"HOOEY" GOES OVER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 31, 6 February 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

"HOOEY" GOES OVER.

Exploiting Films Is An Art. AMAZING METHODS OF HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

THE most important and highly specialised industry in Hollywood is not the making of movies but the selling of them. Kaeli studio lias different methods of publicity and exploitation calculated to corral'the public as quickly as possible to the box office. Metro-<ioldwvn-Maver sells its pictures by selling the personalities of its stars. Male stars are invariably transformed into strong, lean, husky he-men, leavened with a dash of romanticism. Clark Cable, for example, is seldom photographed on vacations without a gun or fishing rod. Hie friendship with Carole Lombard has been blown from a bubble of interest into a balloon of love. Metro's women emoters are "glamourised -, until their lialos are visible to the near-blind. Their children —if any —are hush-hushed in the Press. Babies and ballyhoo are bad publicity bedfellows.

Warner Brothers concentrate on selling the. stories of their pictures. R.K.0.-K.idio's Hales ammunition is music and dancing. Twentieth Con-turv-Fox sells the name of Parry] Zanuck with every picture, on the theory that the name "Znnuek" on a. picture guarantees its quality. Paramount has been too disorganised those past few years to have any set celling campaign." Exploiting Stars' Love Lives. Every picture presents ile own particular merchandising problem. With "Anthony Adverse" the public \v<is reminded of the tremendous popularity of the Hervey Allen novel—how it had been translated into all 7iiodern languages, the fact it had taken Allen four years to write it and Warners two years to adapt it to the screen. Every big film name helped the exploitation campaign by attending the 5.50 dollar Hollywood' premiere. To further the ballyhoo—and subsequent attendance—a grandstand for "fan" cheer leaders was erected outside the theatre, plus a brass hand, an African jungle set smothered with thousands of dollars' worth of orchids.

has been a difficult nut <<• crack for "movie" exploiters. In order to make him palatable to the average movie-goer a host of clowns was hired for "The Midsummer Night's Dream." "The jiiiy must be all ri»ht if .liniiny Carney. Joe E. ISrown. Frank MeHngli, -Mickey Kooncy and Illicit Herbert are in it." was the used for the benefit cif lilin fans, liy the ti "Knnipo and .Inlief was completed Shakespeare was rated a harmless scribe with a pretty turn for verse. After the million-horsepower campaign put forward by SI.-C.-M.'s "boosting" experts. Juliet, now appears, "not as an immature sentimentalist with a passion for sacrifice, but a glowing, vibrant, excellent "cinemactress" Norma Shearer (in private life mother or two children), whose name alone is capable of carrying the Hard over any existing prejudice. The death of "a star preceding the release of his last picture has only once proved of sales value. Popularity of Rudolph Valentino's pictures waned immediately after his death. In spite of the tremendous affection in which Marie Dressier was held by the film fans during her lifetime, her picture revivals failed to interest following her death. Will lingers alone remains unhandicapped by the sad prefix "late" attached to liis name.

"The- (iie.it Ziegfeld" Hollywood opening put M.-G.-M. back 18,000 dollars, but they considered the expense instilled in view of the space devoted to it in the newspapers. In all. M.-G.-M. spends over 3,000.000 dollars annually on publicity. The linking romantically of the leading players is an old but always successful " method of. putting a picture across. Koliei't Taylor and .T.inet Guynor did all their public eating and dancing together before and during the lilm run of "Small-Town (Jill." When Bob was switched to Barbara Stanwyck in "His Brother'* Wife," his affections rapidly followed suit. The "friendly divorce" in vogue in Hollywood made it possible to team Carole Lombard with William Powell in "My Man Codfrcy." Every time the picture is mentioned or printed, so is the curiosity-arousing fact that Carole and Bill are ex-mates. Ditto Margaret Snllavan <ind Henry Fonda in "The Moon's Our Home."' "Fans" Hocked to the picture mainly because the puir onee were married and Fonda at the time was reputedly suffering with a "love hangover."

Lawsuits, often help picture publicity campaigns. The fight of Freddie Bartholomew's mother for his custody was manna from heaven for David Selznick's studio. His publicity department ployed up the resemblance to the story of '"Little Lord Fanntleroy," in which Freddie starred. Mary Afitor's. recent sensational court-room squabble with her husband. Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, caused something of a stampede in the direction of "Dodsworth." Shakespeare And Death Are Bugbears. To the world at large Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers mean dancing. Lovers of dancing have been taught that it is part of their education to visit every film in which the pair is teamed. Sale's arguments for "The White Angel" (Florence, Nightingale) were directed unerringly at those who would be most interested — nurses. Warners released the picture during a convention of 10,000 nurses in Los Angeles. Kay Francis, who played the title part, put on a special show for these ladies and recited the professional nurses' oath. Important doctors and medical societies were soliStory of Louis Pasteur." Shakespeare