Motography (Oct-Dec 1916)

December 9, 1916. MOTOGRAPHY 1279 First Aid to Theater Men BY S. L. ROTHAPFEL ARE you letting your patrons know at just what time each show in your theater starts? Do you realize that it makes a difference in their enjoyment of the program if they get there in time to see it from the beginning instead of coming in at the middle of the feature and being unable to get head or tail of the story until it starts again? It may not always be convenient or possible for the patrons to get to your house at just such a time but they may be able to plan their arrival if they know when the show starts. It is also a good idea to let them know approximately at what time the feature will be shown because some may like to come in simply for this and not have to sit through all the rest of the program. You may consider this a Aery trivial matter but it is one of those thoughtful little courtesies which bring the people to your house instead of the one next door. 100 — Seeing everybody else seems seems to be firing questions at you I guess I will get into the game if you have no objections. It may interest you to know that when my MOTOGRAPHY comes the first thing I do is to turn to your department and read what you have to offer. I have had lots of help from this department. Thanks. It may sound funny to say that I wish a whole crowd of people who come to my theater every night in the week would stop coming, but it is the truth. There is a crowd of high school girls and boys — from ab^dt eight to twelve of them — who come to my theater practically every night in the week. They always come for the second show but get there fifteen minutes ahead of time and just raise Cain around the lobby until they get inside. I am running a full house every night and my lobby is always full of people waiting to get into the second show. These boys and girls seem to think they are entertaining the crowd and they are a perfect nuisance about the place. Inside the theater, too, they are liable to cause a good deal of commotion and to think it is smart to say sarcastic things about the program loud enough for all around them to hear. I have thought two or three times that I would refuse to admit them to the house but am really afraid to do this because I have a very large attendance from the high school pupils, and it would set them all against me, and their parents, too, I suppose. But it certainly is a nuisance and I don't know how to handle the matter. Can you help me out? Thanks again. Although it is a shame to have to admit it, this trouble you speak of is quite common with theater managers all over the country I believe, and it is generally the children from the nicest families — those you would expect to behave the best, that cause this disturbance. I have had to meet this same problem not once but main' times in my career. After trying several methods I hit upon a very efficient way of stopping this nuisance. I watched the crowd of young people carefully for a number of nights until I found who was apparently the ringleader of the "gang." When I was sure that I had spotted my man I asked him very pleasantly if he would not step into my office for a minute. When we were inside the office I made him very comfortable, asked his opinion as to what he liked in the theater and what he did not and appeared to place a great deal of weight upon his ideas as representing what the other high school scholars would like — playing on his vanity a little. Then when he was feeling very friendly toward me I appealed to his good nature and asked him if he would not use his "influence" with the others and himself refrain from making the disturbance and demonstration that he had hitherto done. I told him I knew the young people were out for a good time and I wanted them to have it but there had been numerous complaints from my regular patrons, and while I wanted to keep his patronage and that of his crowd, I also did not want to lose others that were in the habit of coming regularly to my house. In a great many cases these young people are simply out for a good time and start fooling and do not realize that they are doing any real damage and their attention called to it in the right manner will bring the desired result. Appeal to their good nature and play on their vanity a little and they will work with you. You will find in nine cases out of every ten that the young people who do this kind of thing are very vain — one reason they act so is to attract attention — and they are really the easiest people in the world to whip into line if you handle them in this manner. 101 — I have had a good deal of trouble in my theater with shadows of people passing in and out of the door showing on the screen. The house is very small and there is just a shallow lobby and the doors are situated on either side so that the light flickers on and off the screen as the door opens and shuts to admit the people. In summer when the doors have to be kept open for good ventilation the people passing on the street cast light shadows on the screen. It may be that I make more of this than is necessary and it may annoy me much more than it does the people in the audience watching the picture, but I do like to have my screen just as clear as possible at all times because it certainly adds to the enjoyment of the picture. It certainly is a pleasure to find a manager who is so careful about every little phase of his projection, and so anxious to give his patrons the very best service possible. Have you ever tried hanging curtains across the aisles at the back of the theater so that they will eliminate this light from the doors? I do not know just the arangement of your theater, but believe you can have these draperies arranged so that they are parted as the people come in and still placed so that they will keep the shadows from the screen. 102 — A very tempting offer has been made me on a house which seats six hundred people, in good condition, in a very select neighborhood, with no competition nearer than eight blocks, and within two blocks of the elevated and about six blocks from the street cars and just off the boulevard. The house is only two years old, but in that time four men have taken it over and every one has closed it up as a failure, said they could not make a success of it. Everyone I have talked with says that the people in this neighbrhood are good patrons of other theaters that are in the surrounding community, but do not go to this one. There is nothing the matter with the house itself and it seems to me it must be in the management. Some of my friends discourage my taking it over, saying "Once a lemon always a lemon." What would you think about it? My dear friend, here's another of those things that come to every successful fellow — plenty of tempting offers. If you are a good enough man for people to seek you out and make you offers, you must be a good enough man to be the master of your destiny and know whether or not this change would prove beneficial to you. Just because four other men have made a failure of this proposition should not deter you. Remember that thousands have failed in a lot of things that one man made a howling success of and this