Boxoffice-October.27.1951

1
(yt:-
hi..
CHESTER FRIEDMAN
EDITOR
OXOfFiG
HUGH E. FRAZE
Associate Editor
SECTION
PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR SELLING SEATS BY PRACTICAL SHOWMEN
Warner Katz-Kabn Ad Team Scores
Big on 'Streetcar in Pittsburgh
Vprv Desirable
—B> Huntirrord
Quite abruptly, a few weeks ago, Phil
Katz, high pressure exploiteer and manager
of the Enright in Pittsburgh, found
himself elevated to the Warner zone office
in that city as assistant to Jack Kahn,
division advertising and publicity director.
The promotion came by way of reward for
an outstanding job at the Enright during
the last four years.
Ever since moving to his "desk" job,
Katz has been trying to live up to his reputation
by working up some live campaigns
to reactivate public interest in motion pictures,
especially these playing in the local
Warner downtown theatres.
He and Kahn did an excellent job of
selling "A Streetcar Named Desire." The
picture played at the Warner, opening big
and showing top grosses in its third week.
The advertising team chartered four
streetcars to carry patrons to the theatre
without charge for fare. The stunt was
tied in with the efforts of legislatures to
get a reduction in excessively high fares.
A congressman posed for pictures and
made a statement for the press on the
need for "cheap transportation." Cy Hungerford,
nationally famous cartoonist for
the Post-Gazette, picked up the gimmick
and the next day the paper broke a threecolumn
cartoon Illustration on page one.
Some of the gimmicks which swelled
interest in the picture were a top ad
schedule, ranging up to full-page layouts
in three daily papers; cross plug trailers
in 25 Warner houses in the area: a saturation
radio campaign on WCAE and
KQV; 10 window displays; a front cover
and feature story in "This Week In Pittsburgh,"
and a layout in the Sunday Press
roto section.
A "triple" sta^e wedding was in the
works in conjunction with the Stanley
engagement of "Here Comes the Groom."
All of Pittsburgh was invited and as an
indication of the tremendous interest
aroused, more than 350 couples responded
to an ad for three couples who desired
to hitch up on the Stanley stage. The
couples ra^te an all-expense honeymoon by
plane, a few thousand dollars worth of
rings, wedding trappings and service gifts,
and both the radio and newspaper sources
of news dissemination had a field day
with human interest
incidents.
A few days before "Force of Arms"
opened at the Warner, Katz located a
G.I. who had met and married an American
WAC in the Italian theatre of the
war. Since the couple's adventures followed
closely the pattern of the picture's
plot, they were spotted on a television program
and several radio shows for guest
shots.
To promote "That's My Boy," a Stanley
booking, a jingle contest was worked with
radio station KQV. The contest broke all
records for entries received at the station
on any similar setup. The two theatremen
promoted dozens of Martin and Lewis
>^^-
This fhree-column cartoon, the work of
Cy Hungerlord, cartoonist for the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, appeared on the front
page of that paper after an extensive attention-getting
publicity stunt developed
by Phil Katz and lack Kahn for the Enright
Theatre.
sports shirts for prizes, which were awarded
for the best "last lines" submitted by
station listeners.
So the kid trade was not neglected, Kahn
and Katz worked a tieup with a pet shop
to give the youngsters live rabbits in conjunction
with cartoon shows set in for
Teachers Institute day, October 12. The
sponsor received advertising on the screens
and in lobby displays at all participating
theatres. Both the news columns and radio
commentators carried announcements.
ue.did
in tfie ^JwtouSe
Periodically we have written about the lack of politeness and
courtesy in theatres and its effect on patronage.
An article on this same subject recently appeared in another
tradepaper. It immediately elicited a letter from a theatre manager
whose response can be summed up: 'If the ushers are discourteous,
then so are the patrons." The inference is that if the
people who buy admission tickets to the theatre were more civil and
courteous, the staff would be polite.
That type of thinking could only originate with one who does
not have long experience in business—we mean any business. It
is obviously a more modern philosophy of management in theatres,
aind indicates how far we are now removed from the old concepts
of sound management.
There are too many well-founded reasons to
explain the discourtesies
the patron endures without making him the goat. The
manager could say, if he wanted to, the reason is simply that we
are not getting the high caliber type of employe who at one time
was attracted by the glamor and the opportunities this business
offered. There was more incentive for ushers in this business at
one time.
Or, if he were well-versed in tradition, he could admit that
because there has been a gradual but steady loss of interest by
the circuits in such operational phases of management, that perhaps
his own training was neglected.
When the period of circuit expansion was at its zenith,
there was a vast reservoir of manpower constantly being trained.
Today, a sizable proportion of theatres are being managed by men
who came into this business since the war and whose training
frequently ended when they learned how, where aad when to bank
the daily receipts.
(Continued on next page)
mmmmmmmmmm^mi^mim^mi^^^^^s^^^^^^s^^i^^^^^^^^^^
BOXOFFICE Showmandiser
: : October 27, 1951 — 239^ 33