Boxoffice (Apr-Jun 1961)

PLAN S4, 000,000 GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR “SODOM”— Joseph E. Levine, president of Embassy Pictures, confers with Rank Organization officials at Embassy's first international merchandising meeting in Rome, at which a $4,000,000 promotion budget was announced to underwrite the global campaign for “The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Also in the photo are F. L. Thomas, managing director of Rank Film Distributors, Ltd., United Kingdom; Earl St. John, executive head of Rank production; and Colan E. P. MacArthur, managing director of Rank Overseas Film Distributors. Others participating in the conference were Goffredo Lombardo, president of Titanus and Edward S. Feldman, Embassy publicity director. Continental to Offer Series Of Children's Programs NEW YORK — Continental Distributing, Inc., will experiment with a group of pictures designed for children’s programs during the next few months and, if found successful, will market the films on a larger scale. Continental acquired the pictures from J. Arthur Rank about three years ago and tested them in some of the theatres of the Walter Reade circuit. Reade also heads Continental. Continental now has packaged the pictures for a sustained eight-week program and will give them trial runs in about ten selected theatres throughout the country. Among the pictures is a serial, also produced under the Rank auspices, titled “Five Clues to Fortune.” Two of the pictures are in color and each runs about 60 minutes. Continental is calling the package “The Adventure Series” and it consists of “Toto and the Preacher,” “John of the Fair,” “One Wish Too Many,” “Clue of the Missing Ape,” “The Dog and the Diamond,” “The Stolen Plans,” “Circus Friends,” “Heights of Danger” and “The Stolen Airplane.” George Lefko Will Head Midwest Sales for P-A CHICAGO — George Lefko has been appointed midwest sales manager for PatheAmerica Distributing, Inc., it was announced by Budd Rogers, president of the company. Lefko’s headquarters will be in Chicago, where for the last eight years he was Warner Bros.’ branch manager. Officers supervised by Lefko will be Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha and Kansas City. Eight Join TOA NEW YORK — Eight theatres of the Harry L. Nace circuit of Arizona have been enrolled in Theatre Owners of America. The houses are the Kachina, Scottsdale; Orpheum, Flagstaff; Elks, Prescott; Glen, Glendale; Round-Up Drive-In, Scottsdale; Phoenix Drive-In, Phoenix; Mesa and Pioneer Drive-In, Mesa. AA Will Lens 5-7 Films Last Half of the Year HOLLYWOOD — During the last half of this year, at least five, and possibly seven films will go before the cameras for Allied Artists. First to roll will be “The George Raft Story,” a Ray Danton-Jayne MansfieldBrad Dexter starrer which Ben Schwalb will produce and Joe Newman direct. Shooting is slated for July 6. Also scheduled for July is "Hitler,” a Three Crown production to be produced by E. Charles Straus and directed by Stuart Heisler with Richard Basehart in the title role. In August, King Vidor will produce-direct his Viking Productions’ “Turn in the Road.” Slated to roll in October are the Albert Zugsmith production “Confessions of an Opium Eater,” starring Vincent Price, and “Reprieve,” a Kaufman-Lubin Productions film which Ronald Lubin will produce and Millard Kaufman will helm with Ben Gazzara starring. Also being prepared are “Reckless, Pride of the Marines,” and “The Carnival Kid.” 'The Honeymoon Machine' Rushed Into July Release NEW YORK— MGM’s “The Honeymoon Machine,” which completed filming April 24, will be rushed into release in July as a summer comedy offering. An Avon production directed by Richard Thorpe, the picture stars Steve McQueen, Brigid Bazlen, Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss and Dean Jagger. MGM’s other July release is “Morgan the Pirate,” Joseph E. Levine’s adventure picture in Eastman Color, starring Steve Reeves. Resume Burma Operations NEW YORK — American film companies will resume distribution of pictures in Burma after a suspension of operations for 15 months. The companies refused to ship films to Burma because a government decree would have required distribution through Burmese commission agents. A settlement of the issues has lifted the suspension. Supermarket Promotion Set for New 'Gidget' NEW YORK — “One of the most farreaching sales promotion projects ever set in behalf of a motion picture” will be launched by Columbia Pictures for “Gidget Goes Hawaiian,” according to Jonas Rosenfield jr., vice-president in charge of advertising and publicity. This will be a contest in conjunction with several of the company’s largest supermarkets, a project which was set up by Stanley Arnold Associates, a leading merchandising consultant. Definitely set for the promotion are Kroger’s, accounting for 760 stores covering 487 cities in 16 states; Food Fair, providing 438 retail outlets covering 117 cities in 11 states, and Safeway and others now negotiating which will cover an over-all total of more than 1,300 outlets in 670 cities in 34 states in all, Rosenfield said. These supei'markets will issue to customers entry blanks (35,000,000 have been printed) with “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” contest rules and a list of prizes, 2,089 in all, starting with a grand prize of a movie contract for the winner to appear in Jerry Bresler’s next Columbia picture, “Diamond Head,” to be filmed in Hawaii. The second prize will be an all-expense-paid trip to Honolulu for two weeks, followed by other prizes of guitars, bathing suits, record albums, etc. A trailer to be shown in each local store will give details and the list of prizes. “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” played its first date in Florida June 2 but will be generally released in mid-July in saturation bookings with 400 prints to be made available, Rosenfield said. “We expect to reach more than 75 per cent of the American moviegoing population through the means of food-store displays, supermarket newspaper advertising, special motion picture screen trailers and theatre lobby displays. All this in addition to an expected 30,000,000 actual entries in the contest,” according to Rosenfield. Stanley Arnold, who was recently written up in a two-part article in The New Yorker Magazine, has specialized in “the field of excitement” by runnmg contests for Remington Rand, etc. “America’s supermarkets represent one of the truly big untapped exploitation areas for the entertainment industry in general and the motion picture field in particular,” Arnold told the motion picture tradepress at a meeting at Columbia Pictures. Two RCA Dividends NEW YORK — A quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share on the common stock of Radio Corp. of America was declared by its board, payable July 24 to stockholders of record on June 16. A dividend of 87 l/z per share on the first preferred stock was declared for the period of July 1 to September 30, payable October 2 to holders of record September 5. MGM Pays 40 Cents NEW YORK — A regular quarterly dividend of 40 cents per share has been declared by the board of directors of MetroGoldwyn-Mayer. The dividend will be payable July 14 to stockholders of record June 16. 26 BOXOFFICE :: June 12, 1961