Moving Picture World (Sep-Oct 1927)

Picture to the Public ^)IUs Department Vlas Sstablished September 23, 1911 by its Pre$ent6iiton* £>pe$ Winthrop Sargent mechanical skill to contrive the effects, it should be easy to form a contact with some mechanic or even a high school boy with a mechanical bent, and let him play around with the ideas. There is nothing difficult about contriving simple and inexpensive exploitation stunts. Spaced not too close together, they will bring in a large number of patrons who might not respond to the usual appeals, and exploitation is more valuable in the smaller towns than in the large cities. A big stunt in New York may be seen by perhaps one per cent, of the population. In a small town everyone either sees or hears about it. Ever since the production companies reduced their exploitation staffs, there has been a decrease in exploitation. An effort has" been made to suggest exploitation stunts with each picture, but most of these are hackneyed. On the other hand there is a wealth of material in Building Theatre Patronage, and every issue of the trade papers reports either new stunts or new applications of old ideas. Why be willing to just plod along when an increase of from 10 to 25 per cent, in business may be had for a ridiculously small investment of time and money. Still Active The auto race is still a good lobby stunt. It sold Fast and Furious to a nice business at the Florida Theatre, St. Petersburg. Charles IT. Amos used two belts, geared for different speeds, with six autos on each belt. It might have been better to have had only Denny’s car on the fast belt, passing all the others, but that’s a detail. HAIL AND FAREWELL ON A LONGACRE SIGNBOARD This is the old board for The Big Parade at the Astor Theatre, which has been a landmark for nearly two years. This temporary sign has done more to emphasize the change than almost any device could have done. Exploitation Does Not Have To Be Expensive So Long As It Effectively Creates Business ANY exhibitors seem to regard exploitation as something too costly 2|l|f and time-using to be within reach of the smaller theatres. They assure themselves that their house or their town is too small to bring a response; that their intake does not warrant the expense. And all of this is but the conscious or unconscious expression of disinclination to get out and work. Some of the most prosperous exhibitors and small town men who spend less on a stunt than larger theatres pay for a single 24-sheet, and who make their efforts return a greater profit than ever accrued from a straight 24-sheet. Given the will to do and either fair inventiveness or a willingness to read the trade papers for the campaign of others, the small town exhibitor can build profitable business on a small investment and a little hard work. Take Edgar Hart, of Portsmouth, N. H., for example. Almost every week Edgar turns up some stunt, generally original and he brings more money to the Conolian Theatre than some of the big theatre men would get from many times the investment. Take his campaign on Hula, as a concrete example. He put the picture over at a cost of something less than a dollar, of which 75 cents was for five one-sheets. and with a “real” earring the figure is complete. For every person who might have noticed one of these one-sheets pasted on a blank wall, a hundred stopped to admire the dressed-up figure in some store window, and the novelty of the idea got Edgar five preferred positions. That’s exploitation. It cost less than a dollar and it brought Bill Gray a lot of extra dollars that he would not have had were it not that Edgar uses both his head and his hands and takes a delight in doing so. Of course, an entire school of exploitation cannot be founded on the dressed up cutout. If it is done this week, it cannot be done next, but there is something else that can be done, probably at no greater expense. With an old fan motor, a few wooden wheels of various size and a few yards of round belting a manager has the makings of a hundred animations, and more can be contrived with a vacuum cleaner. The stuff can be used over and over with small change, and if a manager lacks the THE HULA NOVELTIES If you will examine the one sheet on the left you will notice that the paper contains a pose of the star with the title on the right. What the photograph does not show, because of actinic values, is the “Clara Bow” above the head. The figure was cut from the sheet and mounted on a piece of wall board that allowed space for a pendant. The star’s name is stripped in two lines below the figure with the play title below this. The breast sash in the lithograph is replaced with cheap ribbon, another ribbon is tied about the waist into which straw is woven to represent the grass skirt