Moving Picture World (Nov-Dec 1923)

December 1, 1923 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 487 The Small Display Suffices Small House Likes Colors Because they get especial attention, W. H. Lawrance, of the Lyric Theatre, Duluth, a Finkelstein and Ruben house, used a two color and black full page advertisement for five weeks in succession on Why Worry, The White Rose, Ashes of Vengeance, The Common Law and Richard the Lion Hearted. The displays were so attractive that when he came to send them in he could find only one, the page for The Common Law. This is in red and yellow, with the red sparingly used to pick out the yellow. It is well done, both as to layout and coloring, but it will not reproduce. Mr. Lawrance avoids the temptation to use too much of either color, knowing that to do so will defeat the display. He writes that he found the attraction value to be greater than the additional cost. In other words it was a good buy. Color work is seldom used these days, and we have not yet seen anything to equal One advantage of a house with a small lobby is that a small display is amply sufficient. A profile light house for The Isle of Lost Ships is all the Classic Theatre, Stratford, Ont., required, where a larger lobby would have lost this single appeal in a maze of frames. The Classic keeps its frames on the side walls and the seven foot lighthouse was a big flash because it had nothing to fight. This was not even a practical lighthouse, for there was no provision for a lantern, the entire piece being on the flat, but the white paint caused it to loom large before the pedestrian and it pulled in as much money as a larger display would have done in a wider opening. A narrow lobby is not always an asset, but it does help to keep down costs in that it requires less decoration to achieve an equal effect. This small lighthouse gives the same suggestion of a big production to Stratford that would require a costly construction in a wide lobby. It’s all a matter of relativity, as old Doc Einstein would tell you. Kid Mats A First National Release THE WORLD SERIES IS OVER BUT IT WILL COME AGAIN And next year perhaps you can show your own sign to a mob like this if you act in time to get in with the newspaper. This is the second year the Branford Theatre, Newark, has ho**ned in on baseball, and the sign gets larger year after year. A SIMPLE STRUCTURE MAKES A FLASH ON A SMALL FRONT The lighthouse might have been lost in a large lobby, but in the Classic Theatre Stratford, Ont., it loomed large as a beacon even though it was not provided with illumination. The stunt was useful in selling The Isle of Lost Ships to capacity. Trailed Baseball to Scatter Ashes Last year the Branford Theatre, Newark, did so well with a small sign below the player board on which the world’s series championship games were reproduced by the Ledger that this year the management made even more of an effort and the sign was twice as large. It was just below the automatic scoreboard and read: “Start the day right by reading the Newark Ledger for full accounts of the world’s series, then go to the Branford and see Norma Talmadge in Ashes of Vengeance.” With football following baseball, there is a chance to get an unusual pitch for about eight months of the year. It may cost more than a board in a vacant lot on some side street, but it costs less, per reading, and is really cheaper. If you want to make it still more interesting, make a photograph each afternoon, ring some of the faces and give free tickets to those who find their pictures in the paper, permitting this to appear as an evidence of the newspaper’s enterprise, so they will contribute the space. It will more than double the crowd and double that double crowd’s interest. The ringed photograph is always a big winner. Work it in. the color displays S. Barret McCormick used to get out for the Circle Theatre, Indianapolis. After all these years they still stand in a class by themselves. Cleaned with It Will R. Winch, of the Wigwam Theatre, El Paso, Texas, got the Fox pictures of the Japanese earthquake before the other news reels came in, and he felt so exultant over the beat that he preceded the film with a special slide which read : “In presenting the first pictures of the Japanese earthquake, the Fox Film Corporation has beaten all other news reels by several days. The second lot of the Fox pictures will be shown here by the time the other news reels get out their first ones.” There is a nice, swift kick to that last line. Tod Browning is using the kid matinee at the Olympic Theatre, New Haven, and finds that it helps to make business better with his adult patrons. The kiddies pack the house Saturday mornings with a ten-cent admission and talk the rest of the week about the pictures. Mr. Browning has another and newer stunt. A nearby garage will park the cars of the Olympia patrons at half the regular charge. It is glad to do this since most of the business is brought in through the evening, when the business rush is over, and it is more or less found money. In towns with time limits for parked cars this idea will make real business. A First National Release