Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

zAn international association of showmen meeting weekly in MOTION PICTURE HERALD for mutual aid and progress WALTER BROOKS, Director €The juvenile problem in Yreka, Cal., until quite recently was the talk of the town. The change set in about two months ago when Walter W. Doerre assumed the management of the Broadway theatre there. Warned by the outgoing manager that he could expect trouble from the local high school student body, Doerre decided to do something about it. Reasoning that although the adults blamed the kids for everything, the adults themselves were at fault for not providing the youngsters with recreation facilities, Doerre reduced his prices to bring them within range of students' pocketbooks. For this purpose, student passes were printed and distributed. The youngsters carry the passes with them at all times and when presented at the box office these entitle them to a large reduction. The reaction of students was immediate. They are grateful and cooperative and there is no more rowdyism or noise in the theatre. £to An inexpensive way of getting the ^1 theatre message across to the public for exhibitors in small towns who do not use a monthly calendar has successfully been attempted by Harry J. Lankhorst of the Sioux theatre, Hawarden, la. He sends a year's subscription to the weekly newspaper to any patron who does not subscribe to the paper. Since starting this promotion, Lankhorst has been able to sell members of the local Chamber of Commerce the idea that they assume responsibility of seeing that every person in the trade territory receives the weekly. The newspaper has responded by providing Chamber of Commerce members with a special rate. The promotion serves the dual purpose of creating goodwill and assuring Lankhorst of complete coverage for his theatre advertising. ^Announcing WALTER BROOKS, DIRECTOR Walter Brooks, showman of wide and long experience, is the new director of The Round Table department of MOTION Picture Herald. He returns from a tour of middle western centers to take over his desk in this office Monday next. Along with so many of his contemporaries, Mr. Brooks began his motion picture career with small town small theatre exhibition in his early youth. He brings to his new post an equipment of understanding and observation built through the years since in a consistent sequence of activities in distribution, production and both promotional publicity and public relations functions. For the last three years he has been engaged in the activities of the exhibitor relations organization of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as assistant to Henderson M. Richey, director. He has travelled widely in exhibition contacts and in attendance at exhibitor gatherings all over the land, meeting the issues and problems of showmen out where they are. After his considerable theatre and roadshow experience, Mr. Brooks came into New York to become the advertising and publicity director for Educational Film Exchanges, Inc., and succeeded to the post of production manager and assistant to the president, an engagement destined to continue some ten years. Thence he became associated with Eddie Dowling in a long sequence of activities in motion pictures, the stage and radio. In the early war period he joined the office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs as an authority on specialized production and distribution for the purposes of the Latin American program. He went in 1944 to the M-S-M exhibitor relations assignment. Mr. Brooks is a resident of New York, where he is a member of Motion Picture Associates, Associated Motion Picture Advertisers, Society of Motion Picture Engineers and of the Variety Club, the Columbus, Ohio, tent. TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor of Motion Picture Herald MOTION PICTURE HERALD, APRIL 26, 1947 49