"PROVEN PICTURES"

What with newspaper ads, glittering marquees, and huge neon signs hung out on Boston's drab skyline, people are beginning to wonder about this "Proven Pictures" outfit. The thing started five years ago, when some enterprising gentleman bought up George M. Cohan's old Tremont, installed projectors, and asked the people what they wanted to see. Letters started coming in and now they average over a thousand a week. Just to check up on the proletariat's taste, the Tremont got a New York clipping bureau to send them leading newspaper reviews. When the people say please, and the critics say no, the show doesn't go on.

But the people's taste is pretty good, Proven Pictures' president says. They go for historical pictures, clean comedy, and musicals; they frown on Westerns, G-man pictures, and violent death in any from. Their favorite comedians are the Ritzes; for sheer drama they prefer Paul Muni and Barbara Stanwyck. But Jeanette MacDonald's "Naughty Marietta" holds the record; it has come back fifteen times.

The movement is growing. The solitary maiden who answered requests five years ago now has fourteen assistants to help her handle Proven Pictures' four local theatres, the Tremont, the Newsreel, the Repertory, and the (Medford) Square. A couple of weeks ago they went down to Hartford to open their twentieth theatre; they say it's the most beautiful theatre in New England, but they may be biased. It is the first of the chain to bear the Name. They think this is a wonderful idea, and every new house they open is going to be called the Proven Pictures Theatre.