The Moving picture world (January 1922)

January 28, 1922 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 417 Selling the Ptctuie to the^Public Cleveland Advertisement Suggests Stunned Writer This four hundred lines from the Standard Theatre, Cleveland, suggests that the copy reader was afraid of his job. He is trying to sell this so hard that he overthrows. His English is awkward, at best, and sometimes worse than that. Take that line just below the signature, which reads "Carl Laemmle, the TOO MUCH LANGUAGE dean of peer producers." Done into more simple language it merely means "Carl Laemmle, the oldest of equal producers," and that doesn't mean anything at all. The dean of a guild, craft or corps, is merely the old- est and therefore presumably the most experi- enced member. That implies some distinction, but "peer" is a sadly overworked word with the writers. It means equal. A man who is judged by "a jury of his peers" is judged by his equals. It implies no distinction. Peer, in England, is used as a word of rank, but it is derived from the house of peers in which the men of equality sit, as opposed to the Com- mons, where the men of title and the men of lesser rank may sit together. Peer is taken by the advertising writers to mean something out of the ordinary, where the reverse is really the sense. That line is not even good circus English. A dififerent sort of slip occurs in the bank below. It reads: But women with weak hearts, beware! His Breathless Western heart punch! Even strong men's pulses beat faster I There is one exclamation point too many there. The artist in copying has used a "shout" at the end of each line to make it look better, and he splits the sense, for the first two lines should read as a whole—"Women with weak hearts, beware his breathless western heart punch." The extra exclamation breaks the sense. The next bank is almost as clumsy, for it runs: "Carl Laemmle's first western Super-production ever made of the inimitable star in a stupendous sensation." That is just words and words. It may possibly sell—to some, but it will give many people a poor idea of the motion picture theatre. It would have been better to have said: "Carl Laemmle's first western super-production. The most stupendously sensational production in which this inimitable star has ever been seen." It is all a labored enthusiasm, without pull because it is without continuity. Even in jazz writing you have to stick to sense and strive for smooth- ness. This advertisement lacks both. It would have been better displayed had it been set in type, with the exception of the star and title strip. With lettering that size a good twelve or even an eighteen point could have been employed, which would have yielded a bet- ter result. You can gather from the display as it stands that the copy writer is tremendous- ly excited over the bigness of the production. but he does not convey his enthusiasm to you because he speaks so haltingly. Even in the ear there is a clash, for the panel reads Prices all seats 25 cents no higher If all seats are twenty-five cents there is a price and not prices and "all seats 25 cents" would have covered the ground, for if all seats are a quarter it stands to reason that there are none at a higher price and there is but one price. A house able to buy 500 lines of space for a Sunday splash should be able to aflford a more expert writer. —P. T. A.— Pulling in Space Is Good House Economy The Loew theatres, Cleveland, which used to use half pages for each booking, and which later on cut to quarters, pulled still further in just before the holidays without losing display. By cutting a little three bookings, covering four theatres, are put into a single half page with ample display for each and a decided saving in space bills. There is only one advantage to be gained through the use of overlarge advertise- ments. It is possible to impress the reader with the importance of the attraction by going to large display, but this holds good only where a half page space is two or three times the size of the usual display. When a half page space is made the standard weekly size, the only efl'ect gained is that people are impressed in some small degree with the idea that the house is afifluent, but the psychological effect of this extra investment is seldom sufficient to pay the cost of the extra space; particularly in a city, where the space is apt to be billed on the line rate instead of by the inch. We be- lieve that the crowding of the three displays onto a single half page space will sell just as many tickets as was possible where each house obtained a quarter page space. If you make your advertisement large enough to be dis- tinctive and easily read, any greater use of space is more or less wasteful, and does not yield a return in proportion to the investment. We question whether a return to the larger spaces would pay even the cost of the additional advertising, save in the case of a real super feature. Each year a lot of money is wasted in an effort to use more space than the other house does, and this inevitably lead? to a fight which results in good only to the advertising departments of the papers. These spaces are not as impressive as the halves, but they will probably sell just as many tickets and do the house just as much good. This would not hold so true were the houses under different man- agements, but unquestionably much money is lost through the excessive employment of space beyond actual needs. Of the three spaces that for the Park and Mall is easily the most sightly, though the reverse for "Man, Woman Marriage" shows well because only large letters are used in the reverse and the mortises put over the smaller type. This First National sounds like last year, but it should be remem- bered that First Nationals have not been shown in Cleveland on acount of a legal tangle and this is first run stuff in the city on the lake. It's old elsewhere, but it is Cleveland's first chance. It is only recently they had a chance to see "The Kid." This trio of announcements points a valuable lesson, the moral of which is that enough is plenty. —P. T. A.— Grauman Houses Gain Some Varying Results These two displays for the Grauman Thea- though presumably they are the work of the tres, Los Angeles, show very different results, same artist. The top one hides the title in a constructed bank, though it is a title well worth playing up, while that at the bottom obtains a fine display. This is in part due to the fact that the Rialto does not have to carry the list of production acts, but more because the artist held in to half his space where he could have stretched it, through rearrangement, to run over to the formal program. It was merely a matter of laying out the design. The cut ran only half the space, so the title was cramped under the cut. In the other design the various characters in the Cosmopolitan-Paramount production are used for a border and there was plenty of space within for the proper dis- play of a title which sells itself. It is prac- tically impossible for an artist always to make his best display, for conditions must be con- sidered, but we believe that better than this could have been done with the upper space by a more careful planning and a willingness to ""Why Wait?" WTiy wait for a husband who may never retumP Why waif for fleeting years to snatch away un> realized hopes? Why wait when there are others who offer laie and the happiness of which she tcncW so Wtic? /('a limpU, jmt humanly strong, thU drama of a wif9 uAow loyalty and faith art pittod againat tA«' torirwttt of hM-lontUnu9 Coumie ANDREI^/ SOUIAR CHESTER CONKLIN "A PERFECT VILLAIN!' PARK MALL fl£0'/V/V/VG TooaV^ THREE DISPLAYS ACROSS A CLEVELAND PAGE.