The Moving picture world (January 1925-February 1925)

MovlTntg Picture WORLD Founded Jn 1<)0J hu %J. P. Chalmers The Editor's Views WHAT a feast of big pictures is on the way! It would seem as though the producers had been waiting for the run down the stretch of the 1924-25 season and are now bunched for a dead heat. Look at the list of those that will see Broadway within the next few weeks and months: "The Man Without a Country," "Charley's Aunt," "The Lost World," "Quo Vadis?" "The Great Divide," — and who knows, before many moons we may even see "Ben-Hur." If these are forerunners of next September's list it looks as though the box offices of the country are in for considerable nourishment. When we have "the pictures" it has never been very difficult to get everything else. Two of the pictures mentioned in the list above we had the good fortune of viewing in Boston last week, "The Lost World," and "Charley's Aunt." With considerable space we tell you what we think of "The Lost World" elsewhere in this issue. As for "Charley's Aunt" — we are willing to be quoted right here as saying that when this production gets into circulation they can stop referring to Syd Chaplin as "Charlie's brother." It is a comedy gem. It is a welcome means for congratulation to the well-liked Christies, under whose supervision it was made, and to Producers Distributing Corporation, who have the good fortune to distribute it. * * * AN exhibitor writes us, "I wish The World would undertake an agitation in favor of better posters. You could save us a lot of weak nights and put a lot of money in our pockets if you could shake up some of the boys down in New York." Gosh, is that problem still with us? We thought, with all this talk of continuing increasing efficiency, with all the better pictures, that good posters were a matter of routine fact by now. With a view towards a check-up we set out on a ride around sections of the city that offered opportunity for study of current film posters. And we return convinced that there are cases where our reader friend is right atbout the need for a shake-up. Of course, one set of posters doesn't permit of discussion of a complete situation. But, aside from the very good posters we encountered, the others would seem to divide themselves into two classes. One is the situation where too little attention is being given the poster problem by the company. The distributor has a standing contract with the lithographer, some employe loaded with a hundred other duties is expected to "get some stills together for the posters" — and the result is obvious. The other situation might, paradoxically, be labeled "where too much attention is being given the posters." But what we really mean is that some artist who can probably present wonderfully "artistic" sketches is on the job. The result is often a poster that might do finely for Djer Kiss perfume, but hasn't the least relation to the job of "pulling 'em to the box-office." And so it goes. Guess we'll have to take up our reader on his request for agitation. * * * THE exhibitor whom we quote brings up one very important angle on his problem. v "Some of those New York boys," he writes, "seem to forget the importance of the individual accessories and think too much in terms of 'the complete campaign.' "They forget that there must be a few thousand exhibitors in my position, and unable to use their comprehensive 'complete campaigns.' The greatest advance stories ever written, the snappiest stunts, and finest ad copy can't help me in this theatre's location. I have to depend on the posters I put outside and around the neighborhood, the photos I put in the lobby, the slides and trailers I put on the screen. When any of those accessories on a picture are anaemic — I feel it at the box office. The picture itself might be wonderful entertainment, but these accessories have to get them into the theatre to see it. "And don't think that it is only the ten and twenty-five dollar a day fellows who are in my position. Tell some of the advertising boys to pay a visit to the exchange and learn the real money they get from some of us fellows who still have to look pretty carefully at the despised accessories."