The Moving picture world (January 1922)

106 MOVING PICTURE WORLD January 7, 1922 Selling the Picture to the^Public THE BLUE MOUSE THEATRE. MINNEAPOLIS. WITH ITS ADVERTISEMENT FOR "WHY GIRLS LEAVE HOME" stead of a figure. Put a glass on the cut and note how the ornamentation of the woman's dress is so set as to serve as a background to define Lytells' hair, then note how the white cuff and the vest band out- line the remainder of the front figure while the high lights on his back hold him from butting into Heller's orchestra, over on the right. Bubar knows how, and can do it when he wants to, and this time he wanted to. This is 125 lines across three but it would look almost as well as in a double column. —P. T. A..— Disguised Marquise for "A Connecticut Yankee" With a minimum of work the Strand The- atre, Perth Amboy, N. J., with the aid of a Fox publicity man, made a battlement above the entrance for the recent engagement of "A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court." There was not much to the display save forming the towers at the ends of the display, but there was enough to sug- gest the castle and it worked almost as well as a full built in front, because it kept the work where it would show to the best advantage. It accomplishes practicaly the same result at a fraction of the cost, but this is practicable only when there is a marquise. It would cost more to build this out on a flat front, and make it secure than it would to build in an entire front. It would help a little to mount a sentinel at showing times, and if he hapens to be a bugler, so much the better. You can always find a bugler in a boy scout troop who can do well enough. Doll him up a little and put him to work. —P. T. A.— Put the News Appeal on the Theatre Front Although the sensation seeker will be ap- pealed to by the title of "Why Girls Leave Home," a majority of tho prospects are more surely reached through the news ap- peal supplied by the Warner Brothers in the question raised. .Xppreciating this fact, the Blue Mouse Theatre. Minneapolis, put the ■'65,000 girls lost in year" on a sign above the marquise and then added in electric lights "The Most Vital Question confronting mothers and fathers." This landed the class of patrons most apt to stay away from a sensational title and made the story 100 per cent, effective. The manager who trusts to the title alone is the sort of man who would leave a couple of perfectly good drinks in the bottom of a bottle that looks empty. He does not get all he has coming to him unless he uses the provided pub- licity. Most managers have used it all, both on their house fronts and in the lights as well as in the newspaper specials, but the Blue Mouse provides a simple model others will have no diflRculty in following, and this can be more easily done than some of the displays which reproduce elaborate paintings of newspaper headings. These latter are good, but they are difficult and the Blue Mouse gets the same result with less painting. —P. r. A.— Book Origin Feature Suggested by the Ad. Suggesting the book origin of "No Woman Knows," the Alhambra Theatre, Toledo, used a picture of a book back for its Sunday an- nouncement, taking a space 100 lines across six columns. It gets over the idea of the book, but at considerable cost, for only the type matter in the mortise really gets over. On the right hand side you have to look closely for other text than the title, because the lines cannot fight through the color of the cover. THE BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT At that the advertisement is a good one be- cause the picture makes a strong atrtactor and the announcement on the back cover is ample to sell the idea of the story. The artist seems to have been in some uncertainty as to the portrait vignette. If he squared it with column rules it would look out of alignment on the cover, and if he made it square with the cover it would slant on the page, so he made it on an angle with the border, which suggests that the cover artist was a bit off in his draw- ing. The advertisement is effective, but we think that much the same result could have been gained from a smaller space in which book covers served as corner pieces. This would not have been as striking, but it would have gotten the same idea over and probably would have done just as good business. THE CASTLE FRONT ON THE STRAND. PERTH AMBOY, FOR "A CONNECTICUT YANKEE"