Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-04-30
EDUCATIONAL FILMS
NOW ESTABLISHED
As REAL FEATURES
Young Hamm0ns Has Made
His Short Subjects
Indispensable.

picture industry.
This man will be far removed from
the present day and it's influences, viii
be totally unbiased, because he will b,
dealing with events of the past. will
which he has had no intimate persona
association; and his story will not
only be interesting reading. but it will
in addition, undoubtedly. appeal to his
auditors as one of the most romantic
pages of the industrial history of the
world.
Possibly no other commercial activ-
ity contains as many of the kaleido.
l scopic changes as does the industry.
and surely no other contains. even in
a small measure it's vast amount OF
commercial romance. The whole com
mercial aspect of the motion picture
industry could be very well likened to
a turbulent sea. which is constantly
churning and flashing its force on the
sands, each wave which had the strong
est force, the greatest impetus, leaves
its indelible mark upon the sands, high
above the point where its mates strug-
gled, crashed and were lost.
Many Have Failed
In the short period of 10 or 20 years
since the motion picture industry as
" ~ az was GohNh SCkl-
Ously, there have been countless con-
Germs which have come into being, and,
because the time vas not ripe for their
development, because their policy was
not in tune with the period, or vision
was lacking, they have veen churned
up in the sea of strenuous activities
created in these short years. A few
were strong. basically sound. endowed
with great vision. and they have en-
dured.
One Of the most spectacular CONNER
cial successes of the many in this in
dustry has been the development of
Educational Film Exchanges. Inc. The
writer, in portraying the meteoric
career of this concern. has tried TO be
as impersonal as possible in confin-
ing himself exclusively to chronolog
ical facts, keeping free from all faint
of personal publicity, yet. the career
of this concern is so closely interwov-
en- with n mans personality that the
tale would be incomplete without men
ton of his name.
Capital. energy, service to your Gus
toners. are all prominent elements of
the success of any business. In addi-
ton to these attributes. any business
to be successful must be founded on
broad vision. Without vision no bust
ness ever reaches the ultimate goal of
its possibilities.
Had to Convert Public
Educational owes it's entire exist
ence to the broad guage business vision
Of E. w. HammOns, its founder and
president, and to his indomitable de-
termination to carry through to a suc-
cessful conclusion his conception of
what Educational is today, in spite of
the almost insurmountable business
~prejudices with which he was surround
ed when he started seven years ago.
He visualized the taking of what others
regarded as dross, and making of it a
force. a compelling force, in one of the
largest industries of the world. He
realized that to do this he had to com
bat all the prejudices, the customs and
the fears which surrounded his ideas.
and, in addition. the Indifference of
the men in whose field he had chosen
his life work.
He assigned himself to the task of
changing not only the opinion of the
buyers in his industry, but the public
as well; of converting all to his con-
ception Of the value he saw where
others saw nothing-1or, next to moth
ing. He said: Il shall make the
bbJtt ina iS Oud JUST u II
Ter, a piece of program footage, that is
run simply because it in the can
with the feature, as important as the
feature itself, yeS-in instances, the
feature.
There were some in the industry who
doubted at times Mr.. Hammons' san
His friends very aptly pointed
out to him that short subjects were
of such minor Importance in the ex-
hibitor mind that no adequate rental
could be secured for anything but fea-
ture-length pictures. Various produc-
ers were approached, and many of
them while the sympathized with Mr..
and what they regarded as
his youthful enthusiasm) remained I'M
convinced as to his ability to create q
real. vital interest in short subjects of
because of the great handi- |
zap of indifference and prejudice which |
stood before him like a blank wall.
Faith Well Placed
1t then became a problem of finance
and distribution. Mr.. Hammons real
lied that. before he could attack his
of exceptionally high quality |
short subjects, made by producers
whose very business integrity would
guarantee a consistently sustained high !
and that he must in turn so
mold a distributing organization that
these products, upon delivery. could
90 Immediately into general use-oth-
his whole structure would be |
swamped.
Mind you this man had nothing en-
.ouraging to go upon but he did have
conditions which would have been alb
solutely discouraging to many another
nan. The only b%uoyancy in the whole
was in his %unbounded en-
-husiasm. and his absolute faith in
he exhibitors of the country. And
line has proven that his faith was
veil placed. for in the number of ex-
libitor customers the corporation has
,rown rapidly. until today, Educa-
ional is serving over 1000 theaters
very week of the year. During the
irst full year of its existence. 1921,
Educational released and distributed
yer $1,000 prints. and it took this vast
of prints of it's various re-
eases to properly serve exhibitor GUS
Omers.
Educational has developed one of
he largest ~eggregations of specialists
Who devote their entire energies to
he short subject field exclusively.
his is the policy upon which the cor
'oratiOn was founded, and the policy
pom which it is proceeding, and the
'olicy which the corporation believes
viii endure.