Umbrella

Last week weather-frightened Hollywood, eyes cocked on horizontal thunderheads, unfurled a million-dollar umbrella. Theatre attendance had been falling off; reports had come from Manhattan that Marie Antoinette, which cost MGM $2,500,000, was actually being hissed; exhibitors had called some of the studios' most valuable properties "poison at the box office"; in Washington the ground was being leveled for Thurman Arnold's anti-trust suit against the major Hollywood studios. Hollywood's answer to all this was characteristic.

Appearing this week in U. S. and Canadian newspapers were the first advertisements of an institutional campaign, to promote the cinema. The slogan, MOTION PICTURES ARE YOUR BEST ENTERTAINMENT, had been MOVIES ARE YOUR BEST ENTERTAINMENT till it was noticed that the original initials spelled out MAYBE. Funds for the $1,000,000 campaign were raised half from the studios, a quarter from exhibitors affiliated with the studios, a quarter from independents. Most of it will be spent on newspaper advertising. There will also be radio programs, six trailers, a contest in which 5,404 people will win a total of $250,000 by answering questions about 30 films and writing a 50-word essay. Sample question: "What did Snow White's stepmother coax her to eat in order to cast a spell over her?--a mince pie, an apple, a strawberry tart, or a roast duck?" Sample essay: "Snow White made me feel like a child again. . . ." Print order for the 32-page contest booklet was 50,000,000, roughly one for every other person in the U. S. and Canada who could read.

The campaign was billed as the first really cooperative venture in cinema history. Executive Chairman George J. Schaefer (United Artists) explained it as the same kind of campaign that gets people to eat more bread. Outside the industry it was conceded that if his salaryless committees made enough racket they might get enough new customers to pay their expenses. But no amount of racket would call off the Department of Justice's impending suit.

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