Moving Picture World (Dec 1920)

December 4, 1920 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 619 Selling the Picture to the&Public FOBTWIE un* ftfVOU Free Love and Windows Brought Overflow Crowd H. M. Cady, publicity man for the Babcock, Billings, Mont., had a number of good stunts for “Harriet and the Piper” with Anita Stewart, but he had to cut some of them out because the earlier stunts made more than enough business. He started his campaign with such epigrams as “Free love is as beautiful a theory as Bolshevism,” “Free love a mirage in the desert of hearts,” and similar lines, displayed on hand-painted window cards. Then these were taken over into the newspaper columns and linked up with the First National attraction. Building on this, he had a cutout of the star in a milliner’s window with a real hat on her head, a florist used the lotus and lilacs idea, though no one knows where he got the lotus from, and a furniture store built its window into a supposed reproduction of the studio. To complete the idea the front of the theatre was masked with a painted brick wall showing “The Rabbit’s Hole” used in the play. A pied piper parade of school children was planned for the middle of the week of the run, but the crowds made further exploitation inadvisable. A TEN-CENT STORE SOLD TIVENTY-CENT TICKETS The Rivoli, Denver, used a mystic to put over the Robertson-Cole feature, “The Fortune Teller," with Marjorie Ramheau. Then they hooked up a ten-cent store with a display of hair nets and “Don’t look like a gypsy" Used Mystic to Put Over “Fortune Teller ” in Denver When Marjorie Rambeau, in “The Fortune Teller” was shown in Denver, the Rivoli engaged Karland, a mystic, to do fortune telling stuff in the lobby. Then they tied up the Robertson-Cole special with the Woolworth stores with a display of hair nets and the appeal, “Why Look Like a Gypsy” when hair nets cost only ten cents apiece. The decorative material consisted of huge playing cards and stills from the play with the nets as the big noise. If you were in trouble all you had to do was to drop around to the Rivoli and consult Karland, and of course he managed to ring in something about the play on every consultation. He also did his act on the stage, killing two birds with one contract. Moved Recruiting Station to in Front of a Theatre Harry Swift, exploiter for the Paramount Albany exchange, happened to notice that the Albany recruiting station was on wheels, so he saw “the old man” just as the signs advise, and suggested that he park in front of Proctor’s for a couple of weeks. That sounded reasonable, so they moved the outfit down to the theatre a week before Bill Hart opened in “The Cradle of Courage” and got a lot of recruits, while the house played to standing room business from the jump. There was quite a squad of men on the truck and they all helped tell about Bill, because Bill played up the army in this story, and both sides were well pleased — including Swift. Don’t waste your exploitation on a poor picture-, that will only make a bad matter worse. Keep the jazz for the pictures that will bring them back again. Used Postcard Exploitation W. H. Ostenberg, Jr., of the Orpheum, Scottsbluff, Neb., put over “The Branding Iron” with a double postcard campaign suggested by R. P. Allison, of the Goldwyn exploitation staff. The first card merely carried the “Bar-o” of the brand. The second carried that in a smaller cut, to connect with the first card, and went on to tell of the attraction. JVHAT THE ARMY RECRUITERS THINK OF “ THE CRADLE OF COURAGE ” Harry Swift, of the Albany Paramount staff, coaxed the recruiting squad to park in front of Proctor’s to help put over Bill Hart for a week. They got right in front of the box office and caught recruits coming out