One of the most appealing features of Box Office trade magazine was that once a fortnight it cut out the baloney, ignored all the glossy ads trumpeting a studio’s next big hit and the editorial that promised a golden future, and got down to the nitty-gritty of how movies performed once they were way down the food release chain, far removed from the big city first run houses where they premiered.
While critics pontificated and effectively told their readers what worthy movies to head for and while studios spent their advertising bucks trying to persuade the public trying to do the same (though often the films chosen by critics were not those backed by the studios), exhibitors were caught in the middle. They were the bottom line. This was where the golden buck of promise stopped – and sometimes died.
The exhibitors who fessed up in the “Exhibitor Has His Say” section were the kind of movie theaters that you’d see in The Last Picture Show, the thousands that serviced small towns well away from the big cities and which might be playing new films many months after they were first shown in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Of the cinemas features in the March 13, 1967, edition of weekly trade magazine Box Office, only one serviced a population of more than 2,500, and even then it was only 6,000.
The movies shown in these houses didn’t run a full week. At best they’d last three days, but sometimes it was only two. These cinemas would change programmes three or four times a week. But the exhibitors who contributed to this section did so on a regular basis, so other exhibitors could compare notes and everyone felt they had a voice.
The biggest participating cinemas was the Star Theatre in St Johnsbury (population 6,000) in Vermont, run by Peter Silloway. He played his big pictures Wednesday through Saturday. He made reports on three. Khartoum starring Charlton Heston was “a pretty good action picture” and based on his experience he reckoned “adults should enjoy the picture very much.” He also had a positive response to William Holden western Alvarez Kelly which he deemed “an excellent outdoor action picture and enjoyed by everyone.” He was less sanguine about Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain. “People were very disappointed…they expected to see the mystery that Hitchcock is famous for.”
Another regular contributor was Arthur K. Dame who ran the Scenic Theatre in Pittsfield (pop 2,300) in New Hampshire. The Great Sioux Massacre (playing Fri-Sat) was an “okay western” but his audiences “just won’t buy secret agents here” so that affected The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World (Fri-Sat). Flipper (Sat only) “wears well.”
Terry Axley at the New Theatre in England (pop 2,136) in Arkansas “wouldn’t especially recommend” Cary Grant comedy Walk, Don’t Run (Sun-Mon). There was “fair business” for Elvis Presley musical Spinout (Thu-Sat). How to Steal a Million (Sun-Mon) with the topline cast of Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn had “no appeal,” racking up “one of the lowest grosses in my history of show business” while results for for Rock Hudson thriller Blindfold (Sun-Mon) were “way off.”
The Calvert Drive-In at Prince Frederick (pop 2,500) in Maryland was run by Don Stott. Steve McQueen number Baby, the Rain Must Fall (Thu-Sat) “did pretty well.” But for How the West Was Won (Thu-Sat) despite the all-star cast and the marketing hullabaloo business was “only average” and the gross was “okay” for anthology The Yellow Rolls-Royce though many people left halfway through and another Steve McQueen picture Nevada Smith proved “not bad at all” and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte was a “sure crowd-pleaser.”
S.T. Jackson of the Jackson Theatre in Flomaton (pop 1,480) in Alabama did “poor business” with the reissue of Butterfield 8 (Sun-Mon) and Glen Hall of the Hall Theatre in Cassville (pop 3,000) in Missouri received “many complaints” over Lady L.
Response to Herman’s Hermits picture Hold On! (Fri-Sat) was so good that Jim Townley of the Silver Hill Theatre in Oshkosh (pop 2,500) in Nebraska “ran an extra show after the basketball game.” For The Great Race (Fri-Sat) he received a “good haul to the bank” and The Singing Nun “really drew the crowd” so much so that he “might even run it again.”
Bear in mind this is March 1967, so it gives an idea of how far down the queue such cinemas were in the food release chain. Khartoum opened in the United States in June 1966, as did Hold On! with Torn Curtain a month later. The Great Race, The Yellow Rolls-Royce and Baby, the Rain Must Fall dated back to 1965, Flipper to 1963. The Singing Nun opened in April 1966, Nevada Smith the following month. Spinout (three months) and Alvarez Kelly (six months) endured the shortest wait, How the West Was Won the longest, around four years.
SOURCE: Box Office, March 13, 1967, p42.
The Magnificent 60s 