Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1962)

Child Guidance Center Is Favorite Community Service of Myron Blank DES MOINES — Myron N. Blank, president of Central States Theatre Corp. of Iowa and Nebraska, who has his headquarters here, is a recognized leader in the field of community service. Blank makes it clear that he does not feel seiwice to his community is a yardstick to measure personal gain. “If there is a job that needs to be done, there must be someone willing to do it. Anyone who has ability to serve should do so,” Blank declares. He adds that perhaps showmen should be in a position to do more than others. “Showmen like people; if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be in the profession.” According to Blank, Central States encourages its managers to assume community responsibility. His activities include: cochairman of the recent Des Moines United Campaign Drive, which raised the largest amount ever realized for the UC in the Iowa capital; member of the board of Iowa Methodist Hospital ; member of the citizens advisoi'y committee working in conjunction with the Des Moines school board; past president of the Greater Myron Blank Stt/D Ati 52 timed -right "complete service" isssues each year □ 1 year at $3 □ 2 years at $5 0 3 years at $7 □ Check enclosed □ Please bill me THEATRE STREET town ZONE STATE NAME POSITION the national film weekly 825 Van Brunt Blvd., Kansas City 24, Mo. Des Moines committee, director of the Chamber of Commerce; YMCA board member; one of the Committee of 100, a group especially interested in the growth of downtown Des Moines; a participant in the program of the National Conference of Christians and Jews; past member of the Salvation Army board and present board member of the Child Guidance Center. Blank is particularly interested in work done at the Guidance Center, which is unusual in this country for its day-treatment operation. Disturbed children are treated there and returned to their home each afternoon, unlike the more customary method of taking the child completely out of his home environment over a long period and then going through a readjustment upon his return to the family. The Des Moines Child Guidance Center operates in cooperation with the Anna Blank Memorial, a pattern for care and treatment centers in other cities. 'The Anna Blank Memorial of the Des Moines Child Guidance Center was the gift to the city of Myron Blank’s father, theatreman A. H. Blank, as a memorial to the late Mrs. Blank. Myron Blank is a public-spirited citizen. So is his wife. Among Jacqueline Blank’s many activities are her seiwices to the State Arthritis and Rheumatism group, the Des Moines Convalescent Home, plus numerous hospital and other civic organizations in which she participates. MINNEAPOLIS (^Continued from preceding page) alone. Bob reports, such stars as Gordon and Sheila MacRae, Sam Levenson, Jack E. Leonard, and most of the cast of the touring Broadway roadshow, “Carnival,” were in to view the Columbia release. All were appearing in Minneapolis at the time. The Gopher Theatre ran “Tower of London” and “The Vampire and the Ballerina” as a special midnight Halloween horror double feature aimed primarily at the teenage and young adult trade. Boxoffice results were good and the new theatre manager’s name is, appropriately. Tremble. The marquee of the Mann Theatre, now playing “The Longest Day,” looks like the front of the United Nations Building in New York. Mann is flying flags of all nations in connection with his D-Day invasion pictm-e . . . John Olson, formerly assistant manager of the Maco houses, and, more recently, of the Lyric, reports that all is well in Las Vegas, where he has secured a job in The Horse Shoe. Objections of neighboring householders resulted in the refusal by municipal officials of a permit to turn the Rose Drive-In at Roseville, north of St. Paul, into a twin operation. The Rose is one of five skytops operated in the Mill City area by Minnesota Entertainment Enterprises . . . Some of the feminine hearts at 20th Century-Fox are still aflutter after Richard Beymer’s “The Longest Day” visit a couple of weeks ago. The gals all had their picture snapped with Beymer . . . The West Twins Theatre, St. Paul, has been reopened by Sol Malisow, formerly associated with Fox films. Wedgely Todd, Minneapolis’ well-known Number One Movie Fan, had an interesting observation on “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” doing so well at the Lyric. Todd called it “remarkably close to ‘The B.ue Angel,’ with Jackie Gleason playing the Marlene Dietrich role.” “The ending is almost a direct steal from ‘The Blue Angel,’ ” Wedgely claims and he ought to know — he has seen every change of feature in town for the past 40 years. The Century Theatre will “inaugurate (a) Hollywood Preview Engagement” by showing “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” well “ahead of its normal release date.” The picture starts this week at the Century . . . Bob Thill has a big, fluffy, stuffed toy cat in his Lyric boxoffice window as part of the “Gay Purr-ee” promotion, while Regal Johnson has a bigger-than-life, colored cutout of Jackie Gleason on his World Theatre marquee for “Gigot.” Meyer Ackerman Plans New Theatre in Bronx From Eastern Edition NEW YORK — Meyer Ackerman, who is partner with Robert Furman in F&A Theatres, operating theatres in New York, New Jersey and Ohio, plans to construct a new, intimate theatre in the Bronx, the Riverdale Cinema, as a solo venture. The 600-seat house, which will be the first to be built in the Bronx in more than a decade, will also be the first ever to be built in a shopping center in that borough. It will also have parking facilities for more than 300 cars in the shopping center’s complex. The opening is planned for the early spring of 1963. William Eli Kohn, who most recently did the Carnegie Hall Cinema in Manhattan and the Merrick Theatre, Long Island, is the architect and the most modern equipment will be installed. Furman and Ackerman’s theatres include, in addition to the Carnegie Hall Cinema, the Scarsdale Plaza, Riviera Cinema in Syracuse, Palace in Cleveland, Devon in the Bronx, Art in Irvington, N. J., and the Lincoln Art Theatre, now being built on West 57th Street in Manhattan. Bobby Payne in ‘Nutty Professor' From Western Edition HOLLYWOOD — Actor Bobby Payne, onetime Cleveland Indians outfielder, and a student at La Salle College, Philadelphia, was set to play a college student in Jerry Lewis’ “The Nutty Professor,” starring and directed by Lewis and produced by Ernest D. Glucksman, for Paramount release. NC-2 BOXOmCE November 12, 1962