A Thousand Clowns (United Artists) (1965)

Exploitation Fun at Theatre, Too! A week before your playdate, after your last show each evening, dress ushers and local school kids as clowns and send them scurrying up and down the aisles. Release balloons from your balcony if you have one. Otherwise, rig them in your lobby and get patrons on the way out! Have clowns run across stage, with house-lights up, and use the old bucket-of-water trick: A clown pretends to throw a bucket of water into the audience, but it is filled with confetti. This takes a little sweeping up afterwards, but only in the first few rows! And the clowning around is worth it. Overhead streamers greet audiences on their way out saying “This Week Just A Few Clowns. Next Week “A THOUSAND CLOWNS.” "Up With Kite Flying." Give ‘A Thousand Clowns Advance Comic Buildup With Big Ballyhoo of Buffoonery! This stunt is best pulled at a shopping center, but if you can get permission from your city’s traffic department by all means set it in town. If you operate an open-air theatre, pull the stunt before each show. It is the one from which the picture takes its title: A little tiny car stops and ten or twelve clowns miraculously get out of it! You don’t have to call on a circus for your clown—the local high-school students can do it. Their latest fad is seeing how many kids can crowd into a telephone booth, so the car stunt is a natural. Your own usher staff can round up the ‘contortionists’ for you. When the stunt is finished, two of the clowns stretch a cloth banner between them, reading, ''Sooner or Later You'll Fall in Love with 'A THOUSAND CLOWNS'." Another banner reads, ‘Make it Sooner... NOW at Blank Theatre.'' Other signs and banners, of course, can read "Let's Have A Better Class of Garbage" and Issue 2 Pop Singles of ‘A Thousand Clowns Music Two 45 rpm records have been issued so far, each of them from “A THOUSAND CLOWNS.” On UNITED ARTISTS label, Rita Gardner sings the title song. On ASCOT, Ray Ellis and his orchestra have recorded the theme. Tie in with record stores and music departments of department stores for point of purchase displays, using movie art as well as display material made available from the record companies. e Use these records as giveaways in contests you set on-the-air and for prizes in other promotions. e Contact program directors and DJs to be sure they have plenty of material for on-the-air chatter when they air these discs. ¢ Play the records between performances in your auditorium and before show time if you operate an open-air theatre. Be sure to announce over your PA system that the record is of "A THOUSAND CLOWNS," your next attraction. e A good cross-plug with a record dealer is a sign in your lobby announceing that both records will be played during intermissions and that they can be purchased at JONES MUSIC STORE. ‘A Thousand Clowns’ Points A Thousand Ways for Merchant Tieins! There are a thousand ways to merchandise “A Thousand Clowns” (Here are a few, for openers ) Tie In The Title Your title is a natural hook for retail tie-ins. Department stores especially can use this angle: We're Not CLOWNING Around A THOUSAND Bargains in this Store One For Every Laugh in "A THOUSAND CLOWNS" Now — Bijou Theatre Shops and stores of every description, selling any product, can tie-in without offering a thousand bargains. Remember that a thousand pennies is ten dollars! There is always a loss-leader that can be put on sale for ten dollars and advertised: While ''A THOUSAND CLOWNS" is at the Bijou This Item Will be on Sale For A THOUSAND PENNIES Tie In The Props Furniture: The biggest sight-gag in the picture is the set for Murray’s Room, filled with all kinds of kookie objects (for list, see production story on page 9). Round up similar “junk” and set window displays in furniture stores and home furnishing shops, using copy: Does Your Home Look Like This? Or This? Store displays its own model-room next to room decorated with junk. If window or point-of-purchase space is not large enough for actual modelrooms, large blowups of photos can be used. Offer store stills from your exchange set for the junk-room illustration. It will have its own stills for its own room, from catalogues and manufacturers sales kits. PAGE 1 O Lamps: Still TC-17 shows Murray’s camp-lamp. Use it to show what’s “out.” 99 The store will have its own displays for what’s now “‘in. Beds: Still TC-13 shows Jason Robards and Barry Gordon shopping for a bed. Robards doesn’t look happy among the bed-springs — and this is your angle: the beds are better at the store tying in! Radios: Still TC-37 shows Barry Gordon with an old-old radio. Use it for window and point-of-purchase displays that say its time to get a new radio. LAMPS TC-17 BEDS TC-13 RADIOS TC-37 Interest Theatre Groups ‘““A Thousand Clowns” was a smash Broadway hit, and a favorite of theatre lovers wherever it played. Cash in on this popularity by sending out special announcements of your feature to Little Theatre Groups, drama schools and drama classes in local colleges and universities. You might even arrange for an on-the-air discussion by director, coach or students of how the movie and stage versions differ.