Motion Picture Herald (Jan-Mar 1954)

by WILLIAM R. WEAVER Hollywood Editor THERE IS g'ood reason to watch closely the exhibition career of a comedy entitled “The Long, Long Trailer,” which was previewed here last week to an unexpectant audience which laughed itself into happy hysteria. For if its reception across country is as indicative of customer-satisfaction as was the case in this instance — an unanimous outburst of wholesome appreciation — the picture very well might mark a turning point in production policy. May Turn Studios Again To Making Series Comedies It might turn the major studios back to the making of series comedies, and that might be a very good thing for the motion picture theatre business at this point in the road. “The Long, Long Trailer” is not a series comedy. It is a production in color of a book of the same name by Clinton Twiss. But it has in full plenty the characteristics of a series comedy, and it is related directly to that kind of picture in two important respects. It co-stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, two of the most successful performers in series comedy ever offered the public, and it is a joint creation of Pandr o S. Berman, Vincente Minnelli, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, the amiable and congenial creators (as producer, director and co-writers) of that great two-picture series, “Father of the Bride” and “Father’s Little Dividend.” Thus favored, it fits perfectly the purposes of a possible reconsideration of studio policy with respect to (1) series comedies and (2) television talent. No Similar Comedies Since Days of “Hardy” Family With the exception of the Ma and Pa Kettle comedies that came from the Universal-International in the wake of “The Egg and I,” Hollywood hasn’t done a straightout job of producing and presenting series comedies since the Hardy Family was whisked away from the trade and public for whatever reasons at that time were deemed sufficient. Yet the Kettle pictures, which were budgeted at a fraction of the Hardy Family costs, piled up abundant proof of the unslaked public thirst for homespun humor, as well as prodigious profits, monetary and public relations-wise. It was not so many long years ago that the major studios were putting out series pictures in steady supply — Dr. Kildare, Charlie Chan, the Jones Family, the forever unforgettable Harry Sherman Hoppies, and so on — and the theatres of the land could count, sure as sunshine, on a firmly fixed amount of revenue on the day it ran the current release in a contracted series. They have had no such rent-paying certainties since. Several Reasons Named, Including High Costs Three or four general reasons are mentioned around town, if one presses for explanation, for the termination of series-picture production. Possibly the most tangible among them is the rise in production costs, indubitably tremendous over the past decade, which is cited as placing the print-delivery price at a figure impossible to retrieve. (Offset against that is, naturally, the singularly fixed nature of the series-picture return, one of the few fixed figures in a typically fluctuant business, and mighty useful to have around when talking a banker or an angel into a state of mind to foot a production bill.) Another explanation is that players — Mickey Rooney is the chief exhibit in support of this contention — grew up, grew out of character, or tired of it, and in one way or another (death took a couple of Chans; certain other series-picture players hiked their stipend requirements) made going ahead too difficult to be undertaken. It is maintained by some, also, that the format, the story line, the characters, or all three, wear out, but the Bowery Boys (nee Dead End Kids) have blown that theory to smithereens long since. The other side of this fascinating coin may be seen by turning on television set, or running a casual eye over the television log in your local newspaper, at any given time and place. In a word, the series type of comedies that the theatrical motion picture producers are not making any more, for whatever reasons, are flourishing lustily in the video field — more lustily than any other type of entertainment. TV can’t begin to do them as well as" cinema used to do them — and could again — but the television medium, with a considerable degree of success is doing them. May Lure Back Some Now Hugging TV Receivers How many of the millions who used to love the Hardy families and their kind in the theatre are staying home from the theatre to see them on television nowadays is a figure nobody can name with complete accuracy, up to now, but a more interesting and valuable figure would be the number iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiimimiiiiiiiii THIS WEEK IN PRODUCTION: STARTED (2) COLUMBIA Human Beast COMPLETED (I) MGM Prisoner of War Story (Ansco color) SHOOTING (20) COLUMBIA Waterfront INDEPENDENT Bullet Is Waiting (Welsch; Technicolor) MGM Brigadoon (CinemaScope; Ansco color) Student Prince (CinemaScope; Ansco color) Bride for Seven Brothers ( CinemaScope; Eastman color) Beau Brummell (Eastman color) Valley of the Kings (Technicolor) PARAMOUNT Conquest of Space (Technicolor) Rear Window nicolor) RKO Big Rainbow (Technicolor) independent Desperate Men (Bogeaus; Eastman; ScenicScope) Susan Slept Here (Technicolor) 20TH-FOX Garden of Evil (CinemaScope; Technicolor) Universal Black Shield of Falworth (CinemaScope; Technicolor) Sign of the Pagan ( CinemaScope; Technicolor) Playgirl WARNER Talisman (CinemaScope; WarnerColor) Ring of Fear (WayneFellows; CinemaScope; WarnerColor) Lucky Me (CinemaScope; WarnerColor) Star Is Born (CinemaScope; WarnerColor) High and Mighty ( Wayne-Fellows; CinemaScope; W arne rColor) II 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 m s i • 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 of those former theatregoers who might resume that happy habit if the theatres resumed production of series-comedies. Idle speculation? For the moment — yes. But watch “The Long, Long Trailer.” Its box office record may take this whole matter out of the realm of speculation into the sunlight of plain dollar-and-cents arithmetic. And it may shed valuable light, also, on the question of the usefulness of TV stars in motion pictures. Two pictures were started during the last week of 1953. Lewis J. Rachmil started “The Human Beast,” Columbia, directed by Fritz Lang, and with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford and Edgar Buchanan in the cast. Benedict Bogeaus launched “Desperate Men,” for RKO release, in Eastman color and in what he calls ScenicScope, a process concerning which there will be a story in these columns at a later date, and with Allan Dwan directing John Payne, Lizabeth Scott and others. 28 MOTION PICTURE HERALD, JANUARY 9, 1954