Stella Dallas (United Artists, 1937) (1937)

SMART SHOWMEN WILL CO TO TOWN , ON TIE-UP STILLS! “Stella Dallas” offers plenty of material for tie- ups and coop ads with the local merchants. Samuel Goldwyn has not missed an opportunity to give you strong selling angles which can be used regardless of the local situation. Alert merchants can be sold on window and counter displays of stills that picture their products and hook up their selling to a hit show. Flowers, bridal gowns, bicycles, party favors, refreshment , counters, pipes, jewelry, luggage and kitchen uten¬ sils are only a few of the features demonstrated forcibly in the stills. There are more than enough to cover every important store in your town. And they are naturals! Order stills by number—10c each. Here are the numbers of tieup stills illustrated at right — reading from top, left to right: Flowers —/Vo. 95; Bicycles — /Vo. 183; Bridal Costumes —/Vos. 164 and 163; Sporting Goods ^ and Games —/Vo. 135; Pajamas, Negligees — No. 105; Confec¬ tionery and Favors — No. 66; Pipes — No. S-50; Soda Fountain —No. 192. OFFER PRIZES FOR TRUE “MOTHER LOVE” STORIES Everyone has seen or heard of instances in daily life in which mothers have made supreme sacrifices for the sake of their chil¬ dren. There’s no better way to put across the mother love appeal of your show than by offering small prizes or pairs of ducats to those who send in brief accounts of such happenings of which they have personal knowledge. Present the idea to your local editor as a running contest, in which the best daily anecdote exemplifying mother love can be printed each day for a couple of weeks. A prize of $1 for each one printed, or a few sets of ducats for the best four or five received each day, will build up interest and participation in the stunt. Broadsides distributed by stores are also good vehicles for this contest, with letter-writers sending their entries to the the¬ atre. It is suggested that contestants, in writing their stories, be allowed to omit actual names and addresses of the people they are writing about, thereby removing a possible drawback to their writing about their friends and families. It’s a live idea with plenty emotional appeal and real show¬ manship value. It’s up to you to set it rolling! USE RADIO TO Run a Radio A Radio Talent Contest is an ideal ether fans, and is particularly appro- nature of Stella’s role. dramatic stars that they will be given by being auditioned in scenes from PLUG YOUR SHOW Talent Contest stunt for selling “Stella Dallas” to priate to the extremely dramatic Announce to ambitious would-be an opportunity to prove their worth “Stella Dallas.” You can hold pre¬ liminary auditions in private, eliminating the more hopeless contestants, and then hold your contest auditions over the station, using portions of the “Dallas” script with mem¬ bers of the studio stock company as a supporting cast. These auditions can be run as a daily features lasting for a week or so, and the winner can be awarded a job on the studio’s dramatic staff. GRAB ATTENTION WITH “OVERDRESSED-WOMAN” STUNT If you’re looking for a unique stunt that will attract the ladies, try a fashion compe¬ tition with a fresh slant — a “Stella Dallas Fashion Contest.” The new angle is that the girls vie with one another to dress loudly and in poor taste— as Stella Dallas dresses—instead of in good taste. Build up the contest well in advance —sprinkle the local paper liberally with stills showing Stella in her over-fancy costumes— and offer a prize to the woman in town who can dress up in the gaudiest, flashiest, most overdone “glad rags.” It’s a zippy, attention-startling contest idea with that novel slant that feature editors are always looking for. Rightly handled, it will get you newspaper space and word-of-mouth publicity for weeks running. Hold the final judging on your stage on opening night— letting the audience, if you care to, choose the winner by acclaim. EMOTIONAL CONFLICT A NATURAL FOR THE INQUIRING REPORTER The Inquiring Reporter column is always a good vehicle for a show-boosting plant where your picture revolves around some profound emotional conflict, as in “Stella Dallas.” Suggest this question to the Inquiring Re¬ porter on your local newspaper, to he asked of mothers in your town: “IFouZd you give up your child per¬ manently for the sake of his or her own hap¬ piness, as Barbara Stanwyck does in ‘Stella Dallas’?’’ The question wiU start plenty of women talking—some on one side of the question, some on the other. When the column of answers is run, see that a still of Stanwyck in her “Dallas” role is planted at the head of it. You can also use the above question as the basis of a radio contest, tying up with a local commercial program and getting the sponsor to award prizes for the best 100-word answers. Public Libraries Are Good Tie-up Prospects On ^'^Stella Dallas^’ Copies of Olive Higgins Prouty’s famous novel, “Stella Dallas,” which formed the original of the picture, are to be found in every public library in the country. You should not neglect the oppor¬ tunity to build displays in the public libraries in your town based on the book and including stills and selling copy, using the space which most libraries provide for such displays. A good many profitable tie-ups of this kind have been made with public libraries by wide-awake ex¬ hibitors. You will find them cooperative in almost all cases. Bookstores are also live prospects for window and counter displays on copies of “Stella Dallas,” which is a perennial best seller. • Blow Up ‘‘Dallas^^ Page The fame of the original book “Stella Dallas,” on which your picture is based, is universal. One of the biggest best-sellers of its generation, its readers number in the hundreds of thousands. You can make an effective lobby or front display, tying in with the famous story, by blowing up the title page or an inside page of the book. Border the blowup with stills from the picture, and selling copy. You can elaborate further on this idea by dis¬ playing a few copies of the book on a table in your outside lobby, with copy such as, “A Million Readers Have Thrilled to the Story of ‘Stella Dal¬ las.’ Now You Can See It Come to Life on the Screen.” Page Seven