few exhibitors who are anxious to sell •neir properties while the boom is on. Consequently there are a ot of disappointed managers who are unable to "buy in," several of whom are hopefully waiting until the war is over. The post war era does not look too bright for exhibitor aspirants ;ither, because too many of the circuits, especially the localized :oncerns, have already purchased theatre sites and are only waiting for the "go ahead" signal to begin a great period of expansion. From this it would appear that the managers' future propects of becoming theatre owners are problematical and not wholly encouraging. At this time every ambitious showman should have a secondary objective in mind. When the circuits do start to expand there will be increased demand for additional supervisors, district managers and home office personnel. J AAA i A Bow to xx Whodunnit" ^ Aside from the fact that there is plenty of excitement, novelty j and suspense to recommend RKO's current release, "The Woman • in the Window" to movie patrons, there is another obvious element ,/hich is contributing to the film's success in most places where it has been shown. flj The advertising campaign prepared by the distributor is responsible for the fact that large numbers of patrons paid their admissions, attracted by the skillful manner in which the ending is represented. The display ads, trailers and other material announcing that no one would be seated during the last five minutes, reinforced through the injection of a personal note, not to reveal the ending "even to your wife, or sweetheart," combine to arouse interest and create word-of-mouth comment that reaches exceptional proportions. Another device which has been strengthening the general theme of the campaign is the practise of inviting police officials, officers from the district attorney's office and the press to an advance screening. The picture is stopped five minutes before the end and the guests are invited to guess at the outcome. News stories and feature articles which follow, generally lend added credence to the fact that the ending of the film is really something by way of surprise. There have been other films of course where theatremen have attempted to conspire with patrons to keep them from giving away a picture's ending; but there have been few occasions where the imagination and curiosity of theatre-goers has been so stimulated by proficient advertising. AAA : • A Out for a Walk One of the Round Table members who has sort of a genius for getting publicity in the local papers visited New York recently. We went to lunch with the theatremen and casually asked him how he was able to maintain such excellent relations with the newspapers and his merchants. "Travel is the answer" he said, "You'd really be surprised how much of that publicity results from a habit I developed of spending at least an hour and a half each day just traveling around the city." "For instance, take the day I started out to the city park. I didn't know I was going to run into the Park Commissioner out there. He invited me to look at his favorite pond, which was stocked with some of the most beautiful gold fish in the country. It was really something, and I sensed that the commissioner was rather proud. "I recalled the huge empty aquarium in the theatre lounge, covered over for years by an institutional sign board. "In ten minutes the Commissioner had agreed to give us all the gold fish we needed and help in transforming the abandoned aquarium into one of the city's finest points of interest. "The resulting publicity was of course a result of our taking our drama editor on a little travel trip the next time he came to the theatre. "For several weeks after we fixed up the aquarium, our business was considerably better than normal and there was a constant crowd of patrons at the exhibit. "Yes, Sir," he continued, "I manage to make my little trips every day. I have a regular list too, I stop in to see the Mayor and the City Hall Officials regularly; visit the merchants, the newspapermen and the radio stations. "Just social visits mind you, swapping small talk, maybe going out for coffee or a 'coke' but it really is surprising how many times during these visits that something pops up that leads smack into a tieup or newspaper story." —CHESTER FRIEDMAN 40TION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 17, 1945 51