Wid's weekly (1923)

(jjfcfik. Weekly Vol. I. No. 23 Saturday, November 3, 1923 Price 25c Editor . Wid Gunning Subscription $10.00 one year in United States. Foreign $15.00. Subscribers should remit with order. Editorial and Business Offices: 6411 Hollywood Blvd., (Hollywood) Los Angeles, Calif. Phone Holly. 1062. Entered as second class matter September 29th, 1923, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of March 3, 1879. New York Representative: Merrit Crawford Room 1503, 25 West 45th St. Phone Bryant 4174. You will be interested in talking with Mr. Crawford regarding the combined circulation of Wid’s Weekly and Wid’s Quarterly. Here Is Big News! It’s here. Several times I have intimated that this winter would see the presentation of a distri¬ bution idea that would mean big things in the future of the industry. This issue carries an announcement from the Guaranty Sales Cor¬ poration, which presents a method of sellingworth while attractions, which to me seems to be the absolute solution of the problems which have been confronting the independent producers. Fundamentally, the old distribution meth¬ ods have all been geared for the purpose of disposing successfully of product which might be of an inferior quality. We have seen already very definite indi¬ cations of the fact that even those companies who have sales machines geared for disposing of routine production have come to a realiza¬ tion of the fact that forcing ordinary film in the theatres is bad business. Basically, in any industry, a man should be able to sell his product on merit. In this in¬ dustry the independent producer has been handicapped in any effort to secure a proper return, because it was necessary for him to have his film sold by companies who had prod¬ uct of their own to dispose of. Always the difficulty arose that the selling organization, naturally, gave preference to their production, to the detriment of the independent producer. The Guaranty Sales Corporation presents a method of operation which disregards all of the accepted principles of selling films in this business, which principles became estab¬ lished in the days of marketing programs of ‘ ‘ fifty-two a year. ” “ The U nit Method, ’ ’ pre¬ sented by this new organization, takes the problem of selling films from the same view¬ point that any maker of any product might consider his selling, if no methods had been previously established. In other words, “The Unit Method” takes a good film and presents it to all of the theatres in a certain community at the same time, thereby cashing in on the interest in that community. When the film lias been played for a certain period of time in one community it is moved to another district and is played simultaneously in all the thea¬ tres in that community. Considering this from the viewpoint of commercial selling, this method is very sim¬ ilar to that used by many big manufacturers, who will concentrate in a certain state or group of states until thoroughly established, afterwards developing additional territory. The old idea in the film business of releas¬ ing a film in all of the key cities in the country at the same time has been proven to be an unsatisfactory system. In recent years all of the big companies have abandoned the idea of trying to release a film all over the country at the same time. In recent years it has been demonstrated that it is not necessary to open a film in New York City. “The Unit Method,” now presented by the Guaranty Sales Corporation, applies to the film business the accepted principles of the¬ atrical show business whereby theatrical at¬ tractions have been road showed year after year, visiting a city once each year. I have analyzed very carefully the plan of operation presented by Guaranty Sales. I believe that it is the greatest advance step in selling that has been presented to the industry since the inception of this business. Under the methods of the past the bulk Reviews This Week WHY WORRY . Lloyd-Pathe THE LIGHT THAT FAILED . Paramount THE GREEN GODDESS . . Inspiration Goldwyn THE WILD PARTY . Universal THE MIRACLE BABY . F.B.O.