Variety (May 1936)

ire<lnesd.r. May 27,1936 P | C M U RES VARIETY 21 #1^ By Epes W. Sargent No Boards—But St. tiouls, . (bhfxv Boat,' Unlv^rsal's great „J3^n featui-e, current at 5,000 floater Fox Theatre, was given a w^YT ^xpiol^a^ by mev; Harry Oreenman and his assistant, rucllle Bvrnes, and house Is erijoy- Stf best biz In last. 12 months. Wlfi every billboard in town contracted for until next August, Greenman was forced to turn to other avenues to exploit the week's outstanding pix in this old Mississippi River town. Greenman planted a 24 In lobby Df rox arid gobs of them at New Gr^nd Central and St. Louis thea- tres, both shuttered at present time, for three prior to opening. Another, atop :Fox marquee, completed a gdlaxy of paper that could ndt be inissed on busiest cross town street In the city. Theatre tied-in with Lux for .500 windows; ilaxwell House coffee for 260 more; a. dozen music stores for display of 'Show Boat' niuslc; 10 b(»k stores plugging Edna Ferber's (rtOry and 40 bicycle shops furnished windows tor display of bikes an^ lots of theati'e copy, ■ Movie crix attiended special pre- view of feature' and theatre cashed In on nice advance notices in local rags in addition to swell reviews. Thirty nabe weekly rags, with more than 250;000 circulation, co-opad with special feature stories and pix on.'Boat,* Theatre got a. break eve t>efore opening . When 'Sho.w Boat,' oh air, broadcast over one of city's largest stations inserted plugs for feature before arid, after 'Captain Henry's* program. In addition, thea-; ire bought air spot annbuncemehts fcveral days before run began. • Other tie-ups included those with TWA airlines for window displays; Illinois Traction System for distribu- tion of Heralds and posting of thea- tre copy in stations all ovet system and a solid half-page of art in only .jnorhing rag in town., one week in advance of opening.. Sister houses, .Mlssobfi and - Ambassador, dis- 'trlbuted 'Show Boat* hei*alds during ■ Tiin and all of this was reason thea- tre took padlock off the door& a.n .hour earlier'than usual. Ams in S. C. Spartanburg, S. C. WeH-arranged stunts and public- ity angling 6yeiiits; are converting Major Bowes amkteurs-fllms pro- grams into smash hits for Carolina houses. . In Asheville newspapers announced Senator Robert R. Rej'nolds would appear on air with Bowes in New. York On night of May 31 when pro- gram will be dedicated to Asheville. In Spartanburg Ervine Stone ptllled a neat one. The Rotai-y club was looking for some hot talent and he offered the Bowes unit tor the regular luncheon meeting. tJ.hit booked at State Monday and Tuesday. Sunday newspaper splurge took care of " Monday crowds and packed the house. Tuesday the Ro- tary Stunt brought tho unit before approx. 100 biz and -professional riieh at one of jity's leadii.*? uptown ho- tels and stacked 'em in again for pjtt; dates. Event was generously articled in p.m: editions. State jammed the sidewalks, this Week with another neat one. As ballyhoo for "Speed," MGM auto ipelodrammer. Mgr. Stone piled a horribly smashed up new automo- bile In front of his marquee arid then decorated the lobby with snappy new specially huilt racer and attractive placards. Some com- plaint about crowds on the side- walk but no complaint from the box office, thank you. Chang^ing Poster Having a couple of stereoptlcoris he picked up from a tr^iVeling show, a medium town manager arranged for a sheet oh a building at the four cornei-s-and got the best single ad- vertising space he feels he has ever had. Instead of running oft a, set .Of slides, he usually works a single announcement for the.current show; but keeps ringing the changes. For example he will get out a sign With lines in red and blue. Presently the red lines fade away and then come back while the blue lines do an" exit. Peoplie.do not'seeni to catch on that the message is on two slides and wonder how it is done. For a change he. will put a red medium over the blue lines, get-- ting a purple letter, arid reversing this use a blue .over thp red, so that the sign becomes all purple. Chang- ing back presently to the original colors. With the machines ho. also ac- quired a numbier of mechanical slides, including a geometrical lathe effect which is sometimes thrown. On the screen as a relief, or a rocking boat or even, the old sleeper eating the rat. These help to get attention occasionally, but he places his main reliance on the straight ..announce- ment, feeling that If he gives too much of a show people will stay, down for that entertainment in-: stead of coming up to the theatre, a couple of blocks away. Now and then he .wlll run an ari- nouncemerit for some church or social organisation, but he has thumbed down many offers frona merchants. It's his sign, and he wants to keep it for the theatre. Ev«n the gratis chirity signs are topped by 'The Grantoh theatre is happy ti announce,' with the data following. I^ter oh, If the sigh los^s its pull, he may let It. pay for Itself with mercliarit ads, but he is still able to figure out enough changes to make it outstanding. Amazing Lincoln Lincoln. A natural for any exploiting stunt, 'Showboat' was opened here with the bigigest hurrah of any pic- ture In the last year. . Work: was •largely the ideas of F. P. Vincent, .Universa.,1 pictures, and E. A. Patchen, Lincoln Theatres pub boss here. Idea was worked out in Holly- wood premiere style, frOrit of the house protected from crowds who were looking on, but who had no tickets, by a roped. off space. In- vita.tl6ns were sent to the burg's biggies arid entrance from the street plugged via a p,a. system and outlet over the local ether link Oldie Repeats Rochester. For 'One Rainy A f t e r n 0 o n.' Manager Lester Pollock of Loew's Rochester spotted a.pretty girl with umbrella-at-busy: downtown - corner; Umbrel carried sign 'See One Rainy Aftei-hoon at Loew's Rochester*, and gag was concealed bag of water with tube running up through um- brella to provide lively spray at in- tervals and collect laughs from the crowd. Radio version of play spotted on WHEC two diays before opening at theatre. Plugs the Comics Rochester, RKO Palace theatre, WHEC and Tlmes-.Union have arranged tleup originating with newspaper's de- sire-to boost Its-comic supplement. With two hdlidays falling ,on Sat- urday, T-U moves Its comics up to, Friday and to get extra promotion value has them riead over WHEC Thursday night; Reader makes sev- eral intentional mistakes and list- eners are invited to obtairi entry blanks at the Palace , and list the errors. Prizes are. 500 tickets to 'Da:ncihg Pirate.' Omaha. Chariges in outstate ownership and other changes in the Om.aha" territory iriclude^ the Empress,. Ver- dlore, -sold by Mrs; A. Vi Jecimiriek to H. E. Bruce; Fairmount, Fair- mount, sold by L. Bricker to Francis Waldron; Elm, Elm Creek, sold by M. A, Rishel to Emil .Dolezal. George Monroe now interested. In the Empress at'Kearney and in the Rivolt at Hastings to take over the Cblonial in. Lincoln from the Lin- coln Theatre Corp. of Joe Cooper. Monroe was formerly interested, in the State, at Lincoln, now the Kiva. Roy Brown. planning to open a house at Harlan, Iowa. '. Bill Nutzman takes over the: reins of R, W. Smith as assistant manar g^r of the Rivolt at Hastings. Omaha neighborhood long - time known as the Uptown Is now the Arbor. Ralph Goldberg owns the spot. Schenectady. Following the collapse of a side wall of the old Albany theatre, which has not been used for. soririe time, bids for the Immediate de- molition of the remaining walls were asked, by the Division of Liquidation of the State Banking .Department (the property is in the hands of .the department as a re- sult of the failure of the Bank of Europe, New York City). Albany is the second local un- used theatre which has recently had a wall collapse. A wall, of the flre- swept Hudson crashed last month, crushing a nearby garage and de- stroying several automobiles. The owner, A. Vedder Magee, has filed a $4,000 claim against the city, in anticipation of claims against him Loaisville. Operation of the Alamo and KFOR. Big shots were asked up to gi-own Theatres is again in control Lincoln. Phillip Lannan, who. has the Riv- oli and NebrisLSkan, West Point, Neb., is trying out advanced prices. He riow has a 40c top; 100% up from the old average, and he claims the neighbors are not (iomplalning as long as the picture is good. 'Started on 'Mr. Deeds.' Jim Hostettler, Nebraska circuit operator in the earlier days of the picture business, was back in this territory talking over some old leases. He was accompanied by Bill Relnke, of the Tower, Kansas City. City Manager Jerry Lincoln The- atres Corp. here, takes his 2% year old daughter, Gerre. Sue, along with him on film. buying trips lately. Free talking pictures are being used at Capitol Beach, local amuse- ment park, to keep the crowd around until things are about over. Local papers went to town on. Ray .Mayer, alurii from viaude who Is now In pictures with RKO. Ray is a former Nebraska boy, frOm.Lex- ington, and came by that cowboy garb he . used to wear, honestly. New Tork.' Beginning July 1, the RKO the- atres at Rutherford . and Kearny, N. J., will be operated by the Slegel Interests, Spotted Gelebs Kansas City. Claud Alorris in charge of . pub- licity for the Orpheum's roadshow- Ing of 'Great Zlegfeld' climaxed his eflrbrts with Sunday night's opening a la Hollywood'.. Lights spotted the local celebs as they left their cars. Two announcers handled KMBC's Bhort wave broadcast of the affair. Pne a girl spieled about the finery worn by the ladies; the other a man Introduced and gagged with the celebs. Stunt attracted a large crowd, oouhd pictures snapped and the ci'ow4 ate it up. ..^fj^vious bally for the pic incliided B0 24-shects, 1,000 6-sheets arid 2;000 two-sheets, dash board cards and I"f ,90^'er.s on taxi-cabs. Fifteen musaufl heralds house to house. hftS'-'^ i^ewapaper space in local papery and country sheets covered J.r.li'^ *'adlu.s of 150 miles. KC blue oook Was nailed for 3.000 letters. but S. C. Sports rr.,„^ Spartanburg, S, C. country may be going to the dogs hoL "^'I Se«netsville, S. C, the I a,re having their day. ovX; » ^°'^''"^<^'^"s skedded pig race has nL^'^^^*^"-^' ^""t 50-yd. course tWft "^"f'b Interest that the mike for words Prelude to the actual premiere was a; parade, first, allowed by the city dads In this airtight town. A dog and pony turn was set up in front of the house, a small band togged in circus regalia brassing thingf? up generally. House was closed in the iafterrioon and a gen- eral grand opening atmosphere created by a single evening per- formance and opening a day early. Talk and 'celebrity' comment was handled by Miss Hollle Wood (Beth Langford) and J. B. Lake, the link's 'Man on the Street.' Papers went for the idea bigger than usual, one even coming across with a front page splash of the event, which Is something of a p.a.'s millenlum around here. Both Old, But Pulled St. Louis. 'Speed,' MG's- annual flicker re- leased just about the time of the big Iridlanapolis 500-mIle race, with its story set against the background of the Chrysler Motor Co., brought the Lbew boys in. this burg some good., newspaper publicity and a large parade. Pic Was screened for local dealers week prior to opening, enabling theni to do some word-of- mouth plugging for it. At high noon on opening day 43 Chrj'sler and Plymouth cars, prop- erly bannered with picture and the- atre credit, paraded through the loop and business sectors in outly- ing districts of town. Heading cav- alcade was a huge Greyhound bus with a 24 plastered on each side. Continuous horn blowing, not mo- lested by the cops, attracted consid- erable attention. On 'One Rainy Afternoon,* first feature of pi'ogram; the boys fitted out two gals with slickers and um- brellas and as they paraded the downtown streets In the bright sun- shine It was a good stunt. JJm- brellas carried copy on pic and'the- atre playdate. Other tieups included distribu- tion of 50,000 circulars through Plg- gly-Wiggly chain of grocery stores; song hits over all radio i?tatI6ns and nearly every ork in city plugging feature from orchestrations fur- ni.sihed them. Jimmy Harris, p.a., and 'Chick* flvans. mgr. at Loew's, were responsible for the good work. of Richard A. Pierson and Jack I Schwartz. For past, year, both houses were operated by Theatrical Managers, Inc. of Indianapolis, but reverted to former managers May 17. A merger for operation was. ef- fected in June, 1936, whereby Mid- West.Theatres, Inc. of this city re- leased control to Theatrical Mana- gers, Inc., with offlces In Indianap- olis. A house In New Albany, In- diana, and two houses in Shelby- ville, Ky. also figure In the sWltch. Denver. LoUis Hellborn, fonnerly manager of the Denham to San Diego, on managerial staff of the exposition'. New portable circuit in Colorado opened by Martin Settle. Shows given a night each in BoOne, Pe- langa, Man^iela. and Valdez. James Hughes theatre operator in Wray, Colo,, and Palisades, Neb., bought out his partner In Burling- ton. Colo., where he now makes his home. Chicago. Andrew J. Kenney appointed ad- vertising and sales promotion man- ager for Filmack Trailer. Was for- merly associated with ad depart- ment of Warner Bros, Chicago the- atres. Pine Bluff. Ark. The Malco Realty Co. today pur- chased a building here at Second ave. and Main street. The build- ing was formerly occupied by the Simmons National Bank before, that Institution built the new building.. Great Fall.i. Mont, Managerial changes In Fox-Wp.«it Coast hou.ses include: C. P. Scates to America, Butte, replacing Clar- ence Golder, resigned; John Trew- hela to Fox, Billings, coming from Judith, Lewistown, Mont, to re- place Scates. J. Edwards gets Judith house job. New Haven. Paramount has discontinued ILs district office here, district mgr. George X:ruzen stepping out of Par organization. Al Kane, Par ex- change mgr., has been shifted to Boston and Eddie RuHf follows Kane locally. Can£on, O. Old Grand Opera House here dark again With little prospectst. of re opening before Labor Day. Ralph Schalfer, riianager of the State theatre ot East Liverpool, af filiated with the A. G. Constant chain, upper ,Ohio valley. He re places Fred Wilson Who has been shifted to New Garden, Ports mouth, O. A new 700 seat theatre Is to be constructed at Xeriia, O., by J. L. Hatcher of Baltimore. The house will be located on North Detroit street. Hatcher has a 20-year lease on the theatre. Tracy Barham, g. m. of the Southio Theatres, Inc., reports that William Yaekle, has been appointed manager of the Strand in Middle town, replacing Milton Kress re- signed. Barney Moffett, Paramount's assistant manager has been pro- moted to manager of the Gordon. The new Ohio theatre at Marietta, O;, has been opened by the Shea in- terests, with Forney Bowers as man- ager; Lemotto Smith, of the Mu-Wa.-Tu Coshocton, is back at his desk after a 12-week vacation in Florida, Contests Appealing to the aariie gambling Instinct that makes bank nites at- tractive, one manager has taken up contests in a seilous way. He has set up a contest room, in, a small space oft his rest room originally in- tended for a checkroom. Here h posts the details of the various con- tests sponsored by national adver- tisers as weU as the hiore purely local ones. He; of Course, avoids the phoney contests the successful sol- utions of which lead to a ;»ales proposition or similar sting. He sub- scribes to a., number o.f, magazines for Writers, most of which list con- tests,, and he watches all of the regular magazines. He also watches carefully for the results of these contests, and posts these on a bulletiri . boa^d. Another board gives the closing dates of con- tests in chronological order with. si>eclal spaces for 'closing this week' and 'closing next week;' There . Is a table , and chairs, with a supply of paper • on which notations can .bo made and a thesaurus Is provided for iise of those who desire to get the best possibl words for their slbgns. Except on Saturday and Sunday the. mariager has a regular ofl^ce hour when he can be con- sulted on any. phase of contest work, but he has it clearly understood that he will not look at anyone's entry, to esc4pe any poslble accusation of lifting. This last is more important than would appear to those who hfive not had experience. ■ The idea Was started merely- with the aim of giving use to an idle cubbyhole, but it has worked out iso well that he has played It up to the llriilt: He has even had printed at his ow.n expense, a.leaflet oh how to write slogans, stresislng the Import-, ance of brevity. and salesmanship.- Special weight la given to picture, contests such as^. Metro recently worked. Lincoln, The Capitol here Is being equipped with a new cooling systemi F. M. Honey, manager of the Te- cumseh, Tecumseh. passing out mu.shrooms grown by his own ef- forts. In order to open new avenues of picture supply, the Liberty here has abandoned the 10c anytime policy for a 15c night tot). Tommy Tompkins, city manager of the Ute. America and Tompkins, Colorado ►Springs, was here heading a good, will chamber of commerce tour. He's pre.sident of the Colo. Springs chamber. Vic Nelson, manager of the Wy- not. Wynot, has installed a new blower. Leland Minchnick, manager of the KlA-a here, aay.s he's really going to many Cecilia Ucrmson this fall. Cleveland. Shaker, ITtli theatre in chain op- prated by Abe lO-amer, Meyer Fine and Samuel Stecker, Ray P. Alli- son to manage with i3ernard Brook- over as a.ssistant. Lefkowit'/, cii-cdit leasing its Car- ter, closed for. months, to Federal Tlieatre Project a» headquarters for theii- plays. 'Tro)lc-A Plowed Under' is first. Ridgc-Esscn circuit, with ten houses on chain. iK building 'an eleventh tn cost between »100,000 and $115,000. T^ynchbiirg, Va. Frank M. Boucher has taken over management of three Fisher the- atres in Cumbcrrand, Md.- Bourher transferred from here to Charlottes- vllle as Publlx cm. two monilis ag.o (Continued on pftge 2a> New for 'Things' Washington. 'Things to Come' is a natural for contests, but local stunt by Loew's and Dally News provides a specific angle that can be built-up more ef- fectively, than obvious what-wlll- the-world-be- like - lOO-years-hencp gag. Question used' was 'Would you accept an offer to be the first person to rocket to the moon if you had a 60-50 chance of coming back?' Sheet carried running score ot how many yeieis arid how many nays were received In addition to ex- cerpts from letters.- Plenty of gags came In to give daily yarns punch and competition between two schools of thought gave contest double Interest. Yarjis may also be brightened up with daily' boxes in which prominent persons accept or spurn imaginative offer. Results of local contest gave adventurers three-to-one victory over conserva- tives. —— Expert Testimony Birmingham. The fact that an amusement in- spector sees so many pictures was! used in a testimonial ad for 'Show Boat' by Sam Suggs, manager of the Alabama. Mrs. Harriet B. Adams, aniuse- ment inspector wrote a flbwing testimonial about the picture and Suggs rian it in a large ad with italic type. To Impatient Sydne.v, A theatre uptown (indie) and a theatre downtown (Snider-Dean> booked in 'The Milky Way' (Par) simultaneously. Men were sent out by S-D publicity office to. endeavor to arrange tieups with the various milk joints around the city, but with little success it is reported. After,one week,, although biz was good. S-D yanked the pic, replacing with two .second-rUn British. The uptown house decided to keep the pic on. Very same day the announcement was made the milk joints carried an advertising splash in a daily In conjijnction with the pic. In Series Bui roughH Tarzan Pictures Corp,, i.s planning to Issue plan books for each section of eight pictures pro- duced, instead of one book for the full season. Figures fresh attack will give better HClllng and. at the sanie time permit rearrangement of the schedule if desired. First Issue is a neat looking affair with a cover simulating hammered copper, with overlapping pages, each a different color to give th ii()w popular j)rl8matlc effect. On B'way Alex Yokol ha.s girl.s out on Broad- way with their arms In .slings osten- tatlous In alzo and color! . 1'hcy are handing out cards explaining they fell out of their seat.s laughing at 'Thiee Men on a rrorMC' and urging the re(ipl«'ia to take the same c'lianc'.-s..