Motion Picture Herald (Oct-Dec 1956)

THIS WEEK in PRODUCTION . . . Started — 3 Allied Artists — Attack of the Crab Monster (Roger Corman Prod.). Columbia — The Brothers Rico (William Goetz Prod.). United Artists — Last Gun in Durango (Peerless Prod.). . . . Completed — 12 American International — Voodoo Woman (Carmel Prods.). Columbia — The Night the World Exploded; The Young Rebels; The Bewitched. Independent — West of Suez (Amalgamated Prod.); One Man's Secret (Amalgamated Prod.). RKO Radio — The Violators (Gallahad Prod.). United Artists — Jungle Heat (Bel-Air Prods.); CrossUp (Security Pictures); The Trial of Benjie Galt (Grand Prod.). Warner Bros. — A Face in the Crowd (Newton Prods.); The Sleeping Prince (LOP Prods.). . . . Shooting — 28 Allied Art'sts — Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (Film Venturers, Inc.); Love in the Afternoon. Columbia — The Haunted; Garment Center; The Bridge on the River Kwai (Horizon-American); The Admirable Crichton (London Films); The Golden Virgin (Valiant Films). Independent — II Crido (Robert Alexander Prod.). Metro-Goldwyn-Moyer — Action of the Tiger (BlauMeyer Prods.); This Could Be the Night; The Seventh Vow (CinemaScope); Gun Glory (CinemaScope, Metrocolor); Silk Stockings (CinemaScope, Metrocolor). Paramount — The Tin Star (VistaVision); The Joker (VistaVision). RKO Radio — Escapade in Japan (Color) 20th Century-Fox — Conquest (CinemaScope; DeLuxe Color); Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (CinemaScope, DeLuxe Color); Island in the Sun (Zanuck, CinemaScope, DeLuxe Color); Boy on a Dolphin (55mm, CinemaScope, Color); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (CinemaScope, DeLuxe Color). United Artists — The Sweet Smell of Success (HechtHill-Lancaster Prod.). Universal-International — Joe Dakota (Color); The Man of a Thousand Faces (CinemaScope); Night Passage (Technirama). Warner Bros. — The Story of Mankind; Shoot-out at Medicine Bend; Lafayette Escadrille. HOLLYWOOD BUREAU The production prospect, which got to looking pretty rosy along about August with as many as 50 features in camera stage here or elsewhere under American auspices, has been graying off slowly in recent weeks without conspicuous cause. This week, for instance, the shooting total stands at 31, due to completion of 12 films last week, offset by only three starts. The happy advent of Thanksgiving possibly accounts in part for the small number of beginnings, and the imminence of Christmas and New Years may account for a further decrease in the production of major-schedule attractions. But if the total doesn’t skyrocket in January, as appears probable, the fine momentum ac J S. cene ALL-STATION SHOW ROUSES INTEREST Hollywood, Monday Esteemed Editor: Folks in show business around here still are talking about the world’s first all-station telecast conducted by a commercial sponsor, which occurred here and throughout Southern California on the night of November 10. On that night, from 11 o’clock to midnight, all 12 of the television stations that serve the six or seven million Californians resident in the lower half of this long state televised a Christmas Show sponsored by the Riviera Convertible Sofa Bed Company. The seven Los Angeles stations, the two San Diego stations on the south and the three in the Santa Barbara latitude on the north, carried to an uncounted listening audience a top-calibre program — Art Linkletter, emcee; Gene Nelson, Hildegarde, Weire Brothers, Paul Gilbert, David Rose and Orchestra, others of this stature — performed on the biggest stage in Columbia Broadcasting System’s great Television City. Several Reasons Cited The reasons why folks in show business around here still are talking about it are several, varying with the viewpoint of the individual doing the talking, and perhaps uppermost among them is the quality, the kind and the potentialities of the production. In point of quality, it was strictly network. In kind it followed the variety pattern, keeping the Christmas theme in touch but by-passing Santa Claus costuming, jingle bells, the usual trappings of a program built for children (which this one wasn’t) and pitching the material and the commercials at the mature consumer of grown-up merchandise. In potentialities it was as many-sided as show business itself. The Riviera Convertible Sofa Bed quired in mid-Summer shall have been wasted. William Goetz Productions, releasing through Columbia, started “The Brothers Rico,” featuring Richard Conte and Diane Foster, with Lewis J. Rachmil as producer and with Phil Karlson directing. “The Attack of the Crab Monsters” is a Roger Corman production for Allied Artists, with Corman also directing the cast, which includes Richard Carlson, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie Bradley, Mel Welles, Dick Cutting and Ed Melson. “The Last Gun in Durango,” starring George Montgomery, is a Peerless production, for United Artists release, produced by Robert E. Kent and directed by Sidney Salkow. Company, a two-year-old fast-growing concern, spent about $100,000 on the project, with the George Patton Agency handling the whole matter. About $75,000 of the $100,000 went for time and talent. The remaining $25,000 went for billboards, newspaper ads, television and radio spot announcements, and other promotion. The expenditure gave the Riviera Convertible Sofa Bed Company an absolute monopoly on the attention of everybody in Southern California, who turned on his television set and tuned in any channel on the dial during that hour. See Potentiality Most of the folks in show business around here are talking, of course, about the potentialities of the program within the television industry. Actors ponder on its effect on employment if the example is followed by other advertisers. Station staffs foresee both good and bad consequences, as possible emulation may affect them. Station managers, confronted with a dozen diversified considerations, are at sixes and sevens about it. Conceivably, it could alter materially the whole world of television, or it could run into Federal Communications Commission trouble and just fade away. But the motion picture exhibitors in the area regard the all-station telecast with kindly eye. They think it would be nice if more advertisers — even all advertisers — would follow the example of the Riviera Convertible Sofa Bed Company, especially if they would buy up those hours around 7, 8 and 9 P.M., when a potential theatregoer, turning to his television log to see what he can find for free, now has a choice of as many productions as there are stations in his town (in Los Angeles, seven) . An Even Chance The exhibitors figure it is seven times as easy to drag a set-owner away from one program as it is from seven, and if all stations were offering the same program at the same time, the theatre box office would have an even chance of winning the typical citizen’s time. Although nobody expects this ideal state of affairs actually to come about, it’s a pleasant thought. And in view of the enormous sales response to the company’s telecast — so tremendous that the ocmpany is preparing to open two new stores in San Francisco, and will do an all-station telecast for northern California when they’re ready — the thing could happen. That would be, exhibitors say, the day. — William R. Weaver MOTION PICTURE HERALD, DECEMBER I, 1956 29