Variety (Jan 1937)

Wcdnesdajt feiMiyy 13, l^$7 r. I C T « B E s IS HeftTin^ Devices While much has been printed abdut the installation of hearing devices, no one until no>«y has kicked , in with a definite angle bii the rtattei;. George E. Planck, pt the Palace and Marion theatres, Marion, Ohio, is the first to analyze the situation frpnv his personal point of view, which is that of an intimate observer. ■ Planbk has played the kame from iyery angle and knows show busi- ness* He was ai member of the staff of Lem Stewart, at Piiraftiount, has been an exchange man in Kansas Citr has operated theaitres in vairious parts of the country and he is an expert iadverliser. All of which gives weight to his opinions, He ♦I have been operiating theatres in. Marion for the past two years and almost a year ago^laist Jan. 10 td be txact-^we installed the; Western Electric hard-of-hearing-equipnient 1 became very iilteiested in ihis equipment ^fhrbujgh a young man locaUy who wa^ tmxious td see-such an improvemient for the benefit of )iis parents. We studied the thiQg: tather thoroughly from all angles, tod I thbu^t I inw several errors in the. instiallationi' of fhi$ equipmoit in houses I visited in several spots in the.State..'''. ,., ■' Tbir example, one theatre I found had the back row of' the theatre: reserved f6r this equipment and for several reasons I . considered that iTad; . rirst b£ all tiie same people are usualy troubled, with bad eyiesight And secondly, and pio^ibly more important, many people seem par- ticularly sensitive aboiut the haird of hearing asistance and do not like tiie black row 6f this theatre which fre- quently has standees behind them and they, become more or less cbh« spicudiis in the back row with the fairly wiel} lighted foyers, 'We also found some theatres that wired their :;least desirable seats—-< .way. down: froni This idea didn't appeal to me either.. 'And' flnaliy therb were those thea>^ tres that wired every seat iii a row or rows making it impossible for a p^sbn afiPIicted to attend the thea- tre in company of persons not afflicted without being segregated or the other people occupying wired seats and making useless those seats froin the standpoint of serving the hard of hebring. 'With these thoughts in mibd we finally went ahead, wiring 12 : seats located in two. choice rows about midway in our'left center section. So that persons with! hard of hearing might'.sit With friends or relatives not so afflicted without .occupying all wir,ed seats. We spbced the Wiring, so that there were two non-wired seats between every two. wired^seats. 'We enameled the arms of the seats white where the' plugs were located so'that they might easily be found by patrohs entering the row. .'These twp rows were roped off With the permission of the Fire De- partmenti in ,this manner: The old . type of carpet snaps, used. for fasten- ing carpet to wooden floors, were placed on thb ' seat arms and the ropes fastened to them. Thb ropes'" keep people out of the rows but once a patron (enters the row he can leave easily by applying a little . pressure on the snap making it absolutely safe for exits. , 'We secured mailing list, of {>eople that represented prospects or the use*'of this equipment, from a local agent for individual hard of hearing aids. This list included people actiially vising his (equipment .ana prospeets„he was attempting to sell..- ■.■ 'I, ahi enclosing One of this cards' that we sent to the people at the tune the equipment was installed. . 'And finally a word about the eco^ nomic ^end of all this—i think ybuf °?i™ate regarding the business pos- smuities . is sort of seeing things ^Vfough rose colored gljisses. After ■ au the myestmeht in a limited niim- Der of wired seats is not largb and p^r experience in the first year's J'l^^ilation has indicated that, the in- vestment is a very good one but I ^00 not think that the hai-d of hearing pusmess will make any appreciable increase in the week's: gross. It is ^erely going to provide a satis- lactory return on the investment in cmk ,®W,ment itself plus a very substantial amount of good wilL' 41,5^® spoken , of is similar to used at the Radio City Music ^aii and other spots. It is issued to responsible persons and is exchanged ?i we box office for b head set. A^^^®* ^5 turned in the Card. IS handed back, for use iiext time. +u with the writer as pv^nilf possible returns from use of equipmeht and believe that business can be budt, among the hard of thf% Mr. Planck speaks from ^^^^/Mllness of his personal expert' Doings for Ileanna .. . St, Louis. In exploiting Three Smart Girls,' p.a. Homer H, Harmion of. the Am- bassador, and P. F. Vincent, Uni- versal exploiteer from L. A., Con- ceived idea of conducting a city wide contest^ over radio, to find a double for Deahna Durbin in metro- politan St Louis. The winber will be given a week's engagement at theatre, with pay; Contest wai held oyer WiL ahd was one of . high lights of an A. No, 1 carnpaigii; For first timei in months Ambas- sador went to the 24 boards and used them in advantageous spots in town. Exploiteers alsb had a fine .tie-up With the Domino Sugar Co. and Sea Island Sugiu: Co. land dis- tributed 10,000 samples of granu- lated and lump sugar, in sacks and boxes, all bearing Two'of the sweet- est thlQgS' in toWn, this , weekT- PbminO Siigat and Deanha Durbin in Three Smart Girls'—now at Am- bassador Theatre.* -The Weistern Union Telegraph Cb. also yielded .20 swell windows for display 'of. blowups of an Eddie Cantor wire, praising new film Star and^ pix. . Largest downtbwh drug store used 3,000 'Three Smart: Girls' imprinted napkins at soda: fountain and a 5 and 10 store distributed 5,000. ex- change. heralds in all outgoing par- cels, -A exocHy. store: chain, (^>erat- ing. 300 stores in greater St Louis, distributed.: 12,500 fan photOs of Deanna ^over coimters,.' permitting custbmera tb take as many as de- sired. 200 table cards, bearing pix and ° theatre copy were planted in hotels and cafe all over town. The: Show World, with 25,000 weekly cir- culation used considerable space tor. pix. Thls -edition was niailed to bona; fide list of natives twb days before opening. Newspapers also gave plenty of: space for .pix and stories of new stbr and .k.b. campaign was rounded out with 7 new trucks, ban- nered on both sides, perambulating the downtown sector before and dur- ing run of ffeature. tliyti XTp Glvirti St LOUis. For the first time in the history bf the St. Louis Public Library exebs bf institutions permitted its sacred precincts to: be used for pic exploitation purposes and Bob Hicks,, mgr. of Fanchon & Marco's 5,000- seater'Fox theatre On Grand Uvd., is the boy .who broke the ice. Hicks, starting a full month in advance of play- date of The Plainsman' (Par), took'full advantage of the 'produc- tion charts' sent out by the studio for this feature. ...Hiciks liad the charts mounted on heavy cover stock, one to a sUSet, and the sheets bouhd into three huge volumes which were placed ib the library rotunda, Fox lobby and a third used at iheetihgs of : various women's clubs in toWn. These volumes, planted so far in advance of play, date,, attracted much attention. Hicks also took advan- tage of the nationwide Paraibount- Boy Scbiit contest on The Plains- man.' Letters calling attention to the contest and offering special prizes to local BOy Scouts were sent to 300 scoutmasters in the St. Louis area and the results were very sat- isfactory. Perambulating B. 0. One good stunt which, so far as is known, wbs worked but once, is the perambulating, box office. It was done in connection With a charity drive'on • a better type feature, and it proved to be a cleanup. Working along the lines of the walking book, the theatre built a iramework ticket kiosk; li^t enough to be carried arOund; by one man. From this were sold special tickets for -the featiire advertised, the structure being plastered . with, the announcement, that a percentage, on all tickets purchased from this specil office would be donated to the local Red Cross; This enabled the manager to ob- tain a peirmit for the affair to move through the shopping section, paus- 'ihg at advantageous spots to make sales^ Two girls iii Red Cross unir forms: accompanied the outfit to per- suade:, purchasers,' and in the back- ground there lurked s strong-arm man to prbtect" from a possible raid. . Catch Was that the picture rani -for a: week and the special, tickets were good only for the openihg day, it being figured that word of mouth advertising: Would greatly help later sales! As it worked out, so' many tickets were sold from the special booth that it Was necessary to take care of the- overflow on: the second day, but thbt only made :for bigger business on the remaining four days, and the theatre figured it made a nice profit on the concession in ad- dition to gaining much goodwill, . Permanent ispecial bOx offices have been erected, particularly in postof<- fices and other frequented spots, but the walking beKOffice was so dilTer- ent it made bigger isales. P, A. Helped itt^burgh. , George Tyson, advertising head for Harris Amusement Company, saw to it that Sonja Henie got .in Pittsburgh Friday (8) day ahead of- her personal appearance on ice at Duqueshe Gar«. den. Sports arena is operated by same company that runs Alvin the- atre, 'where, skate star's first pictufle,: 'One in ai Millioh/ will 'bpeh :niurs- day (14). . Exploiteer got all of town's spOris writer's together with photogs foi: "a private screening of fiicker, at which Miss Henio: was guest of hohbr. Pol- lowing ^ picture's showing, :bbys were treated to a buflfet lunch and were giveb all the tiihe they :wanted to fire questions at the star. Tyson also i^owed Miss Henie off at a hodkey game in Garden night before her appearance; got her to get in vflock of plugs for the flicker vib the loudspeaker and blsO haid her 'pbtted on several local siir programs. Originally her Garden :showing was scheduled for Jan. 2 aind posQ>one- ment for week fitted; in better all around for Alvin's exploitation pur- poses. Thrbe on 'Borneo- Atlanta, Ga... Metro shot the works on 'Romeo and Juliet,' bringing in Exploiteers E. B. Colembui DaUas, and Clint BoltOn, New Orleans, to join forces with Jim Thames, Jr., local publicity mah, . in putting Over road showing Of bard's . classic, at Loew's Grand thealxe. Trio . collaborated with Manager Eddie Meiniker .and ::his, assistant, Eddie Pentecost, and they effected contact with Board of Educatioh, Better Films. Committiee, Parent- Teaicher 'Associations and Film Re- view. Boards /securing endorseinents .and: enlisting aid .of Various groups in visiting schools and promoting pic. . Special inducement rates to groups Of 20 or more students 'were held out as.biait, tO'wn was plastered with: paper and newspaper ad space tripled fbr .campaigii--^d, while, none- of aforementioned is: hew, ad- vance reservations proved the old stuff, properly executed, stUl brings in the cash customers,: which,: after all, is the result desired. Stihartest stimt of all' yifds to set the top at $M6; which is 55jC loweir than customary road show prices hereabouts. ' ittsburgh. Waimer Brothers rushing construc- tion work on, newest iiabe house, in Squirrel Hill district, in order to get it ready for - announced bpehing on Feb. 12. It'll be a 1,000-seater iaid Will be called the Squirrel Hill the- atre. Spot's about three blocks from other WB site in that district, the Manjor.. Architect oh job is Victor RigamOnt, of Pittsburgh, who also remodeled Alvih for Harrises and Barry for Bill SkirboU here. After operating small-^t Palace on Diamond street as a first-run house, for last six we^ks, Harris :out-' fit has decided it's nb go, and ispbt goes back to . old subisequent run, double fbature policy this week. Idea was to get rid of lot of accumulative product as well as to continue runs of .flickers hot ccnsidered strong enough fbr second^ week at Alvin, but Peculiar location bf Palace was against it from stairt. UhrichsVille, 6. The Twin Hieater Co. which oper- ates the Staite and Ohio theatres, the Ritz at nearby New Coiherstown and the Lincoln at Dennison has been reorganized with Matthew J. Smith, as president and Edward .Elgin of Dover ais treasurer and general mah- ager,. ■ The new president of the com- pany nominally represents the Federal Depositors Insurance Corp.: and succeeds Charles W. "Wheland, Uhrichsville banker. Elsie Englehart of Ue-w Philadelphia has been , ire- elected secretary of the Aim. E. E. Bair, who had been in charjge of the two houses here has been rer tained as assistant tnanager. Cartton, George A. Delis, district manager of the Interstate Theaters, Inc., has announced several inanagerial changes. Keith Chambers, man'ager:, of the Palace here, has been transferred - to East Liverpool to State. R. h; Shaffer, former manager of the New Garden at Portsmouth, 0„ has as- sumed the management of the Palace here.. C. A. Metro, former manager of theatres at Steiibenville, O.^ and at Wellsburg, W. Va;. has been made manager of the Garden theatre a:t Portsmouth; Columbus, O, Work will: be started! immediately oh a new $200,000 deluxe suburban movie theatre for the south side, it is announced by J. Real Neth; of the J, Real Neth Theaters Co, here; He added that two niore suburban thea-^ tres are planned by his company, the sites for which already have been .chosen.":' A two alarm : fibre , early. Jan, 6 forced closing of the RKP Palace. Origin of the blaze. Which wrecked the stage and scenery ■was not determined Immediately., Galveston.: :Fox negotiating .for site at Corpus Christ! to erect $300,000 theatre building, according to J. E, Garrett banker; of that city. Atlantic City; A new pix; house is going up in Pleaisantville about five miles from here;. Ben Wirth, bf New York, builder. Expected to be ready by May, Rochester. Reopening: of the old Family thea- tre, how called the Embassy, delayed by labor trouble. St.: Louis, Harry Greenman, pres; iSreenman Theatre's, Inc;,.has purchased Dakota and Yale Theatres, St I<ouis nabes, as nucleus of ah independent string. Greenman,< former, mgr-. bf Fox Theatre has branched out into busi? ness f or himiself, . Russell Armentrouf, l^elbyyille. Mo., opened the Clark, $20,000 ^uc- ture 3uhaa| Day, He alsa Operates an other house, same name, bt Louisiana, Mo. Alderionan Peterson has introduced bill in Board of Aldermen prohibit. ing . mairathon dances, roller skating rac^ bicycle grinds and sirbilar events in which men, women; and children Would participaite for longer period than three days consecutively and also prohibiting contestants from participating in two such events 'within 10 days of. each other. Fine, from $100 to $500 providied fOr violations. Beginning Jan. 2 Missouri Theatre started special > Saturday morning shows for children. Admission is lOe. and childreb will be permitted to. remain for regtdar program. Roxy Theatre, South St Louis nabe,. reopened New Year's Eve after extensive::, blteratiobs. Hartford, Conn. Eddy Meyerson; formerly assistant manager of the Loew's theatre, pror mbted tb manager of thC: Wbrchester, Mass., Family theatre. Replaced here by Harry Draihin, formerly chief of stbff. Hugh Campbell^M>^ manager of theh WB Central, and Barney Grogan is at Warners' Rialto. Zack: Freedmah; formerly with Fox, Brooklyn, how manager of State, Hartford. Greenville, $, C. " Harry M. Pickett Jr., onetinie. con- nected with the.Rivoli and Carolina here but recently in Other biz here, gonie to Greensboro, N. C;, where he will manage the Criterion. Work nearihg completion on small pic house in St Matthews, S. C. This will be the first; time town has had theatre, in over 10 years. Window Stoppers SiiAple stunts to attract attention, to window displays: help .materially^ but they , seem to: be seldom- used. Chief among these ;is the -.'broken^ Window, which' is produced withiput injury" to the glass plate;These are produced by cutting' some .object apart and pasting . the. halves ; to either side of the glass. There are a number of cements which can be. used aiid easily removed, wi^ alco-: hoi; 'A wooden brick, ior example, is;:cut on- a slant, ahu the two halves carefully matched. Cracks are drawn with soap and the result is some- thinf! that will stop the average pe- destrian dead in his tracks;:: particii- lariy if a barrier is erectbd'osten- sibly to protect from the danger of falling', glass. ' Baseballs,' bits of-: scantling, and even' a can of paint have been successfully used. Anbth.er good one is the upset can < or bottle in the window, apparently the result of an accident. A ipaint-' can is partly filled with rOsihj tinted to the desired; color and melted, Wheh almost cold it is tilted on its, side aiid permitted to 'ttin' ontO', sheet Of paper.- The effect is realis-^ tic ahd.arrestihg, and yet it-is al- most childishly; simple.. '. Ohe very 'simple bttractot is an electric bell with ihe gong^remiOved and so placed that the hamimer;. strikes against the glass. For an in* i.tbvmittent: effect (which is m«n^.de« sirable) the bell is mOunted bn a 'flexible support and backed, by an •eccentric wheel which- at each revb-. lutibh nresses the hammer close to the glass. The small motors which: come with the larger erector sets are excellent for this purpose and can be run from dry cells. If a window display jis worth while, it is intelligent to £o'to some extra effort to get fullest attention. ; Ebster fashion shoWs dtOuld. bie planned sufficiently far ahead to a^-- sure a good production, and Easter comes pretty eariy this year. Stored shouid .be contacted early and sold hard on the idea that it pays to work 'in "jtdvbnbe,' This season one manager plans hot .bne fabhioh show but threie. He will permit each of a trio* bl storesi to stage its performancev One; night,, providini; the stage and accessories, but letting the store plan its own presentation, select its oWii 'models and pick its own .Jinusic. The thea- tre, however, will bring in a profes-: sional model from its key ci^ who will spend a week, training the girls^ using, the tbeatire iii the miomings. As ihie town is fairiy small, it is pre-. sumied the models will be pretty much the same in all three shOws. The professional will not stage the shows, but merely teach the girls how to model. Mahiager figures that each store will be oh tiptoe to beat the others. Stipulation is that only cards on the sides of the; arch can be used, for advertising, plus one two minute chat, on fashions, if desired^ Generally, however^ better results comd from letting all who desifb en- ter models in a single production, with each store given prot)er ciredit for its productions. If there is only one large' Store, it will be better to center upon this and assure an' even production. Prior to the. fashion sbOw. for gowns other smaller shows- can be staged for footwear and hats; and' in many spots a inasculine fashion show will be good for one or . two nights if. proper models can. be obtained. Harder to get the men to strut than to persuade the women. The fashion shbw-^ went dowii dur- ing the depression. That's over npw» and: the stimt can. be revived; Memphis; Sani kirby, former theatre and publicity ihari with the Interstate, Circuit and in Fort Smith and Little Rock, is hew manager of Orpheum, succeeding Lou Hellborn. Hellborii returns to theatre, interests in Den- ver. : Chalmers. Cullihs will continue booking the Grpbeiirri shows, Donyer. George A. Allan, who opened the center several months ago, has-sold to j; B. Melton ^nd returned to Sialt Lake City. Center,; now a 15-cent grind,'was a first-run hOuse. • Seattle. . Jensen-vori Herberg ahhounce Bill Cooley from manager Roxy iri Bal- lard district to manager of : ■Vene- tian, in Capital Hill district, suc- ceeding Art Hile, resigned. Bob ;Shearer, former J-V H employee, be- comes manager Of Roxy. Lincoln. Election In the I. A. T;, S, E. here places Roy Warner in the presi- dential seat for 1937. John Hamp^ ton is v.p.; Lem Mtilner^ sergeant-at- arms; Ashley Williams, treasurer; Homer Hotchkiss, corresponding sec- retary; Jimmy McCauley, business A $15,000 fire completely destroyed the Crystal, Wauneta,^ Nieb., this week. House was owned by Dr. F. E. Rider.- Bo Takers Greehville, . G, A good try .but nevertheless exploitation diid jumped back i Fred (Ritz Theatre) Curdts face while trying tO ballyhoo 'Mr. Deeds* pic here.. Curdts spent ho end- of time i trying to find two kind old ladles who believed in 'pixies' 'so that he could, admit them free, thus getting a build-up on that laughable se- quence of the film concerning them. No two bid ladies could be found who would sell their mirth right for a mess of footage! Type MprtiieB With double : features • prevalent there is a growing difficulty in get- ting the type mortised intb thC: dis- play, particularly where a cUt * used for the main feature. Some years agb Nelson B, Bell, bf Wash- ington, solved the problem neatly by makipig up new cut copy. Lock- ing: type into a mortise is often un* certain and presents many mechan- ical difficulties. He used a compo- site cut copy, pasting specially, set banks of typb onto the drawn de* sign and having it photographed as a whole. It formed a solid printing! siirface in which the type lines coul4 hot shift or ride up.. This is particularly good wher« (ddntlhued on page $0)