Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

June 1, 1918 MOTOGRAPHY 1043 Woman Manager Packs Three Houses CLEVER SHOWMANSHIP IS SECRET OF HER SUCCESS By Genevieve Harris THAT the feminine touch applied to the art of running a picture theatre may be a Midas-touch, turning the dross into gold, is proved by the career of Mrs. Flossie A. Jones of Waukesha, Wis. But if you think she acquired her golden touch through mere wishing as old King Midas did, you should have dropped in to see her a week or so ago on the day she reversed the stage settings of her small town "opera house" until their "seamy side" was toward the audience, worked a transformation with paints and stains, a few sketches and some furniture, costumed her stage hands and a dozen of the local high school boys in Parisian student outfits, and with the aid of a couple of vaudeville dancers, staged a creditable imitation of an Apache den in Paris before the war. Energy Is Her Middle Name Mrs. Jones possesses two of the leading qualifications of a successful exhibitor— first, an intelligence which provides her with clever ideas; second, the energy to put these ideas across in a whirlwind style which is irresistible. Some time ago Motography published an account of her career in Waukesha, from the time she got into "the game," about two years ago, with a "lemon" of a house, until, at the head of a company she had formed and in which she owned a large share of the stock, she managed the town's three theatres with surprising success. That she has not stood still is shown by her continual effort to put pictures across in the best showmanlike style. In the first place, although Waukesha Mrs. Flossie A. Jones. is a small town, Mrs. Jones is really in competition with Milwaukee theatres. Unless she puts on unusually good shows for a small town her patrons take the trolley to Milwaukee. On the other hand, she has to pay a big price for these big feature pictures and her number of possible patrons is limited. To make money, on most of them, she must play to capacity houses at advanced prices. She does this and she accomplishes the feat by her own style of advertising. Her method of exploiting a picture, in big-town style, is illustrated in her han dling of the Metro feature, "Revelation," starring Nazimova. The picture was expensive, but Mrs. Jones knew it was well worth the price both to her and to her patrons. She must charge a higher than usual admission and get the people to come. But how could she convince them that this was something out of the ordinary? Prologue Draws the People This was the object of the prologue, enacted in the setting described at the beginning of this article. She announced that she was going to stage a real Parisian cabaret scene, with Apache dancing. She hired a team of vaudeville Apache dancers and a bare-foot solo dancer, who played Nazimova's role of "Joline" in this opening act. And it was this novelty prologue that attracted the crowds. "The picture did not need anything of this sort to aid it as entertainment," Mrs. Jones said. "It is one of the finest productions I ever saw and can stand on its own merits before any audience. But the people didn't know this. I used the prologue just to get them into the house. The picture enchanted them, as I knew it would. Tarns Patrons Away "I ran it in the Colonial Theatre, an 800-seat house. I reserved all the seats, six hundred of them at fifty cents, two hundred at twenty-five. I ran it two days, one performance a day. I announced that owing to the elaborate prologue only one performance an evening could be given. This was another advertising dodge, further to impress upon the people the un(Continued on page 1062) Stage setting for the prologue to "Revelation," designed by Mrs. Jones.