The Moving picture world (May 1922)

May 27, 1922 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 399 Selling the Picture to the^.Public Broke the Opposition With An Extra Hustle Roy C. Smart, of the Southern Enterprises houses in Anniston, Ala., had a rosy prospect ahead a few weeks since. He had a Httle opposition. The Anniston Shrine Club had brought in a large carnival company, there was a convention of music clubs with a $900 soloist, an operetta and a minstrel show, bath with local talent. He felt that he could either close the houses or fight, and he elected to fight. He had "Fool's Paradise" for Monday and Tuesday, and he started a week ahead to gain extra interest for this. He used the illuminated announcement below the screen, for his house work, first using a slide : "It's coming," and then flashing on the letters. Then another slide gave the playing dates He made a special still frame of beaverboard. and sent out a thousand circular letters, which enclosed the Paramount booklet, 200,000 miles of entertainment. Mr. Smart believes that one really good window is better than a lot of half-baked displays, so he centered upon one good one, spendng all of $6.50 on ts get-up. It would have cost more, but the arch was the same as that used for "The Three Musketeers," and draped with black cloth, powered with stars. Inside were the travelers on the magic carpet against a background of stars on a blue cloth, the centerpiece being a cutout. Instead of losing money, he pulled about 40 per cent, above the average. But for Thursday and Friday, with Constance Talmadge in "Women's Place," the first night, and "Her Mate" the second, he worked the best Fashion Show he ever staged. A donation of $25 to a local club got him the services of 29 girls of the best social standing; the sort of girls he could not possibly hire. These wore garments supplied by four women's wear stores, a jeweler, a men's furnishings and a furniture store. The latter came in on the elaborate stage dressing — a regular Cecil De Mille. The $25 was the only cost, apart from the usual advertising, for the seven stores did all the special drive work. The proof of the pudding is this : Miss Talmadge is considered a strong card in Anniston, but her showing was pretty poor the opening night. The following night; the first of the show, the receipts were more than double .NNIST0N1»D1N6_C0^ WHOL .-1 Paramount Release SMART WANTED ONE-GOOD WINDOW— AND GOT IT The Anniston manager figures that one really good display is worth a lot more than some weak hook-ups in several places, so he spent all of $6.50 to get this display in an important window and the next night there was a further increase of about 15 per cent, over this — and the minstral show had to be abandoned because of the lack of an audience. Made an Intensive Drive on Norma Talmadge Play Not to be outdone by other press agents. First National coined the slogan Let's Go Smilin' Through Nineteen-twenty-two and left it to the house managers to cash in. Harry B. Watts sold it to the Add-Sell Club of Omaha, just to give the Rotary and Kiwanis Ckibs a little rest, and a huge sign was hung in the banquet room where the club held its monthly dinner-meeting. It appeared in all of the newspaper pictures of the meeting, and the reports of the dinner included allusions to the slogan and its adoption by the ad club. This was supplemented by numerous window tie-ups, including one store which made duplicates of the old-fashioned costumes and announced them as some of the original wardrobe worn by Miss Talmadge in the play. This was better than the "reproduction" card, and got four times the attention. The music hook-up was used on the plugger song, and a hosiery store urged its patrons to "come smiling through the door," while a milliner used a window with Smilin' Through hats to get attention to more modern styles. A First National Release TWO OF A DOZEN STUNTS USED TO PUT OVER "SMILIN' THROUGH" IN OMAHA Harry Watts, of the Strand Theatre, tied the Add-Sell Club to the Norma Talmadge slogan at its monthly dinner, and had them all using the slogan in their store advertising to tie up to the popularity the theatre gave the phrase. On the right is a showing of gowns worn by Miss Talmadge in this play. These were the two best bets of a» unusually heavy campaign oh the famous stage play