Motion Picture News (Mar-Apr 1923)

April 7 , 192s 1697 News of Boston and the New England States APRIL 9 has been definitely named as the opening date for Locatelli's Ball Square theatre, Somerville, Mass. The house will seat 1,400, will cost more than $200,000 when completed, and is said to be the largest in Middlesex county. Albert J. Locatclli, the general manager, has planned some program for the nrst night, and in this connection is confronted with a large guest list, through a strange coincidence. You see, the entrance to the theatre is in Somerville, but the auditorium is in Medford, which furnishes abundant material for complications. He will invite the officials of both cities, among other guests. Mr. Locatelli is a son of the contractor who built the new house as well as his other Somerville theatre. Manager Morris, of Loew's Orpheum theatre, Boston, made a single-reel picture of the activities of a troupe of lilliputians which feature his vaudeville bill, smarting with their arrival March 20th, and including visits to the office of Mayor Curley at City Hall and of Gov. Cox at the State House. The reel was shown at Loew's State and Orpheum theatres the last three days of the week. Frank A. Repetto has joined the lanks of Pathe in Boston, and has been assigned to the Eoston territorv. The starting gun went off March 19. Negotiations are going on in Boston for rhe transfer of a property near Maverick Square, South Boston. They are planning to erect a magnificent motion picture theatre, costing around $250,000. The project is sponsored by a number of prominent men, one of them being Andrew Di Pietro, well known business man of the Italian colony. Mr. Di Pietro is also seeking a site for a motion picture theatre in the North End, Boston, an idea which to date has met with stiff opposition from residents of that district. Independent Films, Inc., which is handling Arrow's " The Streets of New York " in the New England territory, secured the services of Edward Earle for personal appearances in Springfield, Lawrence and Lowell, where the picture opened the 19th of this month. Both Earle and the picture went over big everywhere, and the star had to play return engagements. He was good for long interviews and two-col umn cuts in many papers. In a Lawrence paper a page tie-up was effected, in which the missing word stunt was used. Fifty tickets went to the first twenty-five correct answers. The contest was announced on the front page of the paper with a two-column box. Enthused over the array of talent which recently appeared for Loew's Orpheum Frolics, Mr. Douglas Flattery, director of the Loevv theatres in Boston, has announced the forthcoming presentation of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera " Pinafore." The play will be produced at the State theatre some time next month, and applications have flooded the offices of Managers Morris and Brennan of the Orpheum and State respectively. Mr. Brennan said that a notable feature of the applicants was the number of professional men and women who want to try out their voices. A six-reel picture taken on the Sir Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition in 1913 was shown to members of the New Bedford Yacht Club last week at their last chowder supper of the season. Many of them took part in " Down to the Sea in Ships," but they all declared that the movie of the frozen wastes matched it for thrills, outside of having remarkable scenery. Word comes from Portland, Maine, that Donald B. MacMillan expects to get away early in June for his next Arctic trip. The schooner Bowdoin will take the adventurers as far as Etah in Greenland for a series of educational motion pictures he said in a letter to George F. Cary, of Portland, treasurer of the MacMillan Arctic Association. MacMillan is now in Michigan and will return to New England next month. Stars of the silver screen, including Bebe Daniels, Dorothy Dalton, Agnes Ayres, and Edward Earl, have signified their intention of being present in the Auditorium, Springfield, Mass., April 18, when, under the auspices of the Theatrical Stage Employes and Motion Picture Operators' Union, Local 186, the movit ball and concert will blaze forth. John M. Gaielee and E. B. Webber, chairman general, and chairman of the entertainment committee, respectively, were in New York last week digging up some more stars. The Kleigl Theatrical Lighting Company of New York will have charge of the lighting, and startling and novel effects are promised. Fox's "If Winter Comes" has already played three weeks in Springfield at Fox's theatre, a run that is unusual for that city. The picture has revived a big demand for the book, and has started quite a bit of discussion also in the city over the value of an idealist like Sabre to the community. The Strand theatre, Cumberland, R. I., had a small blaze in the basement under the stage last week, fire department officials declaring that they believed it started from a cigarette stub dropped in rubbish. It was put out with chemicals before much damage resulted, though one fireman was overcome by smoke. Eugene ' Simpson, 52, superintendent of janitors at Gordon's Olympia theatre, Lynn, Mass., and famous locally as a breeder of canaries, dropped dead early last week in the office of Manager Finn at the theatre. He dropped from his chair after sitting there but about live minutes. Death was declared due to heart failure by the medical examiner. Simpson had been superintendent for fourteen years, and is survived by a widow, his mother and two sisters, living in Boston. A beautiful and timely production of the Life of Christ in motion pictures was presented in the Auditorium, Lowell, Mass., on Palm Sunday night. It was taken in the Holy Land by the Societa Italiuena Cines, and was shown under the direction of the Rev. J. B. Labossierer, of St. Louis' church. Dr. Rudolf Stavvowezyk has purchased the Bijou theatre at Bridgeport, Conn., from Peter Dawe. Thomas P. Gleeson will book and manage this house. Plans for remodeling the Bijou have been drawn up. Work will star* this spring. Manager Moxley Hill, of the Boston branch of Metro, has appointed G. M. Brooks assistant salesman for Metropolitan Boston territory, C. W. Weiner special representative for New Hampshire and Vermont, E. J. Mclntyre eastern Massachusetts, M. C. Hill assistant salesman for Connecticut. L. D. Kahn has been appointed publicity and exploitation director. Sammy Schultz has returned to the Maine territory after a serious illness of two months. Kansas City Exchange and Exhibitor Items **(~^ HILDREN of to-day need not know of v_J dance hall beauties and their illicit loves or of the underworld," says Mrs. Gertrude Sawtell, newly-appointed chairman of the Kansas State Board of Review. " We will try to encourage the type of stories that may be discussed around the family dinner table," she continued. Other chairmen of Kansas censor boards have made similar statements before becoming actively engaged in their work and learning that the screen was not a fancy, but an industry. Therefore, Kansas exhibitors are not worried much. The following changes in management and opening of new theatres in the Kansas City territory have been announced : De Luxe theatre, Hutchinson, Kan., purchased by H. Norton from Fred Savage; Isis theatre, Brunswick, Mo., purchased by William Owens; Realart theatre, Flippin, Ark., opened by Earl Morrison. A. R. Zimmer, of the Liberty theatre, Marysville, Kan., has introduced a new line of displaying posters. He has established a system of shadow boxes, which are made of regular lumber and a little electrical material, alone with the ability to see the possibilities of displaying certain posters in the most effective manned.. His shadow box of Lorna Doone attracted wide attention in his community. He rubbed oil all over the cutout front of the shadow box with an ordinary paint brush. A new Robert Morton pipe organ has been installed by William P. Cuff in his Strand the atre at Chillicothe, Mo. A soloist, who between numbers acts as house hostess, also is another improvement. Lawrence E. Goldman, council of the M. P. T. O. Western Missouri, returned to Kansas City Monday from New York and Chicago, where he combined business and pleasure. As to what Mr. Goldman means by " the big story that will break soon," he alone knows. The rebuilt Century theatre, Kansas City, was turned over to Lee and J. J. Shubert Monday by the J. W. McCallum Construction Company, but what the house will be used for is a problem, despite the fact that several thousand dollars have been spent in remodeling the house, which formerly was a burlesque theatre. Originally it was the intention of the Shuberts to use the Century for legitimate productions, but that idea has been abandoned as the Shubert theatre, which was to have been the home of Shubert vaudeville, is housing legitimate plays this year. Therefore, the Century will be a combination motion picture and vaudeville house, a motion picture theatre, or a legitimate house, the latter being almost improbable. As S. Nusbaum, manager of the Mozart theatre, Kansas City, closed his theatre Monday night and started home with the receipts in his pocket, two bandits drew up to the curb in a Ford sedan and robbed him of $25, the receipts for the night. . A whistling contest at the Pantages theatre, Kansas City, a combination motion picture and vaudeville house, this week drew liberal space in the daily newspapers as well as good crowds. Hazel Stallings, appearing in a whistling act, served as the judge of the contests. At a regular monthly meeting of the department heads of the First National branch office, Kansas City, it was decided to organize a club, limited to employes in the office. The club will be known as the First National Club, and will be exclusively of a social nature. At the suggestion of Manager E. C. Rhoden it was agreed that the first meeting of the organization would be Saturday. At this meeting officers will be elected and a program outlined. A small membership fee, which will be placed in a general fund and expended only in the interest of the club, will be assessed. Bernard C. Cook has resigned as manager of the Standard Film Company, Kansas City, an independent exchange. Frank J. Warren, owner of the company, will take over the active management of the concern, temporarily at least. Mr. Cook's plans for the future arc not definite, as he has several attractive offers, he says. Harry Graham, manager of the Kansas City Pathe office, has announced that he will extend to all small town exhibitors a box office insurance plan this summer, starting about June 1. The plan involves the booking of Pathe subjects, to be sure, but Mr. Graham asserts that to profit by the insurance plan will not necessitate booking more than one Pathe subject for fifteen weeks.