Boxoffice (Apr-Jun 1961)

1 TtMcftoood defiant — By IVAN SPEAR Six Major Projects Added To Mirisch Schedule The ambitious, jet-paced Mirisch Co. maintains its production speed with the addition of six new major projects to its filmmaking agenda within the last four weeks, all to be made for United Artists release. Latest announcement from the independent company concerns a co-production arrangement with Crown-Greene-Enright Productions to film “The Idyll” in London this summer. Dan Enright and Alfred H. Crown will produce with David Greene set to direct from a script based on Shelley Smith’s novelette. Next slated to go before the cameras on the Mirisch slate is a remake of the Warner Bros, picture “Kid Galahad,” for which the independent organization bought the film rights from Warners. Elvis Presley will star in the old fight film as his second feature for Mirisch, following completion of “Pioneer, Go Home!”, which is blueprinted to roll next month. David Weisbart will produce “Kid” and “Pioneer.” As first of three coproductions with Yul Brynner’s Alciona Productions, Mirisch plans “The Mound Builders” to star Brynner in the Elliott Arnold screenplay. Producer director Gottfried Reinhardt’s “The Hiding Place,” “The Naked Truth” and “Garden of Cucumbers” are the remaining three vehicles projected by Mirisch. Billy Wilder’s “One, Two, Three” and William Wyler’s “Infamous” are currently shooting, and completed for release are “By Love Possessed,” “Town Without Pity” and “West Side Story.” Robert Lippert to Revamp Comedy Into a Musical A switch from comedy into a musical has been made by Robert L. Lippert, who has assumed the responsibility for tuning-up “Double Trouble,” the 20th-Fox film completed last November starring comics Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall. Lippert, who reportedly was given $150,000 by the studio to revamp the unreleased film, has changed the title of the picture to “Swingin’ Along,” and will add scenes and performers to the feature produced by Jack Leewood. To date, the Ray Charles Singers and vocalist Bobby Vee have joined the cast, and it’s understood that other singers will be added. 'Rich Boy' Rights to Lumet; Three Other Story Buys Story buys were of interest in the week past, with both major companies and independent filmmakers announcing purchase of vehicles for future production. Rights to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Rich Boy” were acquired by Sidney Lumet for a reported $50,000 plus a percentage of the picture’s net. Continental Distributing Co. will finance and distribute the film which Lumet will produce and direct in New York this summer starring Gloria Vanderbilt and Richard Burton in the screenplay by Walter Bernstein. Walt Disney has bought “The Incredible Journey,” novel by Shela Burnsford, also at a reported $50,000 price . . . Robert Edmond Alter’s tome, “Swamp Sister,” has been acquired for filming by Sidney Biddell and writer Fred Frank, who will script and package the novel independently . . . Stanley Frazen has purchased screen rights to “The Long Ride,” a novelette by James McKinney which appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine. Three More Commitments Set lor Judy Garland Following her return to the screen with a role in Stanley Kramer’s “Judgment at Nuremberg,” Judy Garland has agreed to play opposite Bing Crosby in “By the Beautiful Sea,” to star in “The Lonely Stage,” initial feature of the recent four-picture contract signed between Stuart Millar and Lawrence Turman with United Artists, and to dub the voice for “Gay Purr-ee,” a musical cartoon which United Productions of America will make. “Beautiful Sea,” produced on Broadway in 1955 toplining Shirley Booth, will see Miss Garland recreating the Booth role of a vaudevillian who runs a boarding house. Roger Edens will produce and Charles Walters will direct the Dorothy FieldsArthur Schwartz musical, which will mark the return of Miss Garland to MetroGoldwyn-Mayer for the first time since 1950 when she made “Summer Stock.” “Lonely Stage” is being written by Robert Dozier and is slated for lensing in London this fall. The UPA cartoon will have music by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, who are writing six songs for Miss Garland. WARNER PRODUCER HONORED — Picture of the Month Award is presented to Joshua Logan, left, producerdirector of “Fanny” for Warner Bros., by Edwin Miller, entertainment editor of Seventeen Magazine, which selected the film for June. Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer and Horst Buchholz star in the Technicolor film, which will have its world premiere at Radio City Music Hall. Millar and Turman in New 4-Picture Deal With UA A new four-picture financing and distribution deal has been completed with United Artists by Stuart Millar and Lawrence Turman, heads of Millar-Turman Productions. The four pictures must be delivered within two years, under the terms of the contract. Millar and Turman recently completed “The Young Doctors” for UA and are associated with writer Abby Mann in a separate UA-financed deal to produce “Cast the First Stone.” Their initial project will be Robert Dozier’s “The Lonely Stage,” which will be shot in London with Judy Garland starred and Ronald Neame directing. The second and third pictures will be based on originals. The fourth property has not been determined. MGM Schedules to Start 5 Comedies Before 1962 Five comedies will be put into production by the end of 1961 by Metro-GoldwynMayer, according to plans disclosed by studio head Sol C. Siegel. Currently filming is “Bachelor in Paradise,” starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner, with Ted Richmond producing and Jack Arnold helming. “The Honeymoon Machine,” produced by Lawrence Weingarten, directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Steve McQueen and Brigid Bazlen, is completed for summer release. Joseph Pasternak will produce “Jumbo” and “The Horizontal Lieutenant,” with Thorpe assigned to meg the latter. Fifth comedy is “Over the Rainbow,” to be produced by Anatole de Grunwald. Several Castings Listed; Also Miscellaneous Casting and assignment highlights: Clifton Webb has been set to costar in “The Devil Never Sleeps,” a Leo McCarey 20th-Fox production . . . Bernard Wolfe will write the story and screenplay for Curtleigh Productions’ initial film, “Playboy,” ... As his first assignment under his Warner Bros.’ contract, Frank Perkins will do the musical score for “The Couch” . . . Neville Brand will guest star as A1 Capone in Allied Artists’ “The George Raft Story” . . . Troy Donahue has been inked as the romantic-minded American in WB’s “Lovers Must Learn,” a drama of youth on a European spree. Edvard Grieg Biography Is Planned by Disney Walt Disney has announced plans to film the life story of Edvard Grieg, 19th Century Scandinavian composer, with filming blueprinted at an early date in Europe. According to Disney, the picture will combine the dramatic life of the composer with his masterly musicianship which stirred his native Norway and all Europe in a century past. 14 BOXOFFICE :: June 19, 1961