Ballyhoo (Sep 15, 1957)

Page scan 00012 from Ballyhoo

Record Details:

Title:
Ballyhoo
Date:
Sep 15, 1957
Volume:
Ballyhoo (Sep 15, 1957) National
Leaf #:
00012
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Global Cinema, and Hollywood Studio System
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Greig Dymond in memory of David Dymond, Paul Moore and Jessica Whitehead
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:

Ballyhoo

  • Ontario 'B' District Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1952-55)
  • Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’, editor: Dan Krendel (1955)
  • National Ballyhoo, editor: Dan Krendel (1956-57)
  • Time Out for Ticket Talk, editor: Norman Barker (1960-61)

Ballyhoo (1952-61) was published by Famous Players Canadian Corporation as a mimeographed internal sales and theatre managers’ newsletter. Editor, Dan Krendel, had been division manager of the Ontario ‘B’ District since 1942, and initially created Ballyhoo in 1952 to circulate weekly updates for a regional sales contest. Ontario ‘B’ District Ballyhoo continued until 1955 as a tool for sharing and incentivizing new sales techniques and publicity methods as the movie business declined in the face of television and the baby boom.

In Fall 1955, Profit Blitz for ‘Fitz’ was a nationwide sales contest, named for Famous Players’ president J. J. Fitzgibbons, honouring his 25th year as head of the business. Dan Krendel was made National Drive Captain and edited a weekly newsletter for the campaign.

From 1956 until at least 1957, National Ballyhoo was published weekly with Krendel as editor. He continued the style and content developed earlier for his Ontario ‘B’ District, but now extended vastly for a chain-wide coast to coast scale. Ballyhoo’s sharing promotional tools came at a time of contracting box office as television and automobile ownership became prevalent in the mid-1950s.

By 1960 until at least 1961, Time Out for Ticket Talk continued as a mimeographed newsletter, edited by Norman Barker of the head office publicity department. Time Out was compiled on a less ambitious scale than Ballyhoo. Compared to the earlier national compilation of local publicity gimmicks, Time Out often contained only a single memo or reproduced local story, and was often undated and only informally edited.

– Paul Moore, March 2024

Date Added:
April 11, 2024
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PARAMOUNT ~ HALIFAX Lots of good action from Freeman ... this time on LOVING YOU and CINDERELLA ... no, no ... not on a twin bill ... separate engagements, believe me. As advance for LOVING YOU, Freeman started by placing cards on every juke box in the city, with R.C.A. Victor seeing to it that each box contained plenty of Presley recordings. Every music Store in town put in a full window of material provided by their Suppliers and the theatre. In addition, to create advance interest Freeman ran a number of teasers on the Women's page of the daily. A group of local girls ... members of the Elvis Presley Fan Club agreed to parade to the theatre on opening night, carrying the Customary 'We love you Elvis!’ banners ... interspersed with good pic and theatre copy. The local paper carried a large pic of a gang of teeners, holding banners, who were lined up a couple of hours before the theatre opened for its midnight show performance. Good theatre credits accompanied the pic ... but natch. Freeman found a gal who had personally met Presley some time ago ... tossed the story to the radio boys who interviewed her in the theatre lobby and ran it as a human interest story the following day. C.B.C. recorded the screams of the youngsters and used them as a background for an interview with Freeman, A local jeweller came through with a 360 line display ad, a liberal portion of which was devoted to a pic of Presley and title and theatre info. For CINDERELLA, Freeman fastalked a local dry cleaner into five full windows, and four 620 line ads ... a mere total of 2400 lines, each ad devoting liberal space to pic and playdates. He also tied in 45 Grocers through a local Margarine distributor ... and wound up with very liberal window space, When he played the National Film Board subject BRIDGE UNDER THs OCEAN, Freeman tied in with the local Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation, which resulted in excellent newspaper coverage as well as four big windows in downtown Halifax with exhibits of equipment used in the laying of trans-~oceanic telephone cable. You may be sure that the windows were loaded with plenty of stills and other display material provided by Freeman. Features, Shorts or what have you ... Freeman gets out and sells 'em. So ... How about youse guys? oXaKoXe Xe Xo X.X, CAPITOL SASKATOON Reg Plumb dug up copies of the local Star Phoenix for April 1949 ... had three of the headlines photographed, and used them in his lobby, and downtown newsstands as advance for BATTLE HELL. He couldn't locate anyone who had served on H.M.S. Amathyst, but found a chap who was on the only Canadian ship in the Yangtse river at the time. This developed into a good story which the paper ran along with a pic of the lad on opening day. The local navy lads on H.M.C.S. Unicorn cooperated actively by decorating the theatre, and placing a sailor and a Wren in full dress uniform in the lobby each evening of the run, Reg found the use of radio quite effective for this engagement,