The Moving Picture Weekly (1916-1917)

38 -THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY wmmw IT cvB A DEPARTMENT OF ADVERTISING SUGGESTIONS FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL EXHIBITORS — — II .nil — — — I HERE. are certainly good times coming for those wise Exhibitors who have the stunt habit. The Universal Program is so packed with good things these days that there is abundant opportunity for stunts that will put your house strictly in the lead. Not only have you plenty of material on the regular Universal Program, but the special releases offer box office attractions that cannot be boosted too hard. For instance: "The Voice on the Wire," a serial that is going to establish a new standard as a money-getter. The most remarkable mystery drama ever filmed. Thinh; of the telephone stunts you can pull off for a serial with a name like that — "The Voice on the Wire." Then there is "The Perils of the Secret, Service," with the famous international detective — Yorke Norroy — from the wonderful stories by George Bronson Howard, the celebrated novelist, and directed by him. For the Exhibitor who thinks he doesn't care to run serials here is an opportunity to get them coming for eight straight weeks — each two-reel story complete in itself. Watch this magazine for stunts for both of these big features. One thing more. The Universal Screen Magazine is now being released every week. This in response to an overwhelming popular demand from fans, Exhibitors and Exchange men. If you run this marvelous one-reeler just once, you will book it every week. Try it one day, and you will understand its popularity. You will find it well worth while to work out some special stunts for the Universal Screen Magazine, because once the fans see it, they'll pack your doors. It will fit in with a program show, or a feature performance. It will fit anywhere, and put over any entertainment you have booked. Remember these three big opportunities and grab them before your competitor beats you to it. piRST, for a general idea, to aid in the putting over of any of the pictures which you may wish to emphasize by extra advertising. This suggestion is particularly appropriate for the exhibitor in a small town, whose relations with the merchants of his locality are friendly. Enlist the co-operation of your local art dealer, and get him to work with you in the intelligent advertising of a picture which you are showing, in a manner which will benefit both of you. For example, you are showing a western feature, we'll say for sake of argument, Harry Carey in "The Drifter," released March 10, or Jack Ford in "The Tornado," released on March 3d. Get the art dealer to fill his window with drawings by Frederick Remin& ton, which all boys and young men like in their rooms. If he will do so, he may carry an announcement of the picture that you are showing, while you return the compliment by a poster or a slide telling your .patrons that a splendid exhibition of just such scenes as are shown in the picture is to be seen at 's. Or let us say that you are running an educational, with pictures of China, like the Dorsey for March 4th. Then the art dealer would put Chinese porcelain, or baskets, with Chinese prints, and wall hangings in his window. Your feature may have a European setting, Paris, perhaps. Then reproductions of paintings showing the principal sights in that capital, or of the famous paintings in the Louvre, the great museum of Paris, would make a fine window display. You can readily see the mutual benefit rn this idea, and if your art dealer is a wide-awake individual, you should have no difficulty in making him see it, too. THE Gold Seal for February 27, is a very charming story called "Mary From America," in which a young girl, apparently poor and friendless, arrives in England for the reading of the will of a very rich man, to whom she is related. All the relatives of the dead man are gathered together in expectation of benefiting by his death, and they turn a cold shoulder to the plainly dressed little stranger who arrives in a country cart. The tables are turned in the end, and their turning makes the story. You might advertise in the following way: Hire a country-looking cart, drawn by a rawboned horse, and have the wheels encrusted with mud as if the conveyance had been driven through the country roads. In the cart have a poorly dressed girl, with a shawl over her head. She should be as pretty a girl as you can find. She is seated on her dilapidated trunk, and the wagon, which is driven by a farmer, with typical country clothes, a broadbrimmed hat and a com cob pipe, bears big signs, "On our way to the Theatre. Follow us." THE L-KO for February 28th, is a corker and is called "Spike's Bizzy Bike." It features Dan Russell as the hero of a six-day bicycle race. His adventures as he trains for the great event are enough to make even a cracked-lip sufferer laugh. If yoo want to make an effective lobby display for this screaming comedy, fit it up as a trainer's establishment, have a fat man in gym costume and bathrobe going through comical stunts. If the weather will permit, send him, wrapped in a bathrobe with a pointed, tasseled cap on his head, through the streets on his wheel, which should bear an appropriate announcement.