Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

2042 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vd. 14. No. 13 BOSTON THEATRE BOOKS "THE YELLOW MENACE" special to Motion Picture News. Boston, Sept. 16. The Boston theatre, the largest house in New England, has changed its policy and booked a serial for the first time, " The Yellow Menace," starting there Labor Day. Margaret Gale, who is featured in the cast with Edwin Stevens, was scheduled to appear in person at the Boston On Labor Day afternoon. A representative of the Boston theatre viewed all sixteen of the episodes of " The Yellow Menace " before the serial was booked. Other theatres taking the film for the first run are the Princess, Hartford ; Poll's, Worcester; Central Square, East Boston, and the Royal, Lowell. Cobe Opens Unity Executive Ofl&ces in Chicago "Growth of Our Business Compels Us to Make That City a Distributing Centre," Declares OflBcial; "Move Enables Us to Keep in Close Touch with Exchanges" Mr. Cobe plans to spend a greater part of his time in the Chicago office, and will THE announcement from the Unity Sales Corporation's office that Andrew J. Cobe has opened executive offices for the company in Chicago, speaks volumes for the development of this organization in the space of a very few months. Ever since the purchase of " The Yellow Menace," the sixteen episode serial produced by the Serial Film Company, Mr. Cobe and the Unity officials have felt the need of executive offices in Chicago to supplement the activities of the New York office, and the present announcement of the opening of the office at 207 South Wabash avenue, is the realization of an ambition which has been in the minds of all interested in the Unity Sales Corporation for some months. Casting for Two Ivan Subjects Nearly Completed 'The Sex Lure" Will Be Directed by Edmund Lawrence, and "Enlighten Thy Daughter' Is to Be Put in Work by Abramson AS soon as negotiations are closed with several screen and stage stars to enact principal roles in the two next Ivan plays, entitled " The Sex Lure," and the special production, Enlighten Thy Daughter," work on these features will commence. " The Sex Lure " will be directed by Edmund Lawrence, who has been specially engaged to direct feature productions for the Ivan Company. Ivan Abramson has completed the working scenario " Enlighten Thy Daughter," on which he has been engaged for the last six months, and all parts in the story will be enacted by an all-star cast under Mr. Abramson's supervision. The Ivan Studio in New York has been a scene of much activity in the erection of special sets required to properly stage the various exterior scenes required by the scenarios of these next Ivan plays. " Enlighten Thy Daughter," when completed, will not be released as a regular production, but will be exploited as a special production, and all sorts of exhibitor publicity aids and newspaper advertising will be used to interest the public at large in attending houses at which this feature may be shown. The Los Angeles studio of the Ivan Company, under the direction of W. A. Norton, is at present busily engaged at work on a special feature to be released by the Ivan Film exchanges. No title for the drama to be produced by the Los Angeles studios has as yet been announced by the company. Gaumont Issues Bulletin to Aid Program Selection Publication Is Designed to Help Exhibitors, Societies, Schools and Clubs Wishing to Secure Pictures Other Than Photodramas First," the scenic, has also upon the same THE efforts of both exhibitors and societies, schools and clubs to secure entertaining motion pictures, other than photodramas, will be made easier by the weekly publication of a bulletin of Gaumont single-reel releases. Hitherto, it has been necessary for the person making up a special program to search through back files to find suitable material out of the three Gaumont single reel releases. Now all information about these pictures may be had by simply referring to the Gaumont bulletins. The preliminary bulletins, containing a list of subjects in "See America First" and " Reel Life," has already been issued. The weekly bulletin will give the contents of these current single-reels and also of the current issue of the Mutual Weekly. By keeping a file of these bulletins, finding any subject that has been released by Gaumont in Mutual Service will be only a matter of a few minutes. The Gaumont bulletins are being supplied by Mutual branch managers, and through the branches they are distributed to exhibitors and others interested in film of this nature. With these three reels each week, the Gaumont Company has the special field well covered. " See America reel a humorous Gaumont Kartoon Komic, animated by Harry Palmer. " Reel Life," known as the Mutual Magazine in Film, bears the same relation to a high-class magazine that the Mutual Weekly bears to a newspaper. ■jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiinmiii;i:iiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii:iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!iii'iiiiiiHii!ui..: THE STATE REFUSES TO PAY | FOR THEATRE TICKETS OF | JURYMEN I Can a jury in a district court while | sitting in a case go to moving picture | shows at the expense of the county 1 while resting? No. At least so say | the authorities of Scott County, Iowa. | i While auditing the hooks of that | county the auditor found an item | that the supervisors made out — | twenty tickets to take a murder jury | I to a show. Besides commenting on | the excessive size of the jury, the | I examiner decided that the " movies " | I was no place for a murder jury, and | I he refused to allow the warrant. | !.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii;;iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniHiiiiitiiniiii^ look after practically all the matters that affect the distribution of the pictures released on the Unity program. Chas. W. Allen, the president of the company, and Arthur Rosenbach, secretary, will still continue to be actively in charge of the New York office and all the pictures for the program will be bought in and shipped from New York. The advertising and publicity departments will remain in New York as before. "The establishment of a Chicago office for my Company," said Mr. Cobe, " was made absolutely necessary by the tremendous growth which we have experienced during the past few months. I have told the trade early in the summer that they should keep an eye on us, because we were coming along and were sure to realize our ambitions and develop a big distributing organization. The success we have had in handling ' The Yellow Menace ' has given us a chance to establish exchanges in many centres, and before very long we will have our own distributing exchanges in all parts of the United States. At present we own The Unity Film Service, our New York exchange. Unity Film Service exchanges in Atlanta and Houston for the South ; we have just established a Unity Pictures Corporation, through Harry Rathner, which constitutes an exchange in the Minneapolis territory; we arranged last week with George Lichtenstein of the Koppin Film Company of Detroit to handle our features in his territory, and we have several other deals under way now, which will give us an interest in or control of exchanges in all other distributing centres of the country. " The growth of our business absolutely compelled us to open an office in Chicago, because of a great saving in time in handling of the many important details of distribution. Chicago is the logical big distributing centre and it gives us an opportunity to keep in closer touch with our exchanges. There are so many big cities that can be reached in .one night's travel from Chicago, that we can keep in closer personal relations with the distributing exchanges and find out so much better in this way what kind of features the big towns of the country want. " I expect to make many trips in the next few months between New York and Chicago, because all the pictures which we buy for our program will be bought in New York, and all details of their distribution will be handled in Chicago. Our organization is growing so rapidly that we cannot take care of all the mass of business details and reach the proper efficiency in distribu-' tion in any other way except through the establishment of branch offices." DOMINION MOVES TO NEW OFFICES Dominion Exclusives, Limited, handling Fox Feature Photoplays Supreme for British Columbia, has removed its offices to the Orpheum Theatre Building, 765 Granville street, Vancouver, B. C. The move to larger quarters was made the first of September.