Music Trade Review

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Talkies as an Aid
to Record Sales
Increasing number of record
artists appearing in movies
should prove sales stimulus
Record dealers have unusual
opportunity for t y i n g - u p
profitably with new pictures
The advent of the talking motion picture has
brought many unusual opportunities to various
divisions of the music industry, as well as the
problems which in some cases have been over-
emphasized to the exclusion of the benefits.
These opportunities include, among other fac-
tors, new channels for song publicity through
the increasing use of elaborate scores and theme
and feature songs in connection with films and
particularly new avenues for the exploitation of
records made by prominent artists and organ-
izations.
Talking motion pictures have already devel-
oped to a point where productions are offered
with which he is supplied either without charge
or at nominal cost.
All this publicity, however, is not going to
do the dealer a great amount of good unless he
is sufficiently far-sighted to see that he has in
stock not only records of the numbers featured
in the film production but other worth-while
records by the same artist and demonstrates
those records on every possible occasion.
The extent to which record artists have in-
vaded the talking picture field is indicated in
some measure by the number of recording
artists under contract with the Columbia Phono-
Ruth Etting
that require and utilize the services of musical
artists of wide reputation. In other words,
the first novelty of the talking film has worn
off and the public now demands and receives
productions of a calibre that compare favorably
with those offered on the stage. The result has
Paul Whiteman
Moran and Mack
been that many of those whose performances
have in the past become generally familiar to
the public through talking machine records are
now being featured in film either as stars or in
prominent positions. All this means that the
talking machine and record dealers throughout
the country are presented with unusual oppor-
tunities for tying up directly with the local
screen appearances of these artists.
In the stage production, whether a musical
comedy or vaudeville, the dealer must wait
until the interests aroused by the music or per-
formance of the artists in New York, Chicago,
or elsewhere, makes itself felt in his community
or until the show or act itself is presented in
his own locality. With the talking pictures,
however, the situation is changed inasmuch as
there are first run houses located in practically
every city and large town throughout the coun-
try and the pictures are shown in Utah, Texas
and in Mississippi at about the same time they
are seen in Boston, New York, Chicago or San
Francisco. Then they pass on to the smaller
theatres and in the. average city dealers have
several opportunities to tie up with the fi'nis
and profit by increased record sales thus de-
veloped.
At the present time there is no real excuse
for the dealer failing to capitalize on the local
appearance of a prominent record artist through
the medium of the talking film. In the first place,
the coming of the picture is thoroughly adver-
tised well in advance by the theatre itself and
a considerable publicity regarding it is run in
the local newspapers. Then, again, record manu-
facturers are strongly lined up with the pic-
ture interests naturally and are at present pro-
ducing a great amount of publicity material for
the dealer's use of which he is duly advised and
Cliff Edwards
10
•-f
Ted Lewis
graph Co. who have appeared or will shortly
appear on the screen. For instance, there is Ted
Lewis, "The High-hatted Tragedian of Jazz,"
who has completed the Vitaphone picturizatijn
(Continued on page 24)
Jan Garber