[5] The average cost per FBO production was $50,000 to $75,000 equivalent to $939,264 to $1,408,897 in 2021 compared to the Major film studios which could spend five times as much to produce a movie.

FBO also produced and distributed a limited number of big-budget features labeled "Gold Bond" or "Special" productions.

"[7] "Between the 1922 reorganization of Film Booking Office of America and October 1923, Pat Powers, as one of the company's new American investors, was effectively in command.

Before FBO even considered allowing a neophyte to direct his first film, Johnson had to convince them to finance a non-comedic movie about police officers.

During his career at FBO, he would earn titles like the Master of Melodrama, King of Exploitation, and Hero of the Working Class.

[d] Johnson would continue to thrive as an independent director because he did not just make epic films; he made bankable movies focusing on subjects he and his mother held dear.

This movie would persist in the same vein as former films and praised government personnel like police, firefighters, and railway engineers.

While the movies revolved around the average Joe, Johnson and his mother also needed to balance an action film and a sentimental story for female viewers.

Bravery, dedication, honor, kinship, loyalty, love, morality, obligation, sacrifice, and tenacity are concepts entwined in this entire Johnson film and become the essence of the movie.

These films featured a mature father, a mother figure, a devoted son, a beautiful young female lead, and a sprinkling of child actors.

Emilie Johnson wrote stories about lunch pail characters living paycheck-to-paycheck like law enforcement officers, firefighters, mail carriers, railroad engineers, patriots, baseball players, and newspaper press operators.

As opposed to other companies' practice of debuting a film in New York or Los Angeles, FBO staged a premiere double-header.

A world premiere took place in Los Angeles, and then the movie began an indefinite run in New York City a week later.

[63] The gala surrounding the movie included the mail workers' band of sixty pieces serenading the Postmaster of the city and "monster radio jollification" broadcast to two million listeners featuring speeches, songs, and brief talks by Ralph Lewis, Johnnie Walker, Dave Kirby and others of the "Mailman" cast.

There were also banners announcing the showing of "The Mailman" and tying up with the "Do your Xmas shopping early" movement were hung on all mail delivery and collection wagons.

Although the parade's purpose was to honor the movie-making companies, FBO dominated the procession with "over 200 uniform carriers, carrying 10-foot banners and led by the postal clerk's band, swung down Broadway, advertising to the people lining the curve that the picture was coming to the cameo theater.

"[69] Finally, The Mailman opened at the Cameo Theatre on November 25, 1923, for an indefinite run with "an exploitation campaign, rivaling anything ever attempted by the film booking offices".

When The Mailman opened at the Cameo Theatre, FBO planned "an exploitation campaign, rivaling anything ever attempted by the film booking offices".

FBO would provide a newspaper-size campaign book if the theater owners had questions about employing revue-producing strategies for this film.

These films primarily focus on family dynamics, centering around characters who face adversity and exploring themes of duty and love.

We see phrases like, "The film is a quiet affair," "the entire cast means well", and "commercial heroes that drag in every conceivable kind of melodramatic thrill" mixed with "Young producer's biggest production effort.

It has the same sincerity and simplicity of theme with an undercurrent of drama, terminating in an exciting climax.Like its predecessors, The Mailman makes its great appeal to the masses.

"[83]"Emory Johnson's picture, should be a box-office winner, it is an exceedingly entertaining melodrama, with a simple, direct story that will undoubtedly appeal to the moviegoers.

There is a large demand for the old-fashioned, tear-jerking, and sympathy-compelling mellers, but most producers slap together a picture of this sort with so little care that they are frightfully crude and amateurish.

Movie magazines would show the film's branding, critical reviews and publish other managers' viewpoints, including attendance numbers and revenue.

While the family is cash-strapped, Dan has saved money for his son's (Terrence) education and the adoption of a little girl left on their doorstep.

Using an advertising ploy borrowed from the FBO campaign books, Vitagraph made the Whitman Bennett production with the full cooperation and assistance of the United States Postal Service.

— Whitman Bennett has got the cooperation of the post office department in Washington in filming his production for Vitagraph "Loyal Lives," a romance of the mail carrier and his life.

Under orders from Postmaster General Harry New, the assistant postmaster general, Paul Henderson, accompanied by a staff of postal officials, made a special trip from Washington to New York to personally arrange the technical details and supervise the staging of a spectacular mail train hold-up scene that will be one of the outstanding features in the production.

The company recruited a well-known director, used identical Irish character names, then employed the same exploitation techniques in advertising pioneered by FBO.