Universal Weekly (1927-1930)

Vol. 26, No. 5 Universal Weekly 23 Note — Illustration below is a trifle over half actual size — actual size is 6 columns wide. A Picture Story From the Popular Novel by James Oliver Curwood “BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY” I CHAPTER ONE 1 Scenes From the Universal Picture Starring Renee Adoree \\ay up in the frozer* North where men are trappers and women are scarce, dwelt Jean De Bois, a stolid French-Canadian, who had but two motives in life. One of -them was to p’rovide for his beautiful daughter Renee, whom he loved more than life, and the other was to carry at the end of the season the largest possible takings of furs from his traps to “Frenchy” Leblanc’s trading post, where they could be exchanged for the few luxuries the land afforded, and which never failed to bring a flush of pleasure to the cheeks of his beloved daughter. This year, however, he seemed doomed to disappointment. “Frenchy” said he was overstocked. While Renee trid to peddle a valuable silver fox skin to the sailors from Captain Blake’s ship, just arrived, she was watched with interest by Bob Stanton, a young American engineer. Captain Blake cared nothing for furs but Renee aroused his passions, and taking advantage of her ill-success, he offered to buy the skin if she "threw in” t . . a kiss. Knowing nothing of kisses but those o^ her father, she innocently enough consented; but no sdoner had the captain grasped her in his brawny arms then her womahood caused her instinctively to shrink from him. Others crowded about, and “Frenchy” angrily demanded that she cease Jier unfair competition. Her father was busy elsewhere. (Continued tomorrow) NEWSPAPER PICTURE STRIPS LIKED BY EDITORS Circulation Building Six Day Serializations of Universal Pictures Welcomed by Progressive Newspapers as a Permanent Feature of Great Interest to Movie Fans. THERE is something new under the sun — and it is making a hit with newspaper editors from Maine to California. Universal photoplays can now be told to the movie fan newspaper readers by means of illustrated narratives — the stories of the pictures in six daily installments. The illustration at the top of this page shows in reduced size a fine example of the Universal Picture Strips. The actual size is six columns wide — twelve inches, and five inches deep. Each strip series is in six chapters, making them available for both morning and evening newspapers. Motion picture editors were quick to realize that this was real fan material; the sort of reading matter that they crave, and quickly sensed that as such, the Universal Picture Strips are marvelous circulatioon builders. And when they learned that similar strips on some twentyfive of Universal’s leading pictures could be had for the asking, including free mats, orders began to pour in. Nearly 200 editors have already been supplied with from one to eight picture strips including the story in picture and narrative form of “Beware of Widows,” “The Cat and the Canary,” “Fast and Furious,” “Painting the Town,” “Les Miserables,” “Back to God’s Country,” “Out All Night,” and “Silk Stockings.” The newspapers listed below are selected at random from the nearly 200 papers which have sent for mats of the entire series for their moviesections. The list shows no sectional Selected at random from among the more than 200 newspapers using Universal Picture Strips Chicago Daily News Prescott, Ariz., JournalMiner Atlantic City, N. J ., Press Philadelphia Daily Item Dover, O., Daily Reporter Waukegan, III., Daily Sun Peekskill, N. Y., Eve. Star Seward, Alaska, Gateway St. Joseph, Mo., Gazette Attleboro, Mass., Sun Fort Wayne, Ind., NewsSentinel Jonesboro, Ark., Sun preferences, as every state in the Union is represented. Every day brings more orders for these, coming in direct response to letters sent the papers from the Universal home office. To you wide-awake exhibitors these strips represent a wonderful opportunity. You have had frequent occasion to ask the newspapers for favors; the picture strip gives you a chance to do the papers a favor. If you will notice that six columns wide and five inches deep is 30 inches — a strip a day for six days makes a total of 180 inches of space the newspaper devotes to boosting the picture which you are to show in your theatre every time it prints a six-day series. Yet the editors will be glad to use these trips if you will meet them half way. Write to the address below for proofs on the pictures you are going to play. Show them to the newspaper advertising manager, and the editor. If they see (as 200 or more other editors have seen), the circulation building value of the strips, they will ask for the mats immediately. If not, you can well afford as an inducement, to offer to increase your advertising on the picture — inasmuch as the editor is giving you 180 inches of free space. Please note that the title is prominently displayed and in the cut it is only half the size of the original. You cannot afford to let this get by you. Look over your list of bookings. Check all that have picture strips and write for proofs and mats of those titles. These can be had only from Nat Rothstein, Director of Exploitation, Universal Pictures Corporation, 730 Fifth Ave., New York City. •