Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1918)

2048 (Special Service Section) Motion Picture N *zu s so much the better, but few newspapers will permit that. Use a display something on this order: Crashing Through to Berlin Actual Events in the Victories of America and Her Allies Will Be Pictured Soon at the Bijou Theatre. The reading matter with these should be varied from day to day. If the newspaper will cooperate with you and allow you to build the small amount of reading matter on the big event in the war news of the day, yet to be published, you will have a closer interest. Depending on the length of your run, of course, you can well afford to start the bigger advertising of this production at least a week before your first showing. From the Universal you can get a most unusual line of advertising, for the greatest variety that we know to have been furnished with any production. THIS advertising ranges all the way from page advertisement down to single column ones, and they are furnished in mat and cut form so that all you have to do is to fill in the name of your theatre. And the very thing that recommends these so strongly is that you do not have to worry about seeing that the selling point of the picture is concerned. There are dozens of cases in which we and exhibitors generally disagree with, the selling point that the producer advertises in his ready-made advertising, but here you have simply the pictured statement of what the production represents. You not only have that, but you have such a wide variety of displays from which to chose that there can be no likelihood of your failing to get just what you want. Reproductions of all of this advertising, in actual sizes, together with the numbers of the cuts are to be found in a press book issued by Jewel Productions and available at Universal exchanges. There should be no excuse why you should not begin to advertise your presentation of this picture just as soon as you book it. And, in our opinion, this is a case where the more advertising you do the greater the receipts of the box office are going to be. rOU have an excellent chance to localise the advertising of this picture by linking it up with the troops from your section of the country that are " Over There." If it has been announced that such and such a regiment, containing people from your town is in the fighting line it is perfectly proper for you to use that in your advertising and to tell the public that you. will show them how these boys are fighting and the full story of why they arc fighting. There are thousands and thousands of American soldiers shown in the course of this picture. They are shown marching away to the training camps before they even got theft uniforms ; they are shown in training in various branches of the service; they are showrv'on the transports sailing abroad, and on the warships that have guarded them from the submarines ; they are shown landing in France, then drilling behind the lines, and finally in the actual battles that the world may be safe for Democracy. , PERHAPS there will be boys from your home town seen right before the camera. At least there will be boys just like them seen going through the same preparation, seen facing the same heroism em the battlefields. The closer that you ar*'°able to couple this up with the locality/ the closer home you bring it. Probably there was a parade in your city when the local boys marched away, or started to a training camp. Then you could start some of your displays off with such a line as this : " Do You Remember When the First of the Middletown Boys Marched Away to Camp? " Use this in large type and then go ahead to tell the people what the picture shows about them or boys like them. Or by this time it is probable that some of the boys from your section have been mentioned in the fighting. They have been decorated for some special deed of bravery or their names have appeared in the lists from the battlefields. Couple that fact up with your showing of the picture. AND even beyond these things there are things happening every day on the battlefields which concern Americans, and there is no secret that there are still greater things going to happen in which the Americans will take a still bigger share. Read your newspapers every dav and take advantage of this fact. Build your advertising right into the day's news. You have a chance to take advantage of every event that happens in the war before you run the picture and during its showing. You don't have to say that this picture shows the boys actually do the fighting that today's paper is telling about, but you can tell them that they are the same sort of Americans, and possibly the very boys themselves. Get right up on your toes and keep up to the minute with your exploitation. Remember that this is a big news picture and that it is coupled right up with the biggest news of the day. You will almost have to fall asleep to fail to get the news punch out of it. THESE suggestions — to advertise heavily— are built on the idea that you are paying for all of the advertising, but in many cities there will be an opportunity to link this campaign up with one of the newspapers, and thereby get at least a division of the advertising rate, for no picture could be more closely associated with the newspaper than this one. It may be possible to arrange to show this picture under the auspices of one of the local newspapers. The successful newspaper man knows the interest in war news and he is very likely to see the great pulling power of " Crashing Through to Berlin " and offer to exploit this production for you on the basis of a certain division of the profits from the picture. In that case you are on " velvet " so far as taking any chances are concerned, though of course the entire receipts would not then be yours. This plan has been followed successfully for all concerned in many cities. However, no matter what arrangements you make, do nob let anything prevent you from doing your fullest amount of work in the exploitation. Go to it early and keep at it, and see that every person that it is possible for you to get to your theatre knows that you have the production and that you tell them plainly and vividly what " Crashing Through to Berlin " shows. And make it clear that they are actualities— and not mere idealized fiction.