The Moving picture world (May 1922)

292 MUVING PICTURE WORLD May 20, 1922 Selling the Picture to the^Public popularity of the Saturday title. It is always possible to get up some sort of a soap sale and STRAND ENTIRE WEEK STARTING MON., FEB. 27 ITba ■Itrmchos ou MCond brui H <*M9 ts ettrmm ibta thtt wt did oo» kan mucb Tiiiw Ui Mil m kbaul <r m « a/« Uibof thu vbalt pai* to !•> Tou Imow bi>» fuit .tUmk M-n Cctat at6 St* You'll tn'rn nf^t YOt SIMPLY MUST SEE THIS LARRY SEMON'in -THE SHOWT* /4 FC/LL P^G£ FOR A PARAMOUNT help the grocer put it over in return for his aid on your picture. —p. T. A.— The Pictures Make Theatre a Fibber The type display on this full page from the Riako Theatre, San Diego, Cal., is very good, but the pictures fail to back up the type, which tells that Theodora was the most beautiful of all heroines. She evidently took badly when she posed for the photographer, for the large figure is a hard faced female with a waist line around her knees, while the seated figure THE GREATEST DRAMATIC SPECTACLE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN — The Story of a Woman Who Wrecked An Empire Jor One Moment of Supreme Lovef NolWs iikt b Ever More Prodncal-Ma(iiifkcal.SUitfB|.'nriDu« GOLD»'^-\ S SESSATIOS Viaoricn Sardou's Immoriat R--mance THEATRE A GOOD TYPE LAYOUT in the lower corner makes her look masculine in the coarseness of her outlines. This is a small matter when the type puts the idea over so well, but it argues that where so much pains was taken with the copy and type, a little more care in the selection of attractors would have repaid the trouble. About the only original material is that in the space with the house signature. The rest is taken from the cam paign book and the newspaper advertisements, and the management has used the best of a large choice. It is good judgment to select the best and use only that when there was room on the page to use twice as much — and kill everything. What has not been used is even more to be commended than what has been taken. Instead of talking the reader to death, he is given sound argument from three different angles and then left to make up his mind from whichever section appeals to him most strongly. Many managements would have taken everything in the book and have stuffed the page so full that nothing would have had a chance at the public. This space is by no means bare, but it is not crowded, and it probably was all read with interest. —P. T. A.— Strong Selling Title Sunk Into the Plate Following the success of "The Sheik," the Vitagraph title, "The Sheik's Wife" is about as good a seller as can be conceived, for it must inevitably ride upon the popularity of the Hull story in its pictured form. For that reason it cannot be given too much prominence, and yet the Lafayette Square Theatre, Buffalo, not only makes it in white on a poor reverse, but streaks the letters to make them still further Trennell Tf io. T ' fourFlorian GlrlS'M Howard* Nt>rvM5od William Braoacll . i e^llalian.« Dliis f'^™ '• AlttiSe foolaGirL<; ; C. SnAI\rE MINOR fSE ORGAN I iffiiimriM^ STREAKED LETTERS AGAIN obscure. A small cut, too full of detail to be in any degree striking, completes the selling on what might have been a good clean-up title. If the picture went over it was because of the other advertising done and not on account of this. Streaking letters is a sort of disease. Apparently it is incurable, though Jewett Bubar did reform. An artist who messes up a display line with this sort of stuff is stealing his employer's money as surely as though he dipped into the till, for advertising spaces cost real money in Buffalo the same as elsewhere and not to give full display value to an advertising line is not to get that for which important money has been paid out. To a perverted mind this sort of thing may be artistic, but it is not advertising, and the man who hires out to draw advertisements should be more concerned with the selling value of the space than in anything else. As a matter of fact this is not artistic or anything else that is commendable. It is just insane. I.: might not matter so much on a house program, but it has no place in a well ordered scheme of things and least of all in an advertisement paid for at line rates instead of at 20 cents an inch. The only decent display in the entire three hundreds is for the organist. He is put over better than the expensive feature and at a smaller cost. It is pretty late in the day to be talking about gashed lettering, but it still creeps up and this Buffalo artist does not seem to care enough about his work even to read the trade papers, or he would know better by now. —P. T. A.— Black Background Is Seldom Attractive The Stanley Theatres in Philadelphia have been running so good an average of late that they are entitled to a couple of mistakes, and we think this is one of them. The black ground is seldom lovely and is good only when it is a real black and this practically never happens in newspaper work. This space for the Stanley was a dark grey in the paper, and while it got some attention, the center space was too crowded to give the best effect. It would have been better had there been less said and this in type instead of hand-lettering, but at best a newspaper space is seldom good in reverse, A SMALL REVERSE especially when the white space it encloses is so filled with lettering as to be too nearly of the same shade as the frame. This is only seventy lines across three and too small for any reverse unless only the star and title are named. Including a lot of selling talk, whether type or lettering, will make the space almost inconspicuous in spite of its blackness. You see it, but you do not read it unless you are particularly interested. A better layout would have been the star name brought down about a pica from the signature and a single column of eight point light italic below that with the How to Grow Thin well away from the names of the support. The italic should be not more than two-thirds as wide as the space, to permit white to show on either side in sufficient quantity to attract. Even white outlining does not bring up the cuts on either side. Probably the artist did not expect to get much cut/ and used the figures merely to break the regularity of the black. It is one of those instances where a cut is not used as a cut at all, but is merely an outlined attractor which gives distinction to the mass without much detail. This does not class as poor work, but merely is not as successful as the lighter layouts. —P. T. A.~ Didn't Chew the Rag In Australia, street work is not permitted in most places, but the Haymarket Theatre, Sydney, sent out a man who chewed persistently upon some substance which yielded a copious red fluid. He handed out cards which read to the effect that if you wanted to see what he was eating you should look at his back. Tacked to his coat was a sign reading: "I am the 'Lotus Eater,' at the Haymarket." The value of such exploitation is questionable, but it is at least interesting as something to avoid.