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May 23. 1942
SHOWMEN'S TRADE REVIEW
Page 35
PRESENTS
TREASURE HUNT
A MONTHLY
FEW are the theatremen who haven't from time to time staged a "treasure hunt" as an exploitation effort. It's an old and honored stunt, and has sold many a ticket. We now could take a tip from the old treasure hunt with results that would be amazing in the collective returns by a good rummaging of all parts of the theatre, but particularly the projection room. The hunt, of course, would be for pieces of film, first and primarily — film that could be turned over for salvage. For film — to borrow a phrase from the oil industry — "is ammunition — use it wisely."
One of the biggest jobs the industry as a whole is girding to do under its pledge to save materials
needed for arms-building and the war effort, is to scrap more film than in the past. Many valuable materials are made from the scrap film — an important one is lacquer, which is needed to paint guns, tanks and a multitude of weapons.
How much film there is lying around in theatres throughout the country, nobody has even tried to estimate. But those short ends, trailer clips, footage made up for special purposes, might make a sizeable heap of grist for the salvage mills to turn out needed substances. That scrap should be gotten into the fight for Victory.
Beyond the amount of scrap film that could be amassed for the scrap pile, however, would be the discovery of ways and means of preventing such waste as permitted this amount of neglected film clips to lie around. You'll be wondering how come so much stuff could have been allowed to accumulate, and it won't take much investigation or deduction to discover that there are any number of little practices which if eliminated will prevent unnoticed junk piles to accumulate in nooks and crannies about the theatre.
Section
THEATRE
.UIPMENT
and
MAINTENANCE
Those film cans — how about digging them all out from under tables, or dark corners in closets and rooms around the theatre. These metal cans are needed. Get 'em back into circulation or into the salvage bins upon which factories will draw for metals.
In both the matter of film and cans, arouse yourself and your entire staff to the consciousness ;6f the value of film and cans — in order that the most careful handling to prevent damage either to film or containers will become a subcgjiscious practice evidencing itself in every motion thfioperators or porters make when they handle the prdWict that comes into your showhouse for the entertainment of the public and the profit of your operation.
Remember — the more that is turned back into manufacture the more you and your fellow theatre operators can expect in -supplies both of motion pictures and equipment materials with which to keep the theatre open and the cash registers ringing. Make your theatre's slogan for the duration: "Waste nothing, and we'll /want nothing to keep us working at our jobs."