The Moving picture world (October 1920)

MOVING PICTURE WORLD October 16, 1920 One Sealskin Jacket Inspired 8,000 Poets. Gee! Employed Play Sub-titles to Get His Novel Window Cards H. J. Cady, publicity man for A. H. West, of the Babcock Theatre, Billings, Mont., was stuck for advertising copy for "In Search of a Sinner." There was a lot of good stuff in the press sheets, but he used that for the newspaper work, for he was running pretty strong. The film was given a preliminary showing for the employees in the morning, and he took his stenographer down to the showing with instructions not to look at the picture, but get the titles down. These he read o her. Half an hour later he had a transcription of the snappy Emerson Loos titles, and from the best of these he selected the material for a set of window cards. Where a still would fit a leader he pasted on the still, but he trusted most to the breeziness of the test. These his card writer lettered neatly and soon they were placed in various windown around town, so that one could scarcely pass a store without encountering one of the signs. By nightfall he had the whole town talking, for Billings is not a large place, and the cards drew so well that the business kept up to the last show of the last night. He had put it over. Another good stunt was a set of double twos scattered through the papers telling of the situations in snappy lines, such as "Is your husband wicVed enough? See how perfectly awful a good man can be, at the Babcock tonight." These were set in two paragraphs, fourteen-point bold, without capitalization of any sort, and the contrast fought all of the all-cap ads." in the paper and won hands down — for once. Arcades Can Be Used to Get Attention for Plays Most cities now require that building operations on traveled throughfares be safeguarded by a rude arcade. Laying out the promotion ideas for "The Prince Chap'' at the Isis, Richmond, Va., Herman Phillips, Paramount exploitation man for that ter ritory, took hold of the idea for his main bet. Starting in with a "Look up" slogan, he plastered his paper well above the heads of the people, utilizing the arcades as the illustration shows. He also got his paper up on partly completed buildings and hung cloth mounted displays from the roofs of old structures. It was all up in the air Paramount week, with "The Prince Chap" getting the best bet in the advertising. Single Sealskin Jacket Made Eight Thousand Parody Poets Making it a double play, R. S. Ballantyne, of the Moon Theatre, Omaha, offered a sealskin coat valued at $225 for the best sixteen line poem describing "The Law of the Yukon." The coat was donated by a local fur concern, appreciative of the advertising it would receive. The News sponsored the contest and gave both house and store a lot of free publicity, and some eight thousand poems were received and passed upon by a committee appointed by the News. A pretty model displayed the coat at each performance at the Moon, and a duplicate formed the display at the store, "while the News ran a cut of the garment. Two thousand throwaways and ticket passes were also used to gain interest. Gives a Universal Rule for Judging Proper Lobby Display Peter Antonoplos, of the Olympic, Pittsburgh, in an article on lobby displays, reduces his subject to fourteen words when he writes that "The display must make an actual improvement in the appearance of the house front." That's worthy of being lettered and framed and hung where it can be seen daily. Mr. Antonoplos contends that anything which detracts from the appearance of the lobby is poor advertising, and he is right. Advertising which, consciously or otherwise, disgusts, is never good advertising and is ever hurtful. At the same time we cannot wholly agree with him that the box office should never be made a part of the decoration. The ticket seller should never be hidden and it should never happen that the box office is made difficult of access, but we believe that sometimes masking in the box office helps, since it becomes a part of an harmonious whole. The point is to apply the test rule. We have seen log cabin box offices set in an ornate lobby which looked uncouth. On the other hand, we have seen the cabined box office made a part of a general display when the box office, untouched, would have been a blot on the picture. Mr. Antonoplos' rule cannot be greatly improved upon, but the application of the rule is a matter for each management to consider in connection with his own lobby. Teased for Two Full W eeks Before "Don't Ever Marry" Harry Lux, of the Alhambra, Utica, booked Marshall Nielan's "Don't Ever Marry," for his attraction to open the house after a summer snutdown for renovation. He felt that during the summer some of his trade might have fallen to other houses and he wanted to get them back with a rush, so nearly three weeks before the reopening the street cars carried banners reading "Don't Every Marry," but without a hint as to when and where it would be shown. Of course the fans knew about the attraction and connected the legend with the play, but they wanted to know where. Had These Ready Three days before the opening the announcement was made that the attraction would play the Alhambra, and the picture went over so strong that the house will put in a daily matinee this season instead of running, but two afternoons a week as they did last winter. Newspaper work contributed to the rush and for one day uniformed telegraph boys distributed fake telegrams addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. General Public, Wherever Found." It all helped to jazz things up, and Lux has his old patrons back and more too. EVEN IF ADVERTISING DOES COME HIGH WE MUST HAVE THE ADVERTISING. Down in Richmond for Paramount Week the advertising ivas skied and the preliminary snipe slogans told the passer-by to look up. W hen he did he found all sorts of sixes, twenty-fours and banners to tell of the stuff he could see at the Isis Theatre, and, being trilling to take a tip, he went and had a look and probably liked it.