Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1946)

10 Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, November 27, 1946 Balaban-Katz Steps ReVieWS Up Video Programs Chicago, Nov. 26. — Chicago's Balaban and Katz television station, WBKB, has launched into a production schedule, aided by acquisition of new facilities, which its owners hope will permit the achievement of the top regular operational television record in the country, and eventually lead to a stabilized weekly operation of 35 air hours. Constructed in space only recently relinquished by the Navy, a new studio permits greater mobility for technical operations. In addition, WBKB now will be able to produce types of shows heretofore impossible owing to limited quarters. Arthur Robinson Heads Variety Club Detroit, Nov. 26. — Arthur Robinson will assume the duties of chief barker of the local Variety Club in January inaugural ceremonies, and his associates will be : Robert Dunbar, first assistant ; Lew Wisper, second assistant ; Jack Zide, secretary ; Paul Broder, treasurer ; Larry Becker, Carl Burmele, Irvin Pollard, Ralph Raskin, Raymond Schreiber and Ed Stuky, canvassmen ; Arvid Kantor, present chief barker, national canvassman ; Joe Busick and Jack Zide, delegates to the national convention ; Harry Gilbert and Harold Sandleman, alternate delegates. Bookers to Have Forums The Motion Picture Bookers of New York are inaugurating a series of open meetings and forums for the discussion of current events. The first is scheduled for Monday evening, Dec. 2, with radio commentator and news analysst, George Hamilton Coombs as guest speaker. The meeting will be held in the Piccadilly Hotel, here. Waters, Rosen Promoted Weldon Waters, Albany, N. Y., manager for 20th Century-Fox, has succeeded Herman R. Beiersdorf, who resigned recently as Pittsburgh branch manager to join Eagle-Lion as district manager covering Dallas, Oklahoma City and New Orleans. Joe Rosen, a New Jersey salesman from 20th-Fox's New York exchange, replaces Waters in Albany. Rename WAA Unit To avoid confusion in the public mind between the regional War Assests Administration office of information, which primarily serves the press, and the regional sales information office, which serves buyers, the latter office has been renamed the customer service division. It handles many items used in the film business. Gidaell Back to Para. Hollywood, Nov. 26. — Sidney Gidaell, former assistant to Cecil B. DeMille, has rejoined Paramount as a producer after an absence of a year, during which he produced two films for Columbia. Edinson Joins PRC Julius (Red) Edinson, formerly with Essaness Theatres, Chicago, has been named exploiteer for PRC in the Minneapolis area, by Arnold Stoltz, director of advertising-publicity. "Lady in the Lake" (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Hollyzvood. Nov. 26 NOVELIST Raymond Chandler's private detective, Phillip Marlowe, portrayed by Dick Powell in "Murder, My Sweet," and by Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep," is enacted this time by Robert Montgomery in a film that contains all the elements of those other successes plus a distinct novelty of handling which is something the fans will talk about whether exhibitors do so in their exploitation or not. "Lady In the Lake" is, therefore, in the opinion of this addict of the Chandler melodrama, better than its predecessors by the margin of that additional novelty. It is a cinch to do top business where melodrama is what the customers buy. The novelty consists in the fact that Montgomery, who also directed the picture, appears as Marlowe only in the opening sequence and briefly at intervals thereafter, being present the rest of the while as the camera is present, with the result of making the audience seem to occupy the position of the detective. To clear that up a bit, the camera moves into and out of scenes as the detective would be seen to do if he were seen, sees what he would see and speaks, in Montgomery's voice, as he is supposed to speak. This device, expertly maneuvered by cinematographer Paul C. Vogel, has the effect of making the audience seem to be in fact the detective, and a most successful device it is for intensifying interest and suspense. Chandler's story, from a script by Steve Fisher, is laid in Los Angeles and surrounding areas, and concerns a secretary to a wealthy publisher, a body found in a lake near San Bernardino, a tough cop, various others, and the detective's adventures in finding out who murdered the dead woman and her identity. It's not a story for telling in a synopsis — being a Chandler plot, full of twists — but it is very much a story for seeing. Montgomery plays Marlowe a little less bloodily than Powell and Bogart played him, but no less forcefully, and he has the able assistance of Lloyd Nolan as the tough cop, Audrey Totter as the publisher's secretary, Tom Tully as a police captain, Leon Ames as the publisher, and several other players who turn in fine performances. Production by George Haight is perhaps the best he has done. Running time, 105 minutes. General audience classification. Release date not set. William R. Weaver Wake Up and Dream (20th Century-Fox) SEVERAL years ago, Robert Nathan published a gentle, fanciful little novel entitled "The Enchanted Voyage." It told of a middle-aged dreamer's adventurous escape from prosaic reality. The man built a sailboatwith-wheels and sailed out of his back yard on long, happy overland journey. "Wake Up and Dream," produced in eye-filling Technicolor by Walter Morosco, and directed by Lloyd Bacon, is a considerably augmented screen version of Nathan's book. The original has been expanded by script writer Elick Moll to include John Payne-June Haver heart interest, songs, a river, and a berth for precocious, wistful-eyed little Connie Marshall. Added to this star strength are Charlotte Greenwood, Clem Bevans and a host of other competent performers. Bevans plays a somewhat older dreamer, and he has for company on his partly-overland, mostly-waterways sailboat voyage Miss Haver (who seems a little too glamorous-looking in the role of a small-town waitress), John Ireland, who plays an eccentric young would-be dentist who hitches the ride, and Miss Marshall, who regards the unplanned voyage (an unexpected gale carries the occupied wheeled vessel out pf Bevans' back yard and on its way) as a searching trip for her farmer-boy brother, Payne, who had been reported missing-in-action with the Navy. The craft ultimately becomes stranded in an isolated Louisiana bayou, and its occupants almost despair of receiving help when they are rescued by a Coast Guard searching party which has been joined by Payne who had escaped death in the Pacific and returned home. Miss Marshall believes that actually she and her friends have found her brother in the bayou. This whimsical, occasionally comical, but inherently slow-moving film lapses a bit too frequently into long sieges of uninspired dialogue designed to air the homespun philosophies of its characters, and Miss Marshall's histrionic abilities are somewhat too obviously directed toward tugging at the customers' hearts. However, on the credit side we have generally pleasing performances by all (with Bevans' eccentricities and Miss Greenwood's sarcasms providing laughs), and some very acceptable singing by Payne and Miss Haver, both starry-eyed in love. Top tune: "Give Me the Simple Life." Running time, 92 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, not set. Charles L. Franke Silver Range (Monogram) Hollywood. Nov. 26 HIS fans demand a certain standard from films starring Johnny Mack Brown, and this one, unfortunately, falls below that standard. J. Benton Cheney's original screenplay is the same old stuff : this time a tale of silver smugglers operating on the Mexican border. In the course of their nefarious pursuits, they kidnap an elderly rancher. His daughter, portrayed with a singular lack of conviction and talent by Jan Bryant, calls in a range detective who, with his partner, tracks down and exposes the criminals. Lambert Hillyer's direction lacks verve. Charles J. Bigelow supervised. In the supporting cast are such familiar Western players as I. Stanford Jolley, Terry Frost, Eddie Parker, Ted Adams and Frank LaRue. Running time, 53 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, Nov. 16. Thalia Bell Tax Fight Over, 3 Theatres Reopen St. Louis, Nov. 26. — The three theatres in Sedalia, Mo., whose population is 6,000, closed for three months because of a dispute with the City Council, have reopened. The dispute started when the council placed a five per cent tax on theatre's receipts. The owners, terming the tax "exhorbitant and discriminatory" closed their houses in protest. Last week the council rescinded the ordinance. By agifc-ment the three houses will pay a\ | occupational tax of one cent on eacn ticket. Ginger Rogers in Ohio Cincinnati, Nov. 26. — Ginger Rogers, star of the Universal release, "Magnificent Doll," will make a personal appearance at Keith's Theatre here, tonight, a day before the film opens as a territorial premiere at the formal reopening of this house as a Universal theatre. Admission to the performance Wednesday will be by contributions of $5, $10 or $15 to the War Nurses' National Memorial Fund. The Keith is Universal's first "sho vcase" acquisition outside of New York. Britannica Elects Chicago, Nov. 26. — C. Scott Fletcher, executive director of the Committee for Economic Development, has been elected president of Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc., to succeed E. H. Powell. Other executives include : Dr. V. C. Arnspiger, executive vicepresident ; Dr. Melvin Brodshaug, vice-president in charge of research ; James A. Brill, vice-president in charge of production ; H. R. Lissak, vice-president in charge of domestic sales, and Dr. Theodore M. Switz, vice-president in charge of foreign sales. New Philco Dividend Phladelphia, Nov. 26. — The board of directors of Philco Corp. has declared the regular quarterly dividend of 93 Ya, cents per share on the preferred stock, series A. The dividend is payable on Jan. 1, to stockholders of record on Dec. 14. The board also declared a dividend of 20 cents per share on the common stock payable on Dec. 12, to stockholders of record on Nov. 30. Mrs. Erdmann Dies Cleveland, Nov. 26. — Mrs. George W. Erdmann, wife of the secretary of the Cleveland Motion Picture Exhibitors Association, died suddenly of heart attack Friday, at her home in Cleveland Heights. Besides her husband she is survived by a son, George Jr. and a daughter, Florence. Harper with M-G-M Cleveland, Nov. 26.— Dick Harper will cover the river territory for M-G-M, succeeding Lou Marks who has been appointed district re-print and foreign film sales representative for the company. Unusual Films Chartered Albany, N. Y., Nov. 26. — Unusual Films, Inc., has been incorporated to conduct business in New York.