Boxoffice (Jan-Mar 1939)

Awaiting Agnew for Paramount Plans New York — Describing his weekend visit to finish uncompleted business with E. J. Sparks when he was switched to the coast, Y. Frank Freeman stated that the new Paramount program awaits the arrival from Hollywood of Neil F. Agnew. “We are working, planning and studying, but nothing is set. However, we are planning the same number as this season.” Admitting that production is strange to him, he added “I’m in kindergarten in Hollywood.” He said that all Paramount partnership deals are set. Agnew leaves Monday. Abe Montague, Columbia general sales manager, Janet Gaynor and Grade Fields will arrive on the same train. Montague, back after seven weeks, said that he closed a three-year franchise with Consolidated Circuit, Honolulu. Miss Gaynor is vacationing, while Miss Fields sails in a week for England to make two more 20th-Fox pictures. Soviet Film Makers Have A Salary Ceiling, Too New York — The U. S. S. R. has been looking into the matter of salaries for film directors, scenarists, cameramen and composers, and thereby hangs a decree, or its equivalent, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Moscow. A director can be paid in rubles the nominal equivalent of from about $1,200 to $10,000 for each picture according to its length, quality and importance. Cameramen can be paid from about $400 to $3,000. Higher payments can be made only in cases of outstanding achievements and by special approval of the Council of People’s Commissars. In addition to these payments, directors receive salaries of between $240 and $400 monthly, cameramen $200 to $300, scenarists and composers, according to the character and importance of their work, up to $8,000 per scenario or $3,000 per composition. All this control because such personnel is “always among the highest paid workers in the Soviet Union.” Lasky Contest Auditions In RKO Theatres New York — Auditions for Jesse L. Lasky’s “Gateway to Hollywood” contest will be held in local RKO theatres next month. Application blanks are now being distributed in a tieup with Lasky’s radio program for new talent. According to the plan, 50 cities will select nominees, of whom 18 will be sent to Hollywood with all expenses paid plus $25 while being trained on the RKO lot. Of the 18, one boy and girl will be chosen and named Alice Eden and John Archer. They will be given six-year contracts, starting at $125 a week and scaling up to $1,000 at the end of six years. Both winners will appear in “Career,” which Lasky will produce from the novel by Phil Stong. ,P1IHII1II1ILA»1EIILP1IHII1IA JANUARY seems to be the month when all good moviemoguls were born. For it’s “Happy Birthday” to Monogram’s Charlie Hite on January 1; UA’s Harry Bodkin (6), Tex Ritter (12), Martin Elhs (15), Universal’s Joe Engel (16), Republic’s Harry Wiener (16), Monogram’s Si Perlsweig (18), and Paramount’s Earle Sweigert (24) . . . Goldie Basso, Harry Fiied’s efficient secretary, rates a birthday greeting on the 12th. Charlie Goldfine, the East Falls impresario, was grounded for a couple of days by a heavy cold . . . Jim Clark was appointed chairman of the President’s campaign against infantile paralysis here. The campaign will he under the aegis of the Variety Club ... In charge of the publicity and exploitation will be E. M. Orowitz (EMO) and George Deher . . . Frank Hollister, veteran exhibitor and operator of the Opera House, Girardville, died last week. Harry Thomas of Tri-National Pictures, New York, spent a couple of days making the rotmds on Vine Street this week . . . Lou Berman, who formerly operated the Warner exchange franchise here, in town visiting his old friends on Wednesday. Dorothy Dennis, Jim Clark’s comely secretary, is sunning herself on the Havana strands . . . Vine Street biggies turned out en masse at the farewell testimonial to Eddie Sherman at the Warwick Hotel last Holiday . . .Chairmanning the shindig was Jay Emanuel . . . The Showmen’s Club executive committee held a meeting on Tuesday niyht. Important action on the agenda was the doubling of dues in the organization. Tariff now is $20 a year . . . If Ray Johnston can make it, his friends here would like to throw him a party celebrating his 25th anniversary in the busi7iess. , Every Tuesday night a select group of moviemoguls meet at the Shanghai Gardens in Chinatown for dinner and wrap themselves around a couple yards of egg foo yung and chop suey ... In the group are A1 (Keswick) Fisher, Earle (Paramount) Sweigert, A1 (20th-Fox) Davis, Milt (Iris) Rogasner, Bill (Studio) Goldberg and Oscar (Horlachers) Neufeld . . . Whitey Molish, Horlachers’ traffic manager, leaves at the end of the week after 18 years continuous service to become a partner in the Smith-Howell Service, an upstate New York trucking concern . . . His friends here, who number plenty, wish him the best in his new venture. Eddie Cantor, here last week, to receive the “Humanitarian Award” of the Order of the Eastern Star, hit out at the Nazis with both barrels in his speech of acceptance . . . The Studio Theatre opened with “Professor Mamlock,” the anti-Nazi film . . . Bill Thomas, former assistant maiiager of the Fox Theatre, has taken Jack McNeille’s spot as manager of the Studio. Warner Renews Lease on P hilly Fox Theatre Philadelphia — Warner has renewed its iease on the Fox Theatre to take effect next August and to run for the five subsequent years. The lease was signed over the objections of George Graves, manager of the Carman Theatre, who urged 20th CenturyFox to allow him to lease the house to give an independent exhibitor a foothold in the central city. Terms of the Warner lease were not revealed. Interstate Lawyers in New York for Case Washington — Louis Phillips of Paramount’s home office legal department and George S. Wright, representing the Interstate circuit in Texas, were here Wednesday for arguments on Paramount’s appeal before the supreme court on a lower court’s findings which held the major companies and Interstate combined and conspired to control exhibition in Texas. Robert H. Jackson of Attorney General Prank Murphy’s staff will argue for the government. D[f={lirEI^°@P[PD€E (g(o)lM][Ml[miK]DC^irD@lf^ To: Red Written At: New York From: Len W. Date: Thursday I was impressed, and thought you'd be, too, with an insight on the lighter side of our highly serious and nerve-wracking business. I'm getting at something we all seem to have forgotten. That is, how to relax. I ran into Stanton Griffis, just back from two weeks in Florida, and was particularly struck with how healthy and rested he appeared. The reason, he said, was that he just dropped all cares of state and decided to have fun. He cruised, swam, sunned and fished. Somehow, tho, 1 don't think he purged all business from his mind, because when 1 asked him how many fish he caught, he said: "More than you can catch in the picture business." BOXOFFICE January 14, 1939 32-E