The Moving picture world (November 1922-December 1922)

December 30, 1922 M O V I N G PICTURE WORLD 861 Admits He Is A First NnlioMil Ki-li-axc FREE TICKETS WITH LORNA DOONE HATS IN OKLAHOMA The Odeon Theatre, Bartlesville, hooked a merchant to the Lorna Doone hats and gave him tickets to be presented each purchaser. Two hats and you could get a pair, and the hats cost only $1.98. That's cheap enough. Howard Anniversary Hooked Up to Candy De Sales Harrison, manager of the Howard Theatre, Atlanta, did something worth while when that star of the Southern Enterprises came to an anniversary. He wanted something that would mark the event apart frorri the house advertising, and he made a connection with Nunally's, the "Page and Shaw of the South." They got up a very handsome special package in blue and gold, printed with "Howard Anniversary Package" and a cake with two gilt candles burning, and with the slogan "Typifying Southern Ideals." It was wrapped in glassine paper and tied with gold cord; altogether as handsome a packing as could be prepared. On his part Mr. Harrison got out a strip poster in sepia on a cream-brown, with an orange stripe to give color. The attractor was a cut from Peter Ibbetson, which looked enough like the ante-bellum styles to motivate the Southern ideals idea. One side announced "Atlanta's Finest Theatre" and the other "Atlanta's Finest Candy" and each profited through the connection with each other. Mr. Harrison also provided passes for a sales scheme. It was a splendidly planned campaign and even the price — $1.50 — served to suggest the highest grade. It did the house great permanent good. Small Work Paid Five hundred hand-written postcards and a 24-sheet put up two weeks in advance were about all W. A. Byers, of the Liberty Theatre, Greenwood, S. C, needed to put over "Human Hearts" to a thirty per cent, hoist for "Human Hearts." There was also a special showing for the local Better Films Committee and this helped not a little for they were warm in their praise. The campaiern cost only $7.50, which included the $5 for the cards. In a recent story on a contest stunt which resulted in the distribution of an almost unparalleled number of passes, we referred to the "stupid break" of the author of the scheme. Comes Leon J. Bamberger, assistant to Claud Saunders, of the Paramount exploitation, to chide us for not giving his name as the author of the break and explaining that he knew all the time that it would work just that way because he had tried it out in his road days in the Canadian territory, adding "if this be stupidity, make the most of it." Of course after the successful post-mortem you can't blame Bamberger for wanting the credit of authorship, since the idea went over, but we think any scheme which will take from one to five thousand passes out of a house in one week should have had a label tied to it, to prepare the local manager for the shock. Anyhow, the scheme is Bamberger's and we have Lem Stewart's testimony that: "throughout our territory, the success of the contest has been in direct proportion to the number of passes given out per thousand of population. The greater the number of passes, the larger the cash sales." Had the Big Head W. J. Lyttle did not have the big head. He used it to advertise "The Young Rajah" at the Empire Theatre, San Antonio, Texas. The Empire has no lobby, entrance being had through a drug store, so he has only the street corner to decorate and he put up two of the 24-sheet heads, with an oriental arch over the store entrance. This corner for a long time was a favorite lounging place with the local cake eaters, hut Mr. Lyttle put up three 100 watt reffector lamps, ostensibly to illuminate his posters, and the limelight drove away the flirtatious loafers. Mr. Lyttle's head seems to be long rather than big. A First National Release ANOTHER DECORATIVE DETAIL FOR "EAST IS WEST" This time it is the underside of the marquise and not the inner lobby which it shown, the idea being contributed by the Mary Anderson Theatre, LouitviU'e. The open parasol is five feet in diameter.