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2
MANAGERS MUST REPORT
AUDIENCE REACTIONS ON “SHORTS” TO BOOKERS
Continuing the senes of articles, started in the last isue of Publix Opinion, to promote a better understanding of the choice,
presentation and exploitation of
the talking short, Blanche Bray
Boyle of the Publix Booking Department gives some helpful hints on a co-operative working plan between managers and bookers so that the latter might provide managers with just that type of shorts
which is most suited to their respective communities.
“The first thing a doctor does | upon visiting a person who is ill} is to feel his pulse,’ says Mrs, | Boyie. “Your business, with the consequential summer .drop in receipts might well be called ill and |
therefore you are the doc-! tor! Now! what is the! first thing to} do? It is to feel the pulse of your. au-| dience by
. watching and | noting its re-| action to your) various pro-) gram units.
“Of course it is not always possible to obtain just
; the . feature
pictures that you want as contrac|
tual obligations preclude our pick| ing the cream and so we have to} take the features with lesser drawing power and work them in| with the box office hits but you) can give your business the treatment it needs by helping the} various bookers select the com-| edies, acts and novelties that go| into the making of your programs.
“For instance, ‘Born and Law-| rence’ have made four Vitaphone | acts so if your audiences take the first of this series with wry faces, | then pass this reaction along to| your booker, who will know that | this is not the proper stimulant | and consequently will not book | this team again.
“Numbers of people may have the same illness and yet they may not all respond to the same treat| ment and so it is with audiences | in different localities. Grand} opera numbers, as an example, | may go over great in cities that | have Latin population and genuine | music lovers, while in others the} acts are actually hissed.
“Now if thie booker is not in-| formed of this latter reaction he} may inadvertently include an act) of this type at regular intervals on | your schedules and as a result your business would just-die for lack of proper diagnosis.
“There are many localities where the slapstick, hokum acts} are positive riots and yet in other situations the audience might consider such an act as an insult to| its dignity and intelligence. Who else but the theatre manager can |
Blanche Boyle
prescribe for a feeling of this | kind? “Dramatie sketches are also
dangerous in certain towns as in| stead of creating the appreciation | of dramatic art, for which they are | intended, they provoke laughter | and ridicule so as a result the! proper program balance on that | particular bill is lost.
“Next comes the question of classical musie versus jazz. Do your audiences appreciate hearing the artists such as Mischa Elman Reinald Werrenrath, Albert Spalding and Harold. Rayer, ar do, they Pprerer hearing ‘the jazz artists? One gooll way to obtain this information is to note the reaction of your patrons when acts of these types are presented. If there is evidence of distate for the elassi-. cal nuinbers, your booker should know this as there is a sufficient variety of acts, from which to, obtain a well balanced program. without booking this type subject. The same also applies to the jazz num
“There are many animal acts ventriloquists, juvenile artists,
|of the theatre manager or the |
BUILD 2 NEW
overtures, champion boxers, et cet| era that are seldom used because |
it is felt that the appeal is limited, For instance, only the kiddies would enjoy the animal acts} whereas a different type audience,
wouid appreciate Max Schmieling | giving « boxing exhibition. There|
fore, by constantly cooperating with your broker you ean haye' these acts worked in suitable features om certain days of the week so that there will always be some unit on the program that will appeal to everyone.
“Phe theatre manager can greatly assist the booker by
what type entertainment he thinks |
will please his audience, before |
}
the programs are worked up, but?
there seems to be a tendency on the part of some managers to Ps their personal reaction rather than | that of their audience. But inas-| much as the audiences are t
backbone of the business, the re| action given should be theirs and | not the personal likes or dislikes |
booker.
“Many problems arise from time |
judgment on the part of the theatre manager and the booker and by the constant cooperation of
,
PUBLIX OPINION, WEEK OF JUNE 87, 1929
BUTTERED EEL LEE EEE ELLE LLL
A THRILLER!
“The audience SHIVERED, GASPED, THRILLED, LAUGHED, APPLAUDHED, ATE IT UP and LOVED YT ”
Such is the report of Arch Reeve on the audience reaction to “The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu,”’ Paramount all talking picture starring Warner Oland, Neil Hamilton, Jean Arthur and 0, P. Heggie, at the recent preview in Hollywood,
“The picture went over
' by the following letter from A, (,
with a bang,” wires Reeve, “and is certain to be one of the biggest attractions on the fall program. Warner Oland is tremendous and as Fu, the evil genius, has given the screen one of its outstanding characterizations. Rowland Lee's direction is superb! The picture is brilliantly constructed, bristling with thrills and gripping with suspense. The impressive opening got applause and picture’ closes with one of the cleverest endings I ever saw!
“Fu Manchu lends itself to superlative advertising. I believe it is good for long runs in every key city.”
You'll remember that Mr. Katz was equally enthused over this feature, as_re
— in Publix Opinion
E : : : iv
PUBLIX WILL
to time, all of which can be work| | ed out by the exercise of careful! | A
Two new theatres will be built
both of them. |by Publix, one in Middletown,
JUDGES SEE “ON TRIAL”
N. Y., and the other in Ft. Wayne, Ind. Both these houses, seating
; from 2,000 to 2,100 people, will
| be situated in the heart of their
To exploit ON TRIAL in Duluth, Manager Al Anson invited all) judges and court attendants to the Lyceum Theatre for a preview)
showing of the motion picture. In-' stead of dismissing the preview)
with one story, the Duluth Herald strung the series out over four days, printing each day the opinion of one of the judges or court attendants.
fiereecly in defense of his boss, demands that a withering curse be laid upon the juniper-berries that give sustenance to the editorial staff ot “Varitey,”’ because that publication invariably misspells the name of Your Editov whenever they lift an article from PUBLIX OPINION. “No matter what ‘Vairety’ says,” shrieks Mickey, “the name is
like it is in PUBLIX OPINION.” He wanted to
bet that “Vraiety’’ has exhausted all the possible ways to mis-spell the name, providing the mis-spellers paid him a buck every time they
| | tained | Perry, who will erect the theatre.
respective towns and will be equipped for talking and singing Pictures with all the modern appliances to be found in the large de luxe theatres of metropolitan centers.
Preliminary sketches for the Middletown theatre have already been drawn up by the architects, Rapp and Rapp, of N. Y., and building operations will start soon after the completion of the final drawings. Negotiations for the sale were handled by T. E. Young, Director of Real Estate for Pub lix Theatres. The legal side of the deal was handied by I. J | Wildberg of Publix Legal Depart| ment,
In Fort Wayne, the lease, obthrough Kilbourne and
is for a period of 25 years. Building will start within four months. |The architect is A. M. Strauss, | Ft. Wayne.
“The silent picture, as an important part of the motion picture industry, is doomed by the advent of sound,’ declares Mr, Adolph | Zukor in a recent issue of “The | Film Daily.” “In the future it is quite likely that there will be some silent pictures, as certain types of stories can be told best | in the silent form. However, they will be the exception and for the | most part, I feel confident, the | motion picture studios will avail themselves of the tremendous opportunities which lie in the use| of dialogue, music and dramatic | sound effects. To do otherwise would be foolish, because the gift of sound has been placed in our | hands and we already know from ae prt ig gr Pts: » yh ab that it| n ly an mense asset artistically, but also from the reend office sta 1 '
CAREFUL SHORTS
ing Department is concentrating | —
its efforts upon the proper presen
CHECK PI ON TALKIE )
tation and exploitation of the talk| im
ing shorts, as part of the cam-}> | paign reported in the last issue of | p.cu.
Publix Opinion, is best illustrated |the x
Cowles, District Booker of Atlanta, Ga., to Lem Stewart of the Home Office Advertising Depart
ment, «
“This office is now receiving daily newspapers from every situation in this territory,’’ writes Mr. Cowles, “and every day we analyze the theatre ads. We do not do this with any idea of butting in as far as exploitation and advertising are concerned, and we have | thoroughly conveyed this idea to) the men in the field. We are] analyzing them to see that every | manager in this territory adver-| tises his entire program. When I started receiving these ads you no! doubt had noticed that the man-| agers would take a two column | by ten inch ad>to advertise a feature and at the bottom. he would add a line ‘Novelty Short Sub-/ jects" or “Specialties and News-/ réels.”’ ;
‘Whenever I discovered an ad)! of this nature I immediately wrote | the manager back that such terms | as synchronized acts, news, novel| ties, etc. are gone forever from this business. Each act is booked after careful consideration of the proper blending in relation to the, program as a whole, and this office | ig charged with the responsibility | of gceeing that each manager in the field advertises his entire prograia | by listing each short subject by | its proper name not News! but Fox Movietone News or Para mount News as the case may be; not Vitaphone Specialities but a/ list of the actual Vitaphone Acts} booked, ete.
“You also, I know, will be interested when I tell you that I am / now sending booking sheets to thd! thanagers with only the features! and newsreels listed on the booking sheets AS soon as these go} into the territory, I go to the town in question and I am ac-} companied on these trips by the! District Manager having jurisdic-! tion over whatever territory le involved. The District Manager, the Theatre Manager and myself then sit down and discuss each and every program separately, and we arrange these programa separately with careful consideration to each short booked, the running time of the short and its appropriateness in regard to the proeTam as a unit.
“We are not booking shorts from this office that we have not seen. Ali of the District Managers and myself have given up our Week-ends to screenifigs. Week-ends mean nothing to us now as far as recreation is concerned. You realize that since we are running all sound programs in every major operation in this territory that it is absolutely essen| tial that we screen every short subject before we book it in any major situation and we are doing this.
“Quite often at these screenings |
we make discoveries that are! somewhat surprising. For in-| Stance, yesterday, we screened
AFTER SEBEN from Paramount, in’ which Barton, altho white, | takes the part of a negro enter| tainer, and plays as a part of the | all-negro cast. You know and I) know that this subject will not be | acceptable in any theatre in this! territory, and for that reason 1! am eliminating it from every situation as far as my June programs are concerned, However, if I had not screened this comedy I would have considered it an ordinary two reel Christie
and would have booked it in the major situations with no doubt serious results,"’ ;
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