The Moving picture world (October 1922)

494 MOVING PICTURE WORLD October 7, 1922 Ga., just doubled his ordinary busi- "Grandma's Boy" through a s'ngle Doubled Business on Grandma Matinee E. C. Kingman, of the Rialto Theatre, Macon, ness on stunt. He knew that if the picture were seen, it would be his own best advertisement, so he stressed a free matinee for grandmothers just before the regular matinee showing. Kiddies could come, if they paid, but they had to come with their grandmothers, or wait over. He also had a nine ad hook-up page with ten tickets to each merchant to present to grandmothers. There was a crowded house, about one- third grandmothers and two-thirds young- sters, and by eight o'clock that evening Mr. Kingman changed the S. R. O. sign to "Try and Do It." The stunt brought him yards of newspaper publicity, gave him something to talk about on the screen, and a word-of-mouth adver- tising that was worth all the rest put to- gether, for the best advertisement for the Lloyd comedy is a person who has seen the picture. A Uttiversal Rclrasc GETTING A UNIVERSAL TITLE AROUND THE TOWN Fred V. Green, Universal exploit head, devised this scheme for "Human Hearts," at the Strand Theatre, Far Rockaway. The boys rolled the hoops all over the place, including the crowded bathing beach and the boardwalk. Free Mat Service for Contest Idea Because of the success in several cities of an identification contest on First National stars with masks painted across the eyes, the First National publicity department has prepared a set of mats which will provide the smaller towns with the cuts at small cost. Most of the small town newspapers do not have casting boxes, but they can be sent to the nearest city for casting and will still cost but a fraction of the engraver's charges. The idea of the contest is to award prizes for the best identification of the stars, the pictures being run as a whole, in serie;, or to work in with a commercial hook-up as the fancy of the exhibitor may dictate. An identification of Paramount stars sold several million tickets last year. The addi- tion of the masks will make this contest still more interesting, though we will bet a cigar against a cigarette stub that no one experiences any difficulty in identify- ing Jackie Coogan. Doubles for Post When Guy Bates Post visited San Fran- cisco, in the interest of "The Masquerader" at the Tivoli, he gave less than twtnty- four hours' notice, and the press agent had to do some quick thinking. After a brief pause the agent rushed out and inserted an advertisement in all of the morning papers offering "attractive compensation" to the man who looked most like the star, to be decided by photographs presented at the theatre that morning. Meanwhile the newspapers carried an an- nouncement that he was stopping at a cer- tain hotel, so one crowd rushed over to the hotel to see what chance they stood, and a larger one stormed the theatre, with the result that even over in Oakland they knew all about "The Masquerader." ing the pictures with an indelible pencil he can get a fine result, and it helps a lot to get attention. Lem believes in doing everything he can to get the most attention, even where the managers are practically certain to read the dope. It's good policy. For Duplicators Lem Stewart illustrates the tips he ^encls Southern Enterprises managers. He uses a gelatine duplicator and finds that by draw- Four Glorias Any normal man would be content with one Gloria Swanson, but when L. R. Towns, of the Strand Theatre, Birmingham, played "Her Gilded Cage," he offered prizes for four Glorias. For side lines on this he displayed the prizes in four windows, advertised that the Gloria hat, which formed the second prize, would be duplicated and sent Miss Swan- son, and worked the photographic hook-up in that the local photographer made free pictures of all entrants—and sold them extra prints where he could. The photographs were made the feature of the lobby display. Getting four extra angles to one stunt is doing pretty well. We wonder if Mr. Towns ever tried to grow grass on aa asphalt pavement. We'll bet he could A Paramount Picture OF COURSE NICE PEOPLE WEAR THE SAME SORT OF HATS THAT WALLACE REID AFFECTS At least, this was the contention of Amile Vogel, St. Louis Paramounteer, who tied the largest clothing store in town to the display. The teaser got so much interest that the sidewalk in front of the store was crowded when the fatal noon hour arrived, and they stuck around to see the live model put on the various styles of hats manufactured by the concern. Of course while they were waiting they had been looking at the clothing displays in the other windows.