Moving Picture World (Jul 1919)

266 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD July 12, 1919 CLEANING UP WITH THE STAGE STARS Stage Women’s War Relief Series, Released Through Universal, Gives Wonderful List of Stars, Authors and Dramatic Notables — How to Handle These Features UNLESS you are willing to spend a little extra money to get a large extra return, you cannot count on getting the full value out of your bookings of the Stage Women’s War Relief Series of twelve plays, in which a wonderful array of stage stars . and dramatic personages appear for the benefit of the enterprise conducted by the women of the stage during the war. You can probably make money by merely booking and announcing these twelve releases, but you can make these two-reel productions far more important than any longer feature if only you go at it properly and boom the attractions to the limit. If your patrons follow the star system — and most clienteles do— you can advertise stars money could not coax into regular picture productipns, and youl can make just as much money with Galli Curci in a two-reel story as you can with the same artist in a five or sixreel release if you give her the same publicity. The same holds good of the others, but you must plug just as hard for the two-reeler as you do for the five or sixact play, and you must hammer at it until every man, woman and child in your territory knows of the attraction. The exact release plans have not yet been announced, but it is probable that these twelve pictures will be released at intervals of three or four weeks. Taking three weeks as the period, let a full week intervene between on production and the next without mention. The next week tell that another of the series is due, make a big splash at the commencement of the last week and keep right after it until your playing date. But before you show your first release start in to tell what you are about to offer. Make it plain to your patrons that you are about to present what is probably the most unique offering ever put upon the screen. To Start the Campaign. For the opening attack take a page if your purse permits. If you cannot afford so much space, take a half or a quarterpage. Do not try to do it in less space than a fourth-page. If you cannot afford a quarter-page because of the high space rates, put your money into a well-printed booklet, taking the Jewel booklet for your copy. You probably cannot afford the tint work and special lettering, but you can persuade your printer to take especial pains with the job. But even before this start in to tease your patrons. For a couple of weeks in advance run a slide reading: On Sunday, Augifst 17, we shall make the most important announcement we have ever issued. Look for it in the Standard. You cannot afford to miss this. If space rates are light, take a special line in your daily display reading, “See our wonderful announcement in the Standard, August 17.” Run this daily for two weeks. Do not tell what it is you are going to announce. If they ask you, request them to wait until the proper date, assuring them that it will be worth waiting for. For your splash, the general layout will be the same whether you use a page or a quarter. If you use' a half-page space don’t run it across the page, but keep it in proportion to the page dimensions. Try copy something like this: ****** Mr. John Doe has the honor to announce that he has completed arrangements By Epes Winthrop Sargent whereby he will be enabled to present to his patrons The Most Remarkable List of Stars of Stage and Screen Ever Presented by ANY Management It is a positive fact that money alone could not enable any producer to gather under one standard this remarkable list of notables : David Belasco, Bruce McRae, Elizabeth Risdon, Hilda Spong, Gladys Morris. Kathleen Nesbit, Cyril Maud, Violet Heming, David Bispham, Louise Closser Hale, Macklyn Arbuckle, John J. McGraw, Percy Haswell, Dana De Harte, Julia Dean, Shelly Hull, Yvette Guilbert, Edmund Breese, Mrs. William Farnum, Mabel Taliaferro, Robert Edeson, Margaret Leslie, Forest Robinson, Lucia Moore, Montagu Love, Enid Markey, Adele Rowland, Frederick Truesdale, Harry Davenport, William Courtenay, Jane Grey, Alphonze Ethier, Tom Wise, Gail Kane, Constance Binney, Otis Skinner, Henry Miller, Blanche Bates, Daniel Frohman, Flo Ziegfeld, William Jefferson, Mme. Galli-Curci, Holbrook Blinn, Jeanne Eagles, Julia Arthur, Ben Grauer, Nance O’Neil, Tyrone Power, Paul Gilmore, Alfred Hickman, Mildred Holland, Mathilde Cotrelley, Tharmara Swirskaya, John W. Cope. (Note. — These names should be set in the advertisement in three or four columns in large type.) Yet we shall present ALL of these stars and many more in a single series of only twelve plays; a dozen all-star casts employing even in the minor roles the very cream of the American and English dramatic stage in stories by Ann Irish, Jack Larris, Samuel Hopkinson Adams, Katherine Kavanaugh, Howard E. Miller, Frederick A. Kummer, Rachel Crothers, Wallace Clifton, Calder Johnstone, Jessie Bonstelle, Mrs. Otis Skinner and Ethelwyn Brewer De Foe. MONEY COULD NOT BUY THESE STARS But they gave their services gladly to the Stage Women’s War Relief Fund in a series of two-reel pictures which are five-part features with the padding left out. The first of these absolutely unique presentations will be DAVID BELASCO The Most Famous Stage Director in America in A STAR OVER NIGHT with Bruce McRae, Hamilton Revelle, Elizabeth Risdon, Hilda Spong, Gladys Morris, Kathleen Nesbit, Mrs. N. Rothschild and Edward Martindel To be presented Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, August 25-26-27. See the Maker of Stars Creating a New Luminary GEM THEATRE Broad and Main Streets Don’t Tell Too Much. Don’t try to tell too much in your first announcement. Let the names sink in and stop there, but get the editor to give you as much space as he will in the news columns to amplify this shot. Tell that the Stage Women’s War Relief is an organization which includes practically every well known woman player. They made bandages and other Red Cross supplies, they gave entertainments for the purpose of raising funds to purchase ambulances, they did splendid work on the Liberty Loans and other drives and conducted a canteen in New York in addition to providing hundreds of entertainments for the soldiers themselves, ranging from visits to other canteens to special morning and Sunday performances of the current New York successes to which fighters alone were admitted. The series of pictures was but one of their many plans for raising money, and all of the proceeds obtained from the sale of the picture rights were spent when money was most needed to welcome the homecoming heroes. It is inconceivable that directors such as Daniel Frohman, dean of American managers; David Belasco, creator of an unbroken run of successes from Miss Helyet to the present day, and Flo Ziegfeld, creator of the Follies, could be hired to appear in any ordinary picture production, yet they gave their services to the women of the stage and take actual part in the pictures. Mr. Belasco, for example, figures in more than half the scenes of the production in which he appears and shows how he conducts rehearsals. Play Up the Plays. About two days after this first advertisement take up another angle. You do not need as much space, but you need to make this emphatic. Use; “THE PLAY’S THE THING” We have already told you of the wonderful list of stars who are to appear in the Stage Women’s War Relief Series, but we want to tell you something more than that. We want you to know that you do not merely see these stars. You see them act in a series of two-part dramas written by some of the best known authors. They are not dragged in merely to add to the list of the stars, but they play their respective parts in wellplanned dramas which are five-reel features in all but length. Time and again you have seen plays which would have been twice as good had they been half as long. These plays have all of the plot of the longerlength dramas and the swift, tense action of dramatic sketches. Even were there no stars to be seen, you would like the plays and their production, but when you consider that each part is played by a star or featured actor or by some well known person appearing in his own character, you must realize what a real treat is in store for you. Watch for the first production, which shows how David Belasco develops his stars. It will be seen here. House Signature and Date. Buy Plenty of Paper. Now get busy on your real campaign for the first play. Each title carries one. three and six sheets and window cards. Even in a small town you can use 50 onesheets and ten sixes with threes, according to your boards, and as many window cards as you can find room for. This may seem excessive to a lot of showmen, but it is a moderate layout of paper when you consider the attractions you have. There is not a hamlet in America where David Belasco is not known for example. It is worth $10 to $25 for paper to advertise a star of this magnitude. You should at least double your investment, and if the paper is advantageously posted you can do much better than that. This is not an ordinary motion picture series. It is so big a thing that you must use circus methods to make your public