The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros.) (1927)

Warner Bro. Present AL JOLSON in “THE JAZZ SINGER” Get Free Serialization For Your Local Paper! How the “Evening Graphic” Did It! All New York Knew It Was to Print the Serialization of the Picture and the Reaction Was a Revelation CIRCULATION INCREASES 10,000 ON FIRST DAY The serialized novel as a daily feature of the big newspaper has come to stay. Editors and publishers are coming more and more to this belief every day. It is all very well to print all the news. The newspaper must do this if it hopes to live. But there are other things besides news, and, while they are of less importance, they still have a tremendous influence ' on the popularity and success of the paper. No newspaper is absolutely successful that does not go into the home. News will insure a paper, reaching the business office, but it, does not insure it finding a place on the table near the fireside in the home. Departments touching on the things that interest women have helped to bring the paper to the family, but the greatest of all these is the daily installment of a fine novel. This has become so patent that the demand for the serialized fiction by daily newspaper publishers | has grown to tremendous propor-| tions of late. What is more, there is not one publisher who has tried out a serial story that has not become enthusiastic over the results. It is a positive fact that the print| ing of a good serial story is a circulation booster. The proof was. furnished right in New /York,' where publishers and editors hold | their columns as being of great! value. The paper furnishing the! proof is the New York Evening. Graphic. Some time prior to the presentation of Al Jolson in “The Jazz Singer” by Warner Bros. in New| York, the publisher of the “Graphic” was on the alert for a) feature that would interest the paper’s readers. He knew about the projected picture and was aware that it was built around a very human story with a sympathetic appeal. He found that the Warmers had the storv in serial form and that it was in forty-one installments. The. number of installments caused him to waver. Would his readers tire of it? He knew that Arline de Haas, who made the serialization, was a writer of literary attainments and had/| turned out a very good play. So! he read the serial and decided to/| try the experiment of printing it. | The second day after the beginning of the serial the publisher wrote to Warner Bros. to the effect that the day on which the serialization began the circulation of the “Graphic” had jumped ten thousand copies. Inasmuch as there were no unusual news features on this day, the jump in circulation | could only be ascribed to the inter| est aroused in the serial story. | Since then the circulation of the paper has been steadily increasing and its publisher is wedded to the serialization idea. 'was a revelation to the “Graphic These signs were carried by men at heavy traffic centers throughout the city on day first installment It must be said, however, that | the publisher of the “Graphic” in putting forth the story of “The| Jazz Singer” did not allow any) grass to grow under his feet. Knowing the value of advertising he did not hesitate to do a lot of it. Just before he was ready to make his flash with the story he sent an army of sandwich men up and down Broadway in the business and theatrical districts advertising the serialization. On top of this he posted ten thousand one sheets on the walls. Every newsstand had a tack card and he flooded the family neighborhoods with an attractive window card. On the sides of the fifty motor delivery trucks were posted two-sheets to be read as the vehicles hurtled through the streets... Everybody who could read had to know that the serialization of “The Jazz Singer” story was to appear on a certain date in the “Graphic.” As has been told, the wonderful and quick effect of the serialization people. The publisher did hope the story would prove a circulation booster, but he never counted on its being as strong as it turned out to be. Every publisher knows that increased circulation means increased advertising, and _ the “Graphic” is certain it made a tenstrike when it arranged for thserialization of one of the best pieces of fiction that has been written in many a day, and which is to be had by any publisher for the asking. “THE JAZZ SINGER” Has Appeared in The Detroit Free Press The Milwaukee Leader The Kansas City Star These papers are nationally known as having the largest circulation in their respective localities. They accept only such fiction as will increase and hold circulation. — appeared in “Graphic” Millions of Satisfied Readers Prove Serials Are Circulation Builders Serial stories are the one proved kind of reader holding and circulation gaining features in periodical publications. Every periodical, whether it be a daily newspaper or a monthly magazine, publishes | novels in serial form. The “Saturday Evening Post,” circulation more than two million and a half, “Liberty Magazine,” nearing the two million mark, carry from one to three serial novels in every issue. The “Ladies’ Home | Journal,” “American Magazine,” “Cosmopolitan”—whose buyers are numbered in millions—recognize that the serial makes of the casual buyer a permanent subscriber. Hearst’s string of daily newspapers whose combined circulation runs into the twenty-five millions, | “The Daily News,” New York City, published by the owners of the “Chicago Tribune,” a tabloid and | the only daily paper with more | than one million readers, these enormously successful papers publish serials every day. These publishers know what holds readers and what gets more readers. Freak features may come and go but the serial story remains the one proved feature that every publication must give to its readers. Of all serial novels offered the newspapers none equal in widespread interest those which are based uvon motion picture stories. One of the most successful publishers of books in editions running into thousands of copies, is 'Grosset & Dunlap, one of the old est publishing houses in America. Alexander Grosset, after a survey of the votential book-buying public, said: “I was amazed to find what a large part of our total sales of Popular Copyright Fiction last vear was comprised of the so-called ‘movie novels,’ books from which moving pictures have been made . ... Neither of us can afford to desist in our efforts to ‘Make the Most of the Movies.’ ” : JAZZ SINGER” in Forty-one Installments FREE! (See Next Page) Serialization by Arline de Haas | Lauded by Critics Descendant of a proud Colonial family, sometime editor, playwright and feature writer—this is Arline de Haas, whose brilliant serialization of “The Jazz Singer,” as depicted in Warner Bros.’ extended run productionstarring Al Jolson, has found its way into the “New York Evening Graphic” as well as into many papers over the country. Grosset & Dunlap have also published Miss De Haas’ story in book form, and it is meeting with phenomenal _ success. Literally /hundreds of inquiries have come to | Warner Bros. and to the publishers concerning the history of the | talented young writer and the in| timate knowledee of the life back | Stage. which she brings to the novelization of the famous film. The scenes depicted in the adaptation of Al Jolson’s first picture are familiar ground to Miss de Haas, for her varied ex”erience includes first-hand knowledge of the legitimate stage and of vaude, ville. It is just this knowledge which |has given entertaining values to | Miss de Haas’ work. Few writers have such an intimate acquaintance with the “two-a-day” type as has this writer and she shows it now and then by an odd expression peculiar to the “trouper on the road,” and a bit of description that enables one to visualize the life | back stage in the theatres of the small towns of the country. Miss de Haas is a young woman of much charm. She is tall, slight and of that coloring gentlemen are said to prefer. “THE JAZZ SINGER” NOVELIZED PROVES BEST SELLER The JAZZ SINGER DE HAAS At JOLSON @. 7A I Illustrated with scenes from the a A WARNER BROS. PRODUCTION Directed by ALAN Cnesua ND vce Grosset & Dunlap’ beautiful issue of “The Jazz Singer,” by Arline de Haas, has proved extremely popular. The tense, emotional and dramatic story of the boy who would see the world is told with the swift understanding and the deft technique for which Miss de Haas is known and appreciated among those who are alive to literary values and the illustrations and bookmaking are most satisfactory. Be sure to see that your book dealers have a supply to use in window displays before and during the run of “The Jazz Singer” at your local theatre. Fifty huge delivery trucks carrying “Jazz Singer” iss ue of “Graphic” carried placards telling of the great feature fiction serial.