The Moving picture world (November 1922-December 1922)

262 MO V I N G PICTURE WORLD November 18, 1922 business up to the top. He has a new form of personal guarantee. It is the old moneyback idea, but is headed statement. Backed by a guarantee" and is signed by J. R. Muir and himself, as managers. It starts off "Manslaughter is the greatest all-around picture ever presented in Vancouver. You can believe that implicitly, or your money back if you should believe that your confidence in our advertising has been abused." It goes on to tell of the special FLASH! For 30c Today at 2:45 You can wJinwj iho greatest plctiirc o»er pro•ented In Vant-ou^cr. ptoyt^d by our biff orcbf*«ra. and hear an operailo number (#cm»iie from l/ucia), aong by sLi ariist£. Thai's a reoJ bargain. Beat the nlifht crowd*. Anend the Matinee and bo ahend botlt In cash Manslaughter CECIL B. DE MILLE'S DAZZLING INDICTMENT OF THE SPEEDLOVING LADIES OF TODAY. Thomas Meighan headt an all-ttar supporting cast You've never seen anything like it BIMTLTANEOCB Wrn TS 2R0 OF NORTH UEEHtlCA'S LEADDfG THEATRES Capitol Theatre would have not only obviated this but would have been an additional selling point. Picture audiences are queer people. They are narrow in their general likes and broad in their dislikes, and yet they can be sold on costume plays if they are sold on the right angles. Here there is nothing but a blurb about Tom Moore that will not sell him to any one who does not already like him, and there is nothing else to hang a ticket sale upon. No stranger is going to buy tickets for "Tom Moore again — the same Tom with the same golden smile, but in a kind of part." The same man might ductions. But it is apparent that something has happened to shake up the houses a little, for now it is possible to read the argument and to tell almost at a glance what attraction is being shown. The spaces have A Paramount Release THE MATINEE SELLER appeal to autoists, ministers, judges, policemen, and about all others, but the first Hues are what count. This is a better phrasing than your money back if you do not like it, for it puts the refund back of the integrity of the house advertising rather than behind the picture. In this phase it will work for future advertising as well as for the immediate picture whereas the usual form benefits only the title being put over. That "confidence in our advertising" is a line worth spending dollars to the Capitol for weeks to come. —p. T. A.— This Busy Artist Spoils a Display The artist for the Colonial Theatre, Indianapolis, is not afraid of work, but he is too darned willing. He wants to do it all, even where the compositor at his" worst would be better than the artist at his best. Mere willingness is of no value where it is not tempered by good judgment. He set out to make a good job and he spoiled it by working overtime. That bank about the name should have been set in type instead of hand lettered. It would have been more easily read — and you have to read to be sold on this old time play. The title, too, is sunk into the still and is not saved much by the outline so that the net result is that if you like Tom Moore you may be interested. This is not enough. Every angle should have been sold to the limit, and the points should have been sold in type. In some instances the old-fashioned costumes have not been liked where a little advance selling of the old costumes as a novelty /im Moore ajain-UwsaMf Torn iJitklhx sajv ?oymsnuLe, *bul ina Uindof part.Tfs a da5hut4.M'PV-*>-l"£''y yanl«e. bUim^ a UdiL d[ adrtrduK Uuouih Uic most tommUc pa/l of Eu/OftAll cka/m Ui£ ta/l fi^t oulcf youi'dieslaid bias 11/ UuiUof tal«ina«a aji4 mystery to cVciy cm who k<j turt/ .1 aoldirun Hcli-;ise TOO MUCH HARD WORK be sold on a brisk story of the sort of costumes they wore in the eighties. He might be interested in that and through that be sold on the star. Evidently the Colonial thinks that a picture and some words is an advertisement. There is more to it than that — a lot more. —P. 7'. A.— Jigsaw Once More Jig saw puzzles still pull good business. The Hippodrome Theatre, Cleveland, gave the News $300 for prizes in a cut-up contest, with a cut of George Arliss in "The Man Who Played God." That was spht into some sixty prizes. It bought more than $300 worth of publicity and gave the News a good circulation feature as well. The decision was based on the neatness of the pasted puzzle plus a hundred word story on the type of picture the competitor liked best. That was supposed to give the house a line on the taste of its patrons, but most of them sought to curry favor by telling how much they liked Arliss. and that phase fluked. That, however, was only a by-product, so it did not matter. —P. T. .1.— Grauman Displays Are Much Improved Recently we said we had stopped showing the advertising for Grauman's Theatres, Los Angeles, because they were so poorly done. The last few examples have been better, though they are still far from being models. The fault with the Grauman stufT has always been that there was too much art work and too little sales copy. If they looked pretty on the cardboard before they were sent to the printer, no one seemed to care a whoop whether they looked well in the page or not. Probably no one knew. Possibly they did not care, for Grauman seems to pin his faith to prologues and pro -att^ request of Thoascnds brm^s baek, J^BECINNINa MONDAY \ >felentmo >' in. BLOOD 5th W eek \Thomas MPighan UatrinJoij— UisWilson. ^iWT nrsr amniBua rrni ? A Paramount Release TWO GRAUMAN ADS. been cut to two columns in width, but they still come down most of the page, with the result that they string down the page, which does not make for the best display. Of the two the Rialto is the better because there is more room for the title, the star and title for "Blood and Sand" form four lines, and they are set too close together so that there is no white space against which they may be shown, where the one word title for the de Mille play gets a better chance at the glance because there is white behind it. Probably this just happened, because we do not believe that the Grauman artist is capable of thinking in terms of advertising, but hit upon a good placement through some happy accident. The entire space is hand lettered through the panel :n the lower left hand corner would have been much better had it been put in a type mortise. The Valentino cut is an atrocity. If we were the Grauman press agent and had that artist under us, the Los Angeles papers would be filled with stories of a murder that for brutality and the refinement of torture would be unparalleled in the annals of crime. Just plain killing is too good for a man who will take money for perpetrating the advertising butchery that is shown in many of the Grauman spaces. —p. T. A.— Helped ' 'Grandma 's Boy'' to Clean Up Although Harold Lloyd will sell himself Roy Smart, of the Noble Theatre, Anniston, .Ala., knew that intensive work would sell a lot more tickets, so he waded in. All grandmothers were admitted free the first matinee between one and three, and for the same performance he permitted a local druggist to sell one hundred tickets at one cent each. In return the druggist carried a three tens in the local paper and gave over his best window. Several furnishing stores also gave windows and in return were permitted to advertise that all men wearing one of their new fall hats would be admitted free. This also brought merchant advertising to back up Mr. Smart's displays. The usual routine stuff and some smaller extras were used, and at a cost of $17,^0, he put it over to a 65% increase.