The Moving picture world (November 1922-December 1922)

Noveml)cr lo. V'22 MOVING PICTURE WORLD 259 A Pdrtlmitiiiil h'rii HERE IS A CRACKERJACK LOBBY ON "BLOOD AND SAND " This was used by the National Theatre, Breckenridge, Texas, and is a falsework lop and sides. The stills and cutouts show through apparent breaks in the plastering, and the lettering is the real Spanish. Used House Drapes for Window Display When Roy C. Smart, of the Nohk Theatre, Anniston, Ala., got ready for Norma Talmadge m "Smilin' Through" he started with a iioiise trailer two and a half weeks ahead, and worked in with slides the last week hefore the two-day engagement. In the lohhy he arranged a niche, on a platform, making this of a set of curtains taken from one of the boxes, and backing it with white crepe paper. It contained a cutout of Miss Talmadge, and was so shallow that no special lighting was required. When the film opened he took the drapes over to a local store and set in place of the cutout a wax figure, dressed in hoopskirts and with a wig curled as shown in the photographs of Miss Talmadge in this play. The backing was replaced by a black ground touched with gold, which also was made the general color scheme, a lettered card done in gold on black telling that the star played a girl of 1850 and of 1922. On either side of the display was a single model of the fall styles with the semi-hoopskirt effect, one of which was given a card which bore the lettering "The modern interpretation of the style of yesteryear." The main streets were painted every few blocks, the words being fifteen feet apart and starting with the first word, so that it showed 1922 Through Smilin' Go Let's These were half the street width in town and full width in the suburbs. The photograph shows how the garden effect was carried out in the marquise. Now for *^The Storm ^* Down in Houston, Charles McFarland, of the Queen Theatre, and Wakefield, the Universal exploitation man, collaborated on "The Storm" and got a lot of talk by offering $50 in prizes for the best stories of storms, a local paper being hooked to the idea. Storm warnings were thrown on the sidewalk by means of a stereopticon, and were inserted in the weather reports, and a lobby display was built to show the forest fire, the lighting being all in red. Texas Plaza Toros Is Correctly Done John Victor, of the National Theatre, Breckenridge, Texas, knows a bullfight when he sees one, and he added some neat trimmings to the general plaza idea for "Blood and Sand." For one thing, he substitutes "boletas" for "tickets" over the box office window, and the two entrance doors are "entrada dc! sol" and "entrada de sombre," in other words to the sunny and shady sides of the arena, the shady side commanding a higher price than seats where the sun shines in the eyes of the spectators. The lobby was built in with a falsework and the lighting was the long, slender tube lights, dyed green to heighten the effect. Red and green draperies were used inside of the openings, and the stills and cutouts are mounted to suggest that they show through the broken masonry. In spite of the pretentious effect, the cost is placed at below $15. Dug Lobby Floor to Make Display According to the First National Exploitation, the Doric theatre, Toronto, a suburban house, dug up a portion of its lobby to make a garden display for "Smilin' Through." The floor was tiled and a square of about ten feet was raised to permit sodding as a foundation for the gate set. Possibly the management figured that the stunt would impress tlie patron, but it would have been much more simple to have made a box of the same size, filled it with dirt for a few inches, laying the sods on that and banking in with moss. If the stunt possessed any value at all it was in the advertisement gained while the setting was being prepared. Apart from this the idea has no real advantage over the box plan. Eddie Collnis, of the Rialto theatre, Dennison, Texas, figured that half a cage would do for Gloria Swanson, so he built it on a half circle and backed it against a sateen ground with a cutout of the star. It carried out the idea and cost only $3. It was not as good, perhaps, but it was good enough to hit up the receipts about ten per cent. A First Nntional lirlrnttc TWO OF THE STUNTS ROY SMART USED ON "SMILIN" THROUGH" AT THE NOBLE THEATRE It's new down in Anniston, Ala., because it has not been shown there before, and an intelligent campaign shot the receipts well above the fifty per cent, increase. The window display was fir.-it used in the lobby, and then moved to a store to hook in to the modified hoopskirt idea in the current season's styles. The effect was much richer than the photograph suggests.