Boxoffice barometer (1954)

RKO Radio (Cont'd) SECOND CHANCE (Drama). Stars: Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell, Jack Palance. Producer: Sam Wiesenthal (An Edmund Grainger Production). Director: Rudolph Mate. Original Screenplay: Oscar Millard, Sydney Boehm. • Tense drama unfolds in a South American country for a group of passengers, including ex-sweetheart of U.S. gangster, a professional killer sent to murder her, and an American prizefighter, who are stranded in a broken cable car suspended high above the earth. In Technicolor. July 18, 1953. THE SWORD AND THE ROSE (Historical Drama). Stars: Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, James Robertson Justice, Michael Gough. Producer: Perce Pearce (Walt Disney Productions). Director: Ken Annakin. Original: Charles Major. Screenplay: Lawrence E. Watkin. • King Henry VIII offers his sister's hand in marriage to Louis XII, France's aging king, while the commoner captain of the guards, whom she really loves, battles court intrigue to win her. In Technicolor. Aug. 8, 1953. Coming THE AMERICANO (Action Drama). Stars: Glenn Ford, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero. Producer: Robert Stillman. Director: Budd Boetticher. Original Screenplay: not set. • Glenn Ford, a Texan, becomes involved with a brunette beauty and a murder mystery when he tries to deliver a fortune in prize cattle to a Brazilian rancher. THE BIG PLAY (Action Drama). Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell (incomplete). Producer: Dick Powell. Director: not set. Original: Eleanor Pryor. Screenplay: Borden Chase. • Texas oilfields in 1929 form the background for this action entry. THE BIG RAINBOW (Drama). Stars: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Gilbert Roland. Producer: Harry Tatelman. Director: John Sturges. Original Screenplay: Hugh King, Robert Bailey. o Filmed on location in Hawaii, in Technicolor, this concerns a girl and two former navy frogmen who embark on a search for a long-submerged treasure. BREAKAWAY (Drama). Stars: not set. Producer-Director: Dick Powell. Original: Leon Ware. Screenplay: William Bowers. © Concerns the efforts of a veteran of World War II to readjust himself to the more humdrum life of a civilian. CARNIVAL STORY (Drama). Stars: Anne Baxter, Steve Cochran, Lyle Bettger. Producers: Maurice and Franklin King. Director: Kurt Neumann. Original: Marcel Klauber, C. B. Williams. Screenplay: Hans Jacoby, Kurt Neumann. ® Fi'med in Germany, this deals with a small American carnival show that has just arrived in Munich. Anne Baxter joins the show, is taught a high-diving act by Lyle Bettger, and falls in love with him, but their marriage is threatened by Steve Cochran, the carnival's advance man, whose attractions Anne cannot resist. In 3-D and color. DANGEROUS MISSION (Action Drama). Stars: Victor Mature, Piper Laurie, Vincent Price. Producer: Irwin Allen. Director: Louis King. Original Screenplay: not set. ® Witness to a gangland killing. Piper Laurie hides out in Glacier national park, but a finger man, Vincent Price, trails her there. Victor Mature, of the district attorney's office in New York, also locates Piper, who is wanted to testify. Price tries to abduct Piper and escape, but is killed in an avalanche and Piper agrees to return east with Mature. FOUR DESPERATE MEN (Western). Stars: John Payne, Lizabeth Scott. Producer: Benedict Bogeaus. Director: Allan Dwan. Original Screenplay: Karen De Wolf. • John Payne, a citizen of an Arizona community in the 1880s, is unjustly accused of murder. Violence flares when he faces the townspeople who have turned against him. In Technicolor and ScenicScope, a wide-screen anamorphic process. THE FRENCH LINE (Romantic Comedy). Stars: Jane Russell, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Hunnicutt. Producer: Edmund Grainger. Director: Lloyd Bacon. Original Screenplay: Mary Loos, Richard Sale. © Jilted by her fiance because she is "too rich," Jane Russell, Texas oil heiress, travels incognito to Europe aboard a palatial French liner. She poses as a model and falls in love with Gilbert Roland, a dashing French musical comedy star; they quarrel but are reunited when Jane is sure he is not romancing her just for her money. In 3-D and color. DON QUIXOTE (Comedy-Drama). Stars: not set. Producer: Walt Disney. Director: not set. Original: Miguel Cervantes. Screenplay: Larry Watkin. • This is planned as a live-action subject in Technicolor, for production in England, and dealing with the medieval adventures of Don Quixote, the slightly-addled Spanish nobleman. GAMBLER MOON (Western). Stars: not set. Producer: Edmund Grainger. Director: not set. Original Screenplay: Thames Williamson. • A justice of the peace in the old west relentlessly pursues an outlaw despite the fact that he and the desperado are in love with two sisters. THE GIRL RUSH (Musical Western). Stars: Rosalind Russell (incomplete). Producer: Frederick Brisson (Independent Artists). Director: not set. Original Screenplay: Leonard Gershe. • To be filmed in Technicolor, this is described as a musical extravaganza with a western background. JET PILOT (Drama). Stars: John Wayne, Janet Leigh, J. C. Flippen. Producer: Jules Furthman. Director: Josef von Sternberg. Original: Beirne Lay jr. Screenplay: Beirne Lay jr., Jules Furthman. • Janet Leigh is cast as an espionage agent in the employ of a foreign power which is attempting to steal top-secret information about U. S. jet aircraft. John Wayne is an air force officer with whom she becomes involved, and who foils the plot. In Technicolor. KILLERS FROM SPACE (Science-Fiction Drama). Stars: Peter Graves, Barbara Starr, James Seay. ProducerDirector: W. Lee Wilder. Original Screenplay: not set. • A race of supermen from another planet tries unsuccessfully to invade the earth. MAUD (Drama). Stars: Robert Preston, Marjorie Steele (incomplete). Producer: Huntington Hartford. Director: not set. Original: Louis Auchincloss. Screenplay: not set. • Concerns the failure of a Boston society girl to conform to the traditions of her family until she is reunited, during the war, with an aviator whom she had previously jilted. PILATE'S WIFE (Biblical Drama). Stars: not set. Producer-Director: King Vidor. Original: Clare Booth Luce. Screenplay: not set. © In which Biblical subject the central character is the wife of Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator in Judea, under whose orders Christ was crucified. REBEL ISLAND (Drama). Stars: not set. ProducerDirector: Edward Ludwig. Original: Adele Comandini. Screenplay: Bruce Manning. • This adventure drama has a Bahamas locale. ROB ROY (Costume Drama). Stars: Richard Todd. Glynis Johns. Producer: Walt Disney. Director: Harold French. Original Screenplay: Larry Watkin. • Filmed in Technicolor, on location in England and Scotland, this is based on the exploits of the famed Scottish outlaw, Rob Roy, portrayed by Richard Todd. SHE COULDN'T SAY NO (Romantic Comedy). Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Arthur Hunnicutt. Producer: Robert Sparks. Director: Lloyd Bacon. Original: D. D. Beauchamp. Screenplay: D. D. Beauchamp, William Bowers, Richard Flournoy. © Jean Simmons, madcap oil heiress, journeys to a small Arkansas community and is amazed to find the inhabitants rely upon the barter system instead of cash. Becoming romantically involved with Robert Mitchum, the town doctor, she also upsets the economic balance with a unique sharethe-wealth system. THE SILVER HORDE (Action Drama). Stars: not set. Producer: Edmund Grainger. Director: not set. Original: Rex Beach. Screenplay: Zachary Gold, Sydney Boehm. • This Technicolor outdoor drama, adapted from a novel by Rex Beach, concerns the annual salmon run in Alaska. SON OF SINBAD (Romantic Drama). Stars: Dale Robertson, Mari Blanchard, Vincent Price. Producer: Robert Sparks. Director: Ted Tetzlaff. Original: Aubrey Wisberg, Jack Pollexfen. Screenplay: Jeff Bailey. • Sinbad (Dale Robertson) is sentenced to death for visiting the khalif's harem once too often. The khalif agrees to release Sinbad when a Greek scholar informs he has a secret with which Tammerlane, barDarian invader, can be conquered. The plan works, Sinbad wins the girl of his choice and the khalif makes him second in command. In 3-D and Technicolor. SUSAN SLEPT HERE (Romantic Comedy). Stars: Debbie Reynolds, Dick Powell, Glenda Farrell. Producer: Harriet Parsons. Director: Frank Tashlin. Original: Alex Gottlieb, Steve Fisher. Screenplay: Alex Gottlieb. • A young orphan, Debbie Reynolds, is picked up by the police while wandering around the streets. In order that she can enjoy a nice Christmas before being sent to a juvenile home, she is paroled temporarily in the care of Dick Powell — with unexpected romantic results. TASKER MARTIN (Drama). Stars: not set. Producer: Dick Powell. Director: not set. Original: Diana Gaines. Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz. © In this story of present-day big business, an industrial tycoon learns — through an impulsive fling at the simple life — how much he has missed in his brilliant, ruthless career. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Adventure Drama). Stars: Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre. Producer: Walt Disney. Director: Richard Fleischer. Original: Jules Verne. Screenplay: Earl Felton. • Jules Verne's classic adventure tale about Captain Nemo, the man who lived beneath the sea in a submarine, is to be brought to the screen as a live-action feature in Technicolor and CinemaScope. YOU CAN'T JUDGE A LADY (Comedy). Stars: Rosalind Russell, Marie Wilson (incomplete). Producer: Frederick Brisson (Independent Artists). Director: not set. Original: John Marshall. Screenplay: not set. • A TV actress and a gangster's moll become buddies through a series of front-page adventures. REPUBLIC (November 15 through December 1953) FLIGHT NURSE (War Drama). Stars: Joan Leslie, Forrest Tucker, Arthur Franz. Producer-Director: Allan Dwan. Original Screenplay: Alan LeMay. • Joan Leslie, flight nurse in the U.S. air force, asks for duty in Korea, hoping she will meet there Arthur Franz, a helicopter pilot, with whom she is madly in love. Forrest Tucker, a seasoned airevacuation pilot, falls in love with her, and Joan renounces Franz to work side by side with Tucker in the war's hardship and suffering. Nov. 15, 1953. GERALDINE (Musical Comedy). Stars: John Carroll, Mala Powers, Jim Backus. Producer: Sidney Picker. Director: R. G. Springsteen. Original: Doris Gilbert, Peter Milne. Screenplay: Peter Milne, Frank Gill jr. • Mala Powers, who manages the singing career of egocentric Stan Freberg, romances John Carroll, an earnest young college professor, to get the rights to a song written by Carroll and which Freberg wants to add to his repertoire. Carroll unwittingly becomes a recording star, is acclaimed by the students and realizes he's really in love with Mala. Dec. 1953. RED RIVER SHORE (Western). Stars: Rex Allen, Slim Pickens, Lyn Thomas. Producer: Rudy Ralston. Director: Harry Keller. Original Screenplay: Arthur Orloff, Gerald Geraghty. • Marshal Rex Allen discovers a respected rancher has falsely reported the discovery of oil on his ranch, induced neighbors to invest $25,000 in a bogus well, and then engineered a robbery before the money is deposited. Rex and the son protect the father's name after he is killed before oil is really found. Dec. 15, 1953. Coming THE ALAMO (Historical Western). Stars: not set. Producer: not set. Director: not set. Original Screenplay: not set. • In Trucolor, this is a story of the famous Texas fortress, the heroic defense of which during the Mexican War was a salient factor in bringing the Lone Star State into the union. BROTHER VAN (Outdoor Drama). Stars: not set. Producer-Director: Joseph Kane. Original Screenplay: Robert Hardy Andrews, Kenneth Garnet. • An itinerant Methodist preacher brings the word of God to pioneers in Montana during the gold rush days. In Trucolor. THE DAKAR STORY (Drama). Stars: not set. Producer-Director: John H. Auer. Original Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg. • Intrigue and adventure in Africa furnish the theme for this action drama. FURY IN PARADISE (Drama). Stars: Peter Thompson, Rea Iturbide, Edward Noriega. Producer-Director: George Bruce (Nepix Corp.) Original: George Bruce. Screenplay: not set. • This action drama is scheduled for filming on location in Mexico. It will be photographed in Trucolor. THE GABRESKI STORY (Biographical Drama). Stars: not set. Producer: not set. Director: not set. Original: Richard Tregaskis. Screenplay: not set. e A biography of Col. Francis Gabreski, one of the greatest living American aces of World War II and the Korean conflict. THE GREAT H-BOMB ROBBERY (Melodrama). Stars: not set. Producer-Director: Joseph Kane. Original: Bob Considine. Screenplay: Richard Tregaskis. • This topical drama deals with the theft of a multi-million-dollar atomic secret by international espionage agents, and how they are captured by the F.B.I. HELL'S HALF ACRE (Drama). Stars: Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester. Producer-Director: John H. Auer. Original Screenplay: Steve Fisher. • A young woman treks from Los Angeles to Honolulu to find her husband, the father of her child, reported killed at Pearl Harbor in 1941. She finds him, but his crime-ridden past and murder-shattered present destroy her hopes for a revival of their marriage, although freeing her for a more promising future. HIGH IRON (Western). Stars: not set. Producer: William J. O'Sullivan. Director: not set. Original: Todhunter Ballard. Screenplay: John K. Butler. 86 BAROMETER Section