Showmen's Trade Review (Oct-Dec 1940)

Page 10 SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW October 19, 1940 Meet Your Exchangemen RoU S. Weill (RKO Radio) Qeo^e W. burner (MGM) A true New Yorker, Bob Wolff, has lived there and has been in show business in the vicinity for 26 years. He started as manager of the Orient Theatre in Brooklyn and then joined George Kleine at the KES Exchange. _ After serving in the marines he rejoined Kleine. Then he was with World Film Co. as a salesman and with National Screen. W. W. Hodkinson made him New Haven manager in 1921, and the next year he became assistant sales manager in New York. Pathe took him in 1926 as manager and with the RKO merger, he became manager in New York. He still holds this post after ten years. urner Here is a man who learned the show business from the stage up, so to speak. He started lecturing with pictures in Milwaukee. He was advance man for several companies and then became an exhibitor. He joined Goldwyn Dist. Co. in 1920 and, except for a short interval, has been with the successor company ever since. He is the possessor 'of a considerable reputation as an Izaak Walton disciple. His son Melvin, is following in his footsteps, being assistant cashier for MGM_ in Minneapolis at present, where his father is a salesman. Clarence ~J(. Olson (Warner Bros.) Here's a fellow who's ^HfctBk. pretty well known throughout the Middle § I West where he has been 1 «w _ f selling for Warner Bros. for nearly ten years. He started with the company in Jan. 1931 as a salesman in Milwaukee. Before the year was out he was promoted to branch manager and assigned to Omaha. He served for a brief time in Kansas City and for the past three years he has been branch manager in Minneapolis. He is an accomplished amateur movie fan (he just lives pictures) and an ardent disciple of Izaak Walton. en (Warner Bros.) Warners' branch manager in San Francisco, he has been with the company for 20 years or more. We first pick up his trail in Cincinnati in 1932, where he was a salesman. That same year, he was appointed Indianapolis branch manager and two years later went back to Cincinnati in the same capacity. Last year he was transferred to San Francisco. His principal hobby is gardening and he has quite a horticultural collection on his San Fernando place. $oU 3. &M (Un versai Artists' Magazine Devotes Eleven Pages to Paintings for "Voyage" One of the most important publicity breaks ever accorded a motion picture is that on "The Long Voyage Home," by which the paintings of nine American artists, made during production, are reproduced and the artists' contrasting technics and procedures demonstrated in the September issue of The American Artist, a magazine with a wide circulation among artists. Besides the front cover, which shows Georges Schreiber painting one of the film's episodes as Thomas Mitchell looks on, eleven pages are devoted to the subject. A footnote advises the reader to "keep this number ... for reference and study when the exhibition of the Hollywood paintings appears in your district, and when the moving picture 'The Long Voyage Home' is shown in your theatre." 3red oCarneJ (Paramount) Fred has traveled the Southwest to such an extent that he has come to be known as the Southwestern Unlimited. He started, like so many of his fellows, as a poster clerk. This was in 1925. In 1927, he became assistant booker in San Antonio. The next year, he became booking manager and another year he was a salesman. Since then he has served in Dallas and Oklahoma City and only three weeks ago he sought new fields to conquer, having been transferred to Memphis. You'll probably be hearing from him. oCouis ~J4eiS (Universal) ago he took up his man and he's still Lou Hess has been a motion picture man for 18 years, all of them devoted to the service of Universal. He began in the old Carl Laemmle offices, but soon went out in the field. He put in a couple of years as manager in Portland, Oregon, another as manager in St. Louis and a few more as special representative out of the home office. Ten years station as Pittsburgh salesat it there. Southern to the core and a picture man to his fingertips, John Thomas Ezell, manager of Universal^ Atlanta exchange, is one of the most respected film men in Dixie. As far back as 1916, he ran an independent exchange in Atlanta, which city has claimed him ever since, although he was born and bred in Mexia, Texas. Since 1933, he has 'held his present post and kept his exchange up among the leaders. Dictionary Heralds on Adventure Film Distributed by Martin When "I Married Adventure" was booked for the Fox Granada Theatre, Inglewood, Calif., Manager Dave Martin arranged, as he terms it in his report, "the usual run-of-themine stunts to publicize its coming." But there was one stunt that, in cost, was low, yet gave the customers a big kick. Assisted by Russ Mortsnson, as co-worker, Martin hot-footed it around to the local cut-rate drug store and invested $2.88 in a half dozen 634-page editions of Webster's Dictionary, which probably caused the astounded druggist to report the Dictionary as the best-selling non-fiction book of the week. Back to the theatre went Martin, tore the books apart and had the pages cut. The pages were then sent to the printer who, with vivid red ink, imprinted this copy on each sheet: "Words can't begin to describe Mrs. Martin Johnson's thrill-packed jungle saga, 'I Married Adventure' . . . (theatre and playdate)." After the heralds were returned to the theatre they were distributed to outgoing patrons who, instead of throwing them down without looking at them, studied them and made flattering comments. The effectiveness of the stunt was later demonstrated at the box office. It's one that can be used on any film which is so unusual "words can't begin to describe" it. JJarru W. SckmiJt (MGM) Here's a booker with a history going away back in the industry to the first pictures. Harry, now MGM booker in San Francisco, worked for the Novelty Moving Picture Company and the first picture he booked was "The Great Train Robbery." S. R. Kent was then branch manager in Frisco for General, which absorbed the Novelty Company. He worked for a number of picture companies through the years, mostly in the same territory. He's been with MGM since 1927. World Premiere of Scene Stills Citizens of Regina, Sask., Canada, attend the unveiling of the world premiere of scene stills from Paramount's "North West Mounted Police," which took place in the main display window of R. H. Williams & Sons, Ltd., Regina's leading department store. Without any previous announcement, the unveiling had attracted more than 900 persons within an hour after the drapes were parted. The stunt was arranged by Manager Larry Graburn, of the Capitol Theatre, one of the theatres which will house the world premiere scheduled for Oct. 21. Others include the Metropolitan, Grand and Rex.