Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1956)

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J^ofiuwoocl Si » cene HOLLYWOOD AS SEEN BY TV New Subject A Directors Trial: Sidney HOLLYWOOD: “It’s like going back to college to learn a new profession,” declares George Sidney, “When a director undertakes to film an important picture on a new subject. And it’s a great educational experience. “This also applies to biographical productions, particularly those which deal with modern-day personalities, on which relatively little subjectmatter has been published.” Mr. Sidney, after 24 years under contract at MGM, now heads his own independent company, with a releasing contract at Columbia, where he is starting a new program of pictures with “The Jeanne Eagles Story,” starring Kim Novak. “A director who can choose a variety of subjects derives the most personal satisfaction,” continued Mr. Sidney, now serving his sixth consecutive term as president of the Screen Directors Guild. “And by varying his material, picture to picture, he makes his job more interesting, as well as enlightening.” U-l Ad Conference Held in Hollywood Universal-International advertising, publicity and exploitation executives will hold a week-long conference at the Universal-International studios Monday, October 8, it was announced last week by David A. Lipton, Universal vice-president, who will preside. The purpose of the week-long series of meetings will be to develop and implement promotional plans on U-I’s forthcoming films. Attending from New York will be Charles Simonelli, eastern advertising and publicity manager; Philip Gerard, eastern publicity manager; Jeff Livingston, eastern advertising manager; Herman Kass, eastern exploitation manager, and Robert Gilham, of Cunningham and Walsh, Universal’s advertising agency. Also Ben Katz, midwest advertising and publicity, Chicago. From the studio will be Clark Ramsay, executive assistant to Mr. Lipton; Jack Diamond, studio publicity director; Archie Herzoff, studio advertising and promotion manager; James Raker, studio advertising department head, and George Lait, assistant studio publicity director. " Karamazov " Planned MGM announces that it has started pre-production preparations on the filmization of Feodor Dostoevski’s novel, “The Brothers Karamazov.” Millard Kaufman is writing the screenplay and Pandro S. Berman has been assigned as producer. Hollywood, Monday Esteemed Editor: Folks around here are wondering today what folks around New York and the nation thought of the Hollywood they saw yesterday on NBC’s Wide Wide World telecast. Because most folks around here think the motion picture capital of the world has been given a far more accurate representation in a good many of its own motion pictures filmed for exhibition on theatre screens than it got at the hands of General Motors’ videographers in Sunday’s 90 minutes of smog-free sunshine. It is realized, of course, that prejudice may figure to some extent in the community thinking on the subject, but it’s in the nature of a consensus that TV took professional pains to make sure the minor medium didn’t suffer by comparison with the major medium it explored. Expectation had been higher than it might have been if Art Linkletter, in another 90-minute telecast over the same network last year, hadn’t shown TV-sitters a Beverly Hills that nobody, including the citizens of that proud place, could complain of in any particular. It was reasonable to expect that, this many months later, the network’s craftsmen, enriched by that experience, would contrive a beglamorization of Hollywood beyond dramatic precedent. Instead, they chose to go literal, businesslike, documentary, and these were never Hollywood’s best holds. Lean, Hungry Look Although the trade here understands why several of the great studios didn’t show, nor their head men or top players, the wide, wide world to which the telecast was beamed did not, properly, and to the millions of plain box office customers in viewing range of TV receivers the Hollywood that NBC showed them must have had a lean and hungry look. And Hollywood is neither lean nor hungry. Until the news from outside the Hollywood hills filters back to the townspeople, folks around here will be wondering whether they were done right by. • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which last week declared its bold intention of building a motion picture museum in Hollywood, is in the news again this week with announcement of a new rule under which Academy members will have a voice, hereafter, in the awarding of the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film. Most people who read about the Oscar awardings each year never knew until now, of course, that the Acad emy board of governors took care of this matter without the aid of the Academy members, and maybe that would have been a good way to leave the thing. Now that announcement’s been made about a rule taking this voting power out of chambers, so to speak, and handing it over to the membership, it’s more or less imperative to make it known widely that none of the other major awards are decided upon privately by the board of governors. Under the new rule there’s a lot more work for everybody to do, without much visible gain in result. Formerly the award has been honorary, and there was no necessity for giving one in a year when no foreign-language film of distinction happened to be in evidence. Hereafter the award must be made each year, whether or no, and naturally there will be none of those “no” years. Wondrous Procedure To be eligible a film must have been produced by a foreign company within certain dates and must have a non-English sound track. It must be accompanied by a story synopsis written in English, but not necessarily in a dubbed version, and there’s to be a committee that will look at the submitted films and select five of them to be shown the Academy members. The Academy has come up with some pretty wondrous procedures in its long and troubled career, but surely none more wondrous than this. Nevertheless, the Academy’s executive director set off at weekend on a month’s tour of Europe, to explain the new rule to organizations over there, and it is disclosed that the Academy’s president did some globe-trotting in its behalf earlier in the year. Altogether, in whatever language, the Academy appears to have waxed world-minded with a bang. — William R. Weaver Film Stars Aid U.S. Bond Sale Campaign WASHINGTON : Several film stars are taking part in a Treasury Department “Freedom Fair” this week in Arlington, Va., just across the Potomac River. The Fair, which will continue through October 8, has as its theme the continuing importance of Government savings bonds. Leading Government agencies had exhibits at the Fair, showing the way savings bond money is put to use by the Government. MOTION PICTURE HERALD, OCTOBER 6, 1956 31