The Moving picture world (January 1920-February 1920)

886 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD February 7, 1920 Advance Stunts on ''Huckleberry Finn 99 Doob Jazzes Ohio Town for Premier Of "Huckleberry Finn " and Wins Out TRYING out shows on the small town dog used to be indoor sport of the dramatic managers, but lately first runs have been granted to small town houses for big films, and recently the Paramount-Artcraft gave Chillicothe, Ohio, its chance to see a real first night even before Broadway had a showing. "Huckleberry Finn" was the film and Oscar A. Doob, the Cincinnati publicity man, went to help the Sherman put it over. Somewhere some one leaked and the opposition house booked in a cheap vaudeville act called "Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer," and the day the teaser advertising for the film came out, the other house had large displays for "Huckleberry Finn," overlooking the rest of the regular name. This looked on the face of things like clever work, but it boomeranged and the opposition listened to public opinion and quickly withdrew. The theatre did not fight back, for C. A. Smith, of the Sherman, merely announced his regret at the confusion and telling that his was the house offering the pre-release film. The attempt to steal the teasers merely gave greater publicity to the real attraction. Schools Collaborated. One of the most remarkable features of the campaign was the school angle. Professor W F. Prout, superintendent of the public schools, had the story told as part of the literature class studies, induced the public library to put in extra copies of the book, and had all of the classes notified of the showing and dismissed the schools sufficiently early to permit the children to attend the second matinee showing on the opening day. The parochial schools did even more. Father Halpin, of St. Mary's, dismissed his classes at 1.30 the day of the opening and marched them in a body to the first performance. Father Heintz, of St. Peters, released his pupils in time for the second matinee. More than a quarter of all the school children saw the film the opening day, and practically all had come in by the end of the third day; a local merchant, I. L. Bergman, had the orphans as his guests the second afternoon and others donated tickets to the children too poor to afford their own admissions. Beating the Newspapers. For months the newspapers and the managers had been fighting and not a line of theatrical news had appeared in the local sheets other than the display advertisements. Doob went to the editors with the story that the film was being shown in Chillicothe for the first time anywhere. He made an appeal to local pride — and got an item, the first in many months. To build up on this he persuaded the News-Advertiser to give a treat to the newsboys as a circulation scheme. This meant a story a day, and the town gasped. That seemed to clean up the newspapers, but Doob had greater vision. The Columbus papers came to town. He got the Columbus editors interested in the fact that an Ohio town was to enjoy the premiere. The local papers reprinted the stories as a matter of civic pride. Then the more distant Cincinnati papers came in, and it worked again. Jazz Date Strips. One very simple stunt was to jazz the date strips, which usually are never considered as advertising matter. The addition of a block letter "Hurrah". had a wonderful effect on possible patrons and the "Hurrah" was a local catchword for days. Most of the good stands were owned by an out of town bill posting concern and were unavailable. To get around this difficulty, sixes and 24-sheets were mounted and hung from the second story windows of the vacant buildings in the business district. They were worth many times what billboard would have brought. A bill ofT a billboard is always worth more than a regular stand. To back these up there were hook-up windows in the book store, and a clothing merchant had a live Huck (with iodine freckles) in his window display, and gave free tickets to all boy patrons tlHJUlTliilllE mmm. Jim The Jazzed Date Strip. on a designated "Huck Finn Day." A hardware store also made cutouts and stills the basis of a gin display, and Mr. Smith never shed a tear over the fact that the store was alongside the opposition house. Doob did not wet any handkerchiefs, either. A Model Perambulator. On the previous Saturday, the big shopping day, Huck drove a donkey cart around town, plastered with signs, and the children running after the outfit supplied the necessary noise. A really novel stunt was replacing the traffic regulation signs with cards made to fit the frames and reading "Straight ahead for Huck Finn" or with instructions to turn back, as the case might be. The civic pride appeal made this unusual stunt possible. One of the sets of signs pointed dead away from that same opposition, at that. .•\nother novelty was an advertisement for a certain edition of the story, declared to have been lost by the advance man. This was one of the early editions. An attractive cash reward was issued. No one found that particular Two Pre-release Stands for "Huckleberry Finn." How Oscar A. Doob helped an Ohio manager put over the first showing of a Paramount-Artcraft. and the perambulator. The big "Huck"