Motion Picture Daily (Jul-Sep 1953)

2 MOTION PICTURE DAILY Wednesday, July 8, 1953 Personal Mention CHARLES BOASBERG, RKO Radio general manager, left New York last night for Toronto. • Vincent M. Fennelly, Allied Art- ists producer, is the father of a son born to Mrs. Fennelly at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles. The baby will be named Kevin Patrick. • Russell Holm an, Paramount East- ern production manager, on Sunday will leave New York by plane for Hollywood. Marty Wolf, assistant general sales manager of Altec Service Corp., has arrived in Atlantic City, N. J., from here. Lou Cohen, manager of Loew's Poli, Hartford, has been elected a di- rector of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce. George Weltner, president of Par- amount International, will arrive in New York on Saturday by plane from Europe. Marion Gering, producer, and Gladys Spero, of New York, were married yesterday in Rome, Italy. • Jim Schiller, Allied Artists West Coast exploiteer, has arrived in Tuc- son, Ariz., from Hollywood. • David Cantor, RKO Radio ex- ploitation director, will leave New York today for San Francisco. • Dave Coplan, president of Interna- tional United Pictures, will arrive here tomorrow from Ottawa. • Bing Crosby and his son, Lindsay, left New York last night for Elko, Nev. Arnold Moss, actor, tomorrow will fly from New York to Hollywood. • Jules V. Levy, producer, has left New York for. Europe. 104 Italian Films To Weill for TV A two-year television distribution agreement involving advances of ap>- proximately $1,000,000 for 104 Amer- ican-language Italian films has been concluded by Jules Weill, president of Specialty Television Films, Inc., and a group of Italian producers. The deal includes Italian product produced during 1949-1953. The dub- bing program will begin immediately, and the first package of films will be ready for release by September. 'Stranger' at Criterion RKO Radio's "Affair with a Strang- er" will open at the Criterion Theatre here on Friday, Charles Boasberg, general sales manager, announced. 'Little Boy Lost 99 (Continued from page 1) formers anybody could wish to witness. Outstanding among these players is Christian Fourcade, the little boy referred to in the title, who is quite equal to the difficult assignment given him and a mighty interesting young personality besides; Claude Dauphin as Crosby's closest friend; Gabnelle Dorziat as the Mother Superior of an orphanage where the boy is sheltered; Nicole Maurey as the boy's mother, and Georgette Anys as a laundress. Crosby is seen as a radio-reporter sent to cover Paris in 1939, married to a French girl, separated from her and from their son in the Nazi invasion, and returning to Paris years later, knowing his wife was killed by Nazis during the war, to seek the son he hopes still lives. The obstacles to his search, the seeming success and abrupt frustrations, the jubilation when he believes he has found the boy, and the heartbreak when he is convinced to the contrary, together with the efforts of his friend and the boy's to help him, are what the story is about. Crosby sings a song or two along the way, altogether without pitching, and plays the part dead straight. It will be awfully hard for a parent or anybody who has ever been one to sit this out with a dry eye. And maybe that goes for everybody else, too. It will take exhibition to determine about that. Running time, 97 minutes. General audience classification. Release date, not set William R. Weaver "The Maze" (Allied Artists — Three Dimension) Hollywood, July 7 THIS would be a fine job of melodramatic narrative in any medium and it is a finer one in 3-D. Showmen who have been insisting that the proof of 3-D could not be determined until a picture came along that used stereoscopy as naturally as any of the standard tools of the trade can now be convinced of the effectiveness of the new medium. That is the way stereo- scopy is used in this expertly developed presentation of a tense mystery. There is never a moment of letdown. Terror is created logically; and the explanation, when it comes, fully justifies the situations. Richard Carlson is the top name for marquee purposes in this country, while Veronica Hurst is the best billing for bookings abroad. She is an English actress who has not been seen in American pictures before but is sure to be seen again. Others in the relatively small but capable cast are Katherine Emery, Michael Pate, John Dodsworth, Hillary Brooke, Stanley Fraser, Lillian Bond, Owen McGiveney and Robin Hughes. The principal scene is Craven Castle in Scotland to which Carlson, heir to a baronetcy, is summoned on the eve of his marriage to Miss Hurst. When he writes a strange letter in which he releases her from their engage- ment, she and her aunt go to the castle where they find so much to bewilder them' that they send for friends to join them. This is as much of the synopsis as anybody should tell. It is strongly recommended that patrons be advised to see the picture from the beginning. William Cameron Menzies, a stickler for artistic integrity, designed the production and directed its performance, both superlatively. The producer was Richard Heermance and the executive producer was Walter Mirisch. Dan Ullman wrote the script from a story by Maurice Sandoz. Harry Neumann's skill with the camera made the most of the goal for realism. Running time, 81 minutes (not counting intermission). General audience classification. July release. E. C. Grainger, Jr., A U. S. Tax Lawyer Edmund C. Grainger, Jr., son of E. C. Grainger, head of the RKO The- atres film booking department, has been appointed an attorney in the tax division in the office of the U. Sr At- torney General in Washington. _ Up to his appointment Monday, Grainger had been with the law firm of O'Brien, Diriscoll and Raftery for three years, and prior to that was with Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett for five years. 'Sword and the Rose 9 In 'Frisco July 23 Walt Disney's "The Sword and the Rose," with color in Technicolor, will have its world premiere at the St. Francis Theatre in San Francisco on July 23. RKO Radio is releasing. It will open in 350 theatres across the country early in August. Film Firms Cited by 'Financial World' Among a total of 1,923 industrial organizations and financial institutions which will be honored today by the publication "Financial World" for pre- paring informative annual reports for 1952 are Columbia Pictures, Disney Productions, Loew's, Monogram, Par- amount, Republic and 20th Century- Fox. The citations are awarded to en- courage corporations to make their annual reports more understandable and interesting. Certified Surveying 3-D The results of a five-month nation- wide survey of audience reactions to 3-D, from the very first stereotech- nique short subjects to current full- length features, will be released shortly by Certified Reports, Inc., ac- cording to its president, Jack H. Levin. Mexican Filming Is Halted by Strike MEXICO CITY, July 7.—The Labor Ministry is mulling the request of 19 producers against whom techni- cal and manual workers sections of the Picture Production Union are striking to enforce demands for a 40-hour week, that the shutdown be declared illegal. The producers say the strike has suspended the making of 44 pictures which they value at $4,000,000. The National Cinematographic Industry Workers Union (STIC) is backing the strike, in accordance with the recent friendship and solidarity pact made by STIC and STPC. The strike is not in the least affect- ing exhibition. All exhibitors here ob- tained two years of labor peace by granting their unionized help—STIC members—a 12 per cent pay hike. Foreign Product Curtailed The National Cinematographic Board, of which Jose Lelo de Larrea is chairman, placed at 310 yearly the top number of foreign pictures that can be imported, as asked by the STIC and STPC. STPC has asked President Cortines to prevent dumping in Mexico of U. S pictures which TV has made below standard for American exhibition and which, according to STPC, exhibitors in Mexico would snap up because of the very low rental prices at which these films would be offered. Meanwhile, STIC is pressuring Mexican distributors with the threat of a strike on Aug. 1, to hike salaries 12 per cent. STIC has allowed the nine U. S. companies until July 31 to meet its demand for a 10 per cent wage increase and to withdraw the companies' counter demand for time clocks for union employes. STOCK FOOTAGE Summer Sunsets, Winter Winds, Surf and Sands and Snow and Sky . . . any season or mood...easy to order from 15,000 completely cross-indexed subjects. Send for Catalogue B ^BC FILM LIBRARY 105 E. 106 St., New York ^3 (fflTr |1TP* f1Tr> flftr |Tfl* (flTT» fj^? MOVIELAB'S new preview theatre brings TO THE EAST the ultimate in projection. This theatre is equipped with 3-D, 16 mm INTERLOCK and FEATURING 35mm. THREE CHANNEL INTERLOCK PROJECTION. MOVIELAB THEATRE SERVICE. INC. 619 W 54th St., N: Y. 19, N. Y. • JUdson 6-0360 MOTION PTCTTTPF DAILY Martin Ouielev Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Terry Ramsaye, Consulting Editor. Published daily, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays by Quiglerpublishinff Company, Inc.. 1270 Sixth Ayenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Quigpubco, tf^ York"' Jr., Vice-President; Theo. J. Sullivan Vice-President and Treasurer: Raymond Levy Vice-Present; Leo J. Brady, Secretary Tames P Cunningham News Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager; Hollywood Bureau, Yucca-Vine Building, William R Weaver Editor Hollywood 7-2145- Chicago Bureau, 120 South LaSalle Street, Urben Farley, AdvertismgRepresentative, FI 6-3074; Bruce Trinz, Editorial Representative, 11 TWth Clark Street'FR 2-2843 Washington J A. Otten, National Press Club, Washington. D. C. London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London WI; Hope Burnup. Manager; Peter Burnup, Tr2;tr>r- cable address "Ouigpubco London." Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald; Better Theatres and Theatre Sales, each published 13 times a year as a section Jrf ModonPicture^Herald? MoiTon plcCe and Television Almanac; Fame. Entered as second-class matter. Sept. 21. 1938, at the post office at New York, N. Y.. under the acf of March 3/1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; single copies, 10c.