Moving Picture World (Jul - Aug 1918)

1130 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD August 24, 1918 Thomas D. Soriero's New Departure Boston Manager Institutes a Profit-Sharing Week for Employes and Shows a Profit in the Dull Season. By Epes W. Sargent. BUSINESS DULL? Try a profit-sharing week. Thomas D. Soriero, of the Park, Boston, and a string of houses through New England, finds that it turns a dull week into a paying one and showed to one-third more business than is recorded for any similar week in the history of the house. Mr. Soriero says he is not a socialist, but that he recognizes as good the chief tenet of true socialism which runs to the effect that the producer of wealth is entitled to an adequate share of the profits. It is management that makes money, but the success with which the managerial schemes are executed is dependent upon the entire force and, re> nizing this, he recently declared a profit-sharing week .it the Park that not only brought him justification of his theories, but good business and marked publicity, as well. More than that, he has further cemented the staff into a united force for advancement. From every angle profit-sharing week was a success, both at the Strand, Lowell, and at the Boston house. It was announced that a portion of the gross for a certain week would be paid to the employes, and the announcement was made well in advance. At once interest was manifested on the part of the patrons and the friends of the employe-. Checks came in for blocks of tickets and even the holders of season passes kept them in their pocket and bought tickets for that week. When a chronic dead head will pay out real money with a pass in his pocket, the golden dayare well nigh here. More than this, many persons came to the special week merely to give their approval to the idea. They were not regular patron of the house, but they were believers in practical socialism, and so they even went out ot their way to attend the Park instead of the house they usually patronized, and it is becoming evident th?* some of them have become converted to the Park: For there is an improvement in the average business that followed a box office showing one-third better than for the similar week in any other year of the history of the house. To give it a patriotic angle, the profits due the employewere paid in War Savings Stamps, and not onlj did the Government benefit in this respect, but the increased business means higher payments on the admission tax for that period. It was not intended as an experiment in socialism. It Was done with a sincere desire tq -how the employes that their loyal support was appreciated, but the socialists of the better sort took the idea up and made a point of attending the theatre. Mr. Soriero has decided to make the profit-sharing idea a permanent part of his policy, and the returns from the first experiment were sufficient to aid materially in bidding intact the efficient staff. because the scenes of "The Hell Cat" are largely exteriors. Ten carpenters were sent from town to construct the interior of the ranch house, which is later to be burned down, and for this purpose $500 worth of lumber was carted over the rocky road from Cody. This is but one of the problems connected with producing a play which would have been accomplished with hardly a thought at the Fort Lee studio. Shipping the film daily is another consideration. As soon as Percy Hilburn, the chief cameraman, returns from location, it is boxed and taken to Billings, a distance of 125 miles, in order to catch the early morning train to New York, lint with all this unusual work, everyone associated in making Geraldine Farrar's second Goldwyn production is happy, and the prima donna herself, up at sunrise and with her evenings occupied in receiving scores of visitors eager to see her, finishes her day with almost as much vim as she begins it. Johnson Has Studied Chddren's Ways Making of "Hell Cat" a Difficult Task Many Problems Encountered and Surmounted in Filming Farrar Production in Wooly Wyoming. THE task of producing a Goldwyn Picture twenty-five hundred miles from the studio at Fort Lee, even though the star and company are in the locale demanded by the author, is an undertaking replete with difficulties and unlooked-for expense. When Geraldine Farrar arrived in Cody. Wyoming, to appear in "The Hell Cat," by Willard Mack, not even her keen eyes realized the amount of work involved in setting the stage for the first scenes of the drama. But soon she saw what had been accomplished. Two ranches had been rented, one five miles from the town and the other ten times as far, with two auto buses, a motor truck and a touring car to convey the company and properties to and from the scene of work. Hotel accommodations were awaiting the arrival pf the company of twenty, including the technical staff brought from Fort Lee, and at one of the ranches 20 horses and 250 sheep were quartered at the expense of Goldwyn, not to mention a score of chickens, feed for which had to be purchased and transported to the ranch. Luncheon for the company, reinforced by 20 cowboys, is prepared in Cody and sent to the nearer ranch. At the other place, food for the players is carried over the mountains and cooked in the regular chow wagon. The matter of building sets is not by any means eliminated World Pictures Director Says Little Folks Pick up Direction Quicker Than Their Elders. TEFFT JOHNSON, Who recently signed contract to direct Madge Evans in "Snug Harbor" for World Pictures, has long made a special study of directing children in pictures, until to-day he is regarded as among the ablesl men in the industry doing this particular line of work. "The directing of children in pictures," says Mr. Johnson, "i a field of endeavor as distinct from the regular work of producing a possibly can be. With children the director is compelled to carry every hit of business in his mind as he along. Children will play a scene and ten minutes after you ask them what they did in a particular situation they will tell you they do not remember. With the adult actor it is different. Children will pick up direction quicker than their elder and are more receptive to the instructions of the director than even expi ■ toi Children are not -o apt to be self-conscious, and that is why on the screen the) give us an ingeniousness that even the best of stars cannot duplicate. "There is no reason why a picture with a child as the central figure cannot be a appealing to mature audiences as any phot eaturing the big names of the motion pic ture field. Booth Tarkington ha made his biggest successes with his 'Penrod' and Other 'kid' stories and his readernumber a legion among the old-young people of this country. Tom Sawyer is a juvenile book, but it is just as interesting to granddad a n is to his little grandson." HODKINSON SIGNS UP NEW COPARTNERS. G. W. Curtiss, of Kansas City, has ju-t become a Hodkin son co-partner. Mr. Curtis-, i> owner of the new Doric rheatre, one of the best in that section ot the country. John A. Stevenson, Hodkinson division manager for the south, recently completed a most successful trip throughout the southwest, at which time he tied in twenty exhibitors in Texas. They air Dye, Ford and l t Amarilla; Dor bandt Broth. Athens; J. J. Hegman of Austin and Temple; I <■ Keeler of Brownsville; W. P. Fairman of Bryan; May and Fitzpatrick "i I leburne; B. C. Howell of man; W. L. Hamilton of Delhart ; W. Campbell of Denison; Sam Schwartz of Eagle Pass; Simon Turk and T. M Ilcrvey of P.I Paso; Piier and Bolton of Jacksonville; 1). F. Prall of Longview; Fred A. Alexander of Marshall; J. X. O. C. Fanning of Mineral Wills; J. H. Brauttery of Nacogdoches; P. C. Pell oi Palestine; Lytle, Apostolin and Mikolem of San Antonio; A. J. Cooper of Seymour; Jim P. Wilson of Sherman; N. Lewis of Tyler; R. C. More of Vernon; J. A. Courtney of Wetherford, and W. J. Johnson of Wichita Falls. SACHS TO HEAD GARFIELD COMMITTEE. Thomas Watt Gregory, Attorney General of the United States, who is to be one of the principal speakers at the unveiling of the monument to former President Jame Garfield, at Long Branch on Sept. 2, will be received on his arrival at that City by a committee headed by Mo-es A. Sachs, the well known lawyer who is prominently connected with the motion picture industry of New York. Mr. Sachs was notified of bis appointment by Mayor Flock of Long Branch on August 5. A meeting of the committee, which includes some of the prominent figures in picturedom, is to be held at Mr. Sachs' office at 261 Broadway on Thursday, August 15, for the making of final arrangements.