Screenland ((Jan–Jun 1947))

Ill U1WJA I Lovely solid sterling I silver cushion ehape set ring in your own Birthstone Color piven for selling 1 I boxes Rosebud SaiTe I at25ceachremitting I the $1.00 to us. Send No Money. Order 4 Rosebud Salve byonecentpostcard. I (Will mail ring and 4 salve now, if you Bend $1 .00 with order.) ROSEBUD PERFUME CO, Box /3. WOODSBOR0, MARYLAND. Two prominent Hollywood composer-arrangers offer a complete song service to qualified authors of song poems. Write today for generous offer and FREE BOOKLET! Box 2168, Dept. X -3, Holly wood 28, Calif. SLIM HIPS and BEAUTIFUL LEGS! These are the two dominant beauty requirements of the day. Modern styles call for trim, prettily contoured hips and legs, and you must possess them to look attractive. My Course in Contour Control solve the problem for you, helping to mould your body over into the graceful proportion all women desire. Full details sent upon request. WANDA YOUNG, Box 1208, Tucson, Ariz. A dress for every day within your means. Assorted Style, Colors and Materials. USED but CLEAN ED — Some may need repairs. Sizes 12 to IS only. Send S 1 .00 deposit, balance C.O.D. plus postage. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED or purchase price refunded promptly. FREE CATALOG. OUR BETTER DRESSES (used) 4 CO Oft Sizes 12 to 20 and 38 to 44 FOR COTTON DRESSES (used) . S tor $2.95 Sizes OUR BETTER GRADE .... 3 for $2.55 12 'to 20 COLUMBIA MAIL ORDER CO. ■48 Grand St. Dept. 130C New York 2, N. Y. PRIVATE ADDRESSES OF 250 OF HOLLYWOOD'S TOP STARS .... FREE! Brochure with over 250 prints absolutely f free with each order. ■ • • OTuy 25c DELUXE PHOTO SERVICE Dept. 67. Box 953, Church St. Annex, New York 8, N. Y. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IN MOTION PICTURES, RADIO, STAGE COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS MODEL Write to-day for FREE particulars (not a school) Unlimited Opportunities if You Qualify SCREEN GUILD OF AMERICA P.O. Box 2750, Hollywood 28, California Tighter, finer be* • t ■ ^jsroTuxHi-ER. yy can Broadway Buy United States Savings Bonds Through The Payroll Saving Plan. SONGWRITERS PROTECT YOUR IDEAS! HOLD ALL SONGS, POEMS! Write for safe, correct procedure! SONG SERVICE Dept. 35-333 West 56th St., New York 19, N. Y. It showed a housewife putting a newly baked pie out on the window sill to cool. "Movies had just opened, but you had to have a nickel to get in — and I didn't have the nickel. I asked my mother for the money, but she said that bread was more important, a reasonable deduction. I was very young, and I screamed at her angrily that I was going to run away and she would never see her little boy again. I got over that an hour or so later when my father came home and applied his belt strap where it did the most good. "But what I didn't get over was my consuming desire to get into the atmosphere of theatricals. So, for several years, from the time I had reached the ripe, old age of fourteen until I was eighteen, I trod the boards of various Catholic Church auditoriums, as a member of an amateur dramatic club. We put on plays to help raise funds. It was good experience, and it gave me a little dramatic background." It also gave him a desire to stay in show business. Remember, he was only eighteen. But he hadn't been a careless and carefree kid. By working as a stenographer and denying himself almost every form of entertainment except an occasional nickel movie, he had saved $300. With that money, he started his career as an exhibitor. "I took over a small neighborhood picture show which was in the process of being dismantled because the owner had lost his shirt there," reminisces Lou. "To do this, I had to quit my job. By the end of the first week, I was minus not only my $300 — for I also lost my shirt — but my job, and jobs were hard to get in those days." Maybe a less determined kid would have given up his dream. Not Lou. He was broken-hearted. That $300 had been hard to save. It represented a lot of sacrifice, and it was all gone in a brief week. But Lou, being a practical person, went back to work. On the side, he dabbled in more amateur plays, and continued to moon about the theater. Then, at twenty-one, with a hundred dollars of his own and two hundred he had borrowed from his older brother, Lou took over — on an installment basis — a 188seat "grind" house on Broadway. It was sandwiched in between two much better houses, which had the movie product all sewed up for that district. "My brother winced when I asked him for the loan," says Lou, "and predicted a second failure for me. But he said he would let me have the money just to convince me that I should give up show business and be satisfied with my job as a stenographer. I was pretty young, and the memory of the $300 that had disappeared in a week was still strong. So, with my heart throbbing in my shoes instead of my chest, I laid all the money I had in the world before the owner of this 'grind' house and closed the deal. "My heart dropped even lower when I signed the loosely prepared document which stated I had a picture show as long as I kept up the payments, with the payments running until the end of time. I felt a little better as I watched the spieler drumming up the business. I went inside the darkened theater. I heard the music from the electric piano in accompaniment to the wild chase of the cowboys. I had mixed feelings as I stood there, as if I were coming home. For, you see, I was in show business again — this time for keeps." Lou took over the theater the next day. It was Sunday, April 9, 1916. He didn't even have enough change to open the box office, but with the cooperation of the first few customers, he managed. It was a drizzling, black day, but business was good. Lou took in $50. His expenses were $33. "Golly," he thought, "seventeen bucks profit!" Elatedly, he figured that at $17 per day profit, in thirty days, he'd be rich. He'd have $510, four times as much as he made as a stenographer! But the next day was Monday. And although the spieler worked just as hard, the receipts only totaled $8, while the expenses still remained an inexorable $33. "By Friday," remembers Lou, "I knew I had made another horrible mistake. The receipts up to then were less than $90, but the expenses were a staggering $165. My brother and father had both warned me not to try this business. The theater was still thought of as new, a gamble, a speculative investment. I suddenly ached all over. Even in the heart of me." It was no wonder he ached, and literally. For Lou had been working fourteen hours a day: hanging up large posters, going after and lugging down the street heavy cans of films, cleaning up the theater, selling tickets in the box office, returning the heavy cans of film by street car, carrying by hand ice for ice water for the customers, cleaning up the theater after the last show. It was after midnight before he closed shop. All the way home he was thinking. What was the matter with his theater? The other places were doing well. What did they have that he didn't have? Suddenly, Lou snapped up straight. What did they have? Why, they must have tricks! The next morning he looked over the display fronts of every theater on Market Street to see what enticed the customers. He just had to look once; it was stunningly clear. There before him, in front of house after house, was the evidence — Charlie Chaplin. In those days, the famous funny man drew customers like flies. Lou had concentrated on gun play and cowboys. So had the other theaters. But, in addition, they had Chaplin. In an instant, Lou discovered that people like to laugh, to be entertained, to forget their troubles. Chaplin's films were the original escapist pictures. Lou was only twenty-one, but he learned something else, too. Every business has its short cuts. So, besides offering Chaplin films, he used other tricks, such as running again and again old Tom Mix subjects, old Bill Hart subjects, old good repeats of any western picture. He built special lobby fronts, ordered sensational cutouts to beckon customers. Before long, the competitor on his right begged Lou to buy him out. The competitor on his left, after failing to put Lou out of business by giving away a five cent soft drink with every five cent admission, took Lou in as his partner. Several months later, Lou closed up his S C It K E N L A N D