Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1948)

^An international association of showmen meeting weekly in MOTION PICTURE HERALD for mutual aid and progress WALTER BROOKS, Director QP A PRELIMINARY REPORT on "Youth Month" for the current year has been released to the press, and therefore it is no longer a matter of news as we comment on it in this column. The statistics reported show an encouraging result a conservative cost, and it is our purpose now' to ask members of the Round Table to be even more willing, more eager, to shoulder the burden for next year, bringing the effort to a bonafide community level. Certain things can and must be done on a national basis — the provision of materials to work with, ideas to work from, suggestions to work on — all these constitute the typical industry pressbook for the guidance and benefit of the working manager. We hope for another such pressbook, as good as that which Ernie Emerling created this year, and perhaps with new and added features suggested by the first experience. We'd like to see a 24-sheet poster next year that can be bought through National Screen Service and placed on boards across the nation, with the cooperation of local sponsors. We'd like to see a larger assortment of newspaper ad mats, suitable for cooperative advertising in several thousand towns. We hope for more complete details for the running of various contests in the selection of youth leaders. It is invariably good to capitalize the effort which youth will make to excel in competition, such as '"Teen of the Week," as continuing features of a sustained youth program. And, in passing, we bow in belated acknowledgement to our good friend, Mel Gold, advertising manager for National Screen Service in New York, who is credited in the "Youth Month" pressbook as songwriter and co-author of "I'm the YOU in the U. S. A." We promised Mel long ago we would applaud at the right moment, and here it is — our sincere wish that he puts new music together for another year. MAKE WAY FOR YOUTH This week, in the pages of the Round Table, we announce the winner of the special Quigley Award for the best campaign submitted in "Youth Month". Beyond doubt, this competition will become an annual affair. The slogan, "Make Way For Youth", is a good one to place permanently over the desk of any manager who knows his community and public relations problems. He can really build on this foundation for the future. We hope that Mr. Charles P. Skouras will again be chairman of the national "Youth Month" program for 1949, and that he will give it the same impetus that was felt this year under his leadership. Next year the date should be extended. The month of September is too limited. Like other special and national weeks or months, it is unfair to this objective to limit the activity to any period. The national "Youth Month" program gives us all a springboard to take off in style for a full year of youth activities, and should be so considered — not as a fourweeks period to be promoted and participated in, and then forgotten. "Make Way For Youth" — the year around. ^r* Postscript to our reference to the grand job of publicity and exploitation that's being done by Lynn Farnol for Danny Kaye's picture, "A Song Is Born." Important factor in the tieup with disc jockeys is the new publication, RPM, which is the new interest of Edward Schreiber, member of the Round Table and former advertising and publicity head for Century theatres in New York. He knows two fields, and his skill in both is the best reason for combining them to publicity advantage. jjffii All England has been preparing for annual children's shows that are so much a part of Christmas throughout the British Empire. We hardly realize, over here, how much the Christmas pantomimes and festivals mean to British youngsters and grownups, alike. These performances have always been tied to the theatre. For many years it has been something that drew audiences and built patronage for the theatre. Currently, choir rehearsals are taking place in over 200 Odeon and Gaumont-British Cinema Clubs in preparation for the "Star" Christmas festival. € Something has been added to the Atlanta Constitution which could effect newspaper advertising of many theatres throughout the country. Beginning December 7th, the Constitution has superimposed in color, and in block letters, display advertising over (or under, as you wish to say it) the stock-market page, or the classified advertising page. Any page that is reasonably solid with small type can be imprinted in color so the display is prominent, while the other matter is perfectly legible, thus using the space twice. These pages will be sold to venturesome advertisers who feel that the double use will attract extra attention for a better rate than is available for amusement advertising. 0% From the desk of Sid Kleper, man^1 ager of the Loew-Poli College theatre, New Haven, Conn., comes an unusual item, the first of its kind in his experience, he says. Anthony N. Basillicato, of the theatre projection staff, was so pleased with "The Search" that he wrote a personal appeal, addressed to potential patrons, with the comment : "This picture touches every human heart." — Walter Brooks MOTION PICTURE HERALD, DECEMBER 18, 1948 41