Paramount Pep (1923)

4 Paramount Pep “BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, TRUTH BEARETH AWAY THE VICTORY” This Publication is Distributed Only to Officials and Employees of the FAMOUS PLAYERS-LASKY CORPORATION Its Contents are Strictly Confidential PAUL L. MORGAN Editor Vol. 7 JANUARY 31, 1923 No. 30 Getting Into The “Sticks” By Jad Much has been said about small town rentals representing profits and the revenue from big towns, production costs and distribution overhead. This is and always will be an economic truth peculiar to our business. Competition is keener for us in small towns than elsewhere as some distributing companies specialize in that class of business to offset lack of representation in the cities. If this can be the means of their sustenance, why cannot a more consistent proportion of this large volume be added to our present revenue than we now have, to represent a healthy growth for us? It is due the masses to whom we. carry the message of PARAMOUNT supremacy that PARAMOUNT pictures are available to them wherever there is a motion picture theatre. Likewise it is as unfair to the public in small towns having a motion picture theatre, which our advertising circulation reaches in one form or another, to be denied the privilege of seeing our pictures in their towns, as it would be to placard the window of a store, exploiting merchandise which is not for sale in the town. The solicitation of small town business may mean making early trains, traveling under difficulties and living the simple life, always requiring patience and dogged determination, but these have their reward sooner or later. A true analysis of a salesman's ability properly to build up a zone is reflected in the amount of small town revenue he accumulates and maintains, indicating at all times the extent to which he permits himself to work along lines of least resistance. Every once in a while we hear of some small town theatres closing for lack of attendance. Usually this is due to the showing of inferior pictures. Residents of these towns are just as human as in the cities and desire the same high-class entertainment. As exhibitors in the key cities find they cannot maintain the interest of the theatre-going public unless they present the best pictures, surely the small town exhibitors cannot expect to survive very long offering mediocre productions. A Busy Man They certainly are keeping Ted Young on the job these days. Just about the time you are getting ready to say “good morning,” you find yourself saying “goodbye" — in fact, this morning ye editor shook his hand and said, “Glad to see you back, Ted” — the reply was, “so long, old-timer, leaving for the South in fifteen minutes, to be gone two weeks with headquarters in Atlanta.” T. C. Young Well, that’s the way of the Real Estate Department lately. Now Lacey Johnson left for Memphis, Tenn., for business purposes. Mr. Young had just returned from a trip to the South, and has gone back to further plans in that territory. MR. PEP SAYS: No man can discredit his employer or his co-workers and escape the shadow himself. When we sell the small town exhibitors we must include our super-productions at prices they can easily pay. This will afford a demonstration of the real value and strength of our service, maintaining our prestige in proper comparison with other services. Furthermore, it will enable these exhibitors to increase their patronage to a point eventually, where super-productions will have a proper marketable value. If a theatre is open only one night a week and cannot absorb our entire output of any given season it is more constructive to sell them the better half of the list, including the big pictures at prices the exhibitors can pay than to sell them the portion of our product that is usually available to them at small town prices. One obstacle in the path of obtaining small town business is the tendency of some distributors to offer a full show to these exhibitors at prices no more than or slightly in excess of what the feature alone should bring. Space does not permit of a full treatise of this subject here but it is of sufficient importance to be covered later with a separate article. Suffice it to say now, however, that this obstacle can be overcome. We must bear in mind one fact which is that we are not so big that we can afford to ignore this small town business or overlook the needs of these exhibitors. On the contrary we add power and prestige to our entire proposition when by this wider distribution we serve the smallest towns that boast of a motion picture theatre.