Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1962)

(Letters must be signed. Names withheld on request) > > FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS (CrownInt’I) — If current headlines are not sufficient to satisfy the populace, then a trip to local exhibitors showing this film will be well worth the effort — the space journey will satisfy even the most demanding. This science-fiction feature in Totalvision and Technicolor has the elements of holding its own in its combination with “Varan the Unbelievable.” The possibility of this type of film is endless and “Spaceship” sets the pace for a sequel. Executive producers are Newton P. Jacobs, Paul Schreibman and Edmund Goldman. Kurt Maetzig directed. Yoko Tani, Oldrick Lukes, Ignacy Machowski. VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE (CrownInt’l) — As a companion to “First Spaceship on Venus,” this chiller adds another 70 minutes of suspense-packed excitement to the program, as a great prehistoric sea monster emerges from the depths off an island somewhere in Japan and starts his reign of terror and destruction on the local native inhabitants. Special effects are definitely noteworthy in the monster scenes. Jerry A. Baerwitz is producer-director. Myron Healy and Tsuruko Kobayashi head the comparatively unknown cast. These reviews will appear in full in a forthcoming issue of Boxoffice. Four Guilds to Cooperate On Film Festival Plans HOLLYWOOD — A meeting was held this week by representatives of the producers, directors, writers and actors guilds to arrange for Hollywood’s first international motion picture festival to be held on an all-industry basis, controlled and directed by the four major creative guilds mentioned above. Heads of the four guilds are: Lawrence Weingarten, Screen Producers Guild; George Sidney, Screen Directors Guild; Allen Rivkin, Writers Guild of America West and George Chandler, Screen Actors Guild. “Out of the resulting exchanges of ideas now has grown a desire to combine our efforts within a committee representative of the entire industry, for it is hardly possible for such a project to be undertaken rmilaterally,” Weingarten said. Embassy Acquires Rights To Threepenny Opera' NEW YORK — Worldwide distribution rights to the new film version of “The Threepenny Opera” have been acquired by Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures Corp. Produced in English in Cinemascope and color, the film is being completed in West Germany and is based on the original work of Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill. It will be released during 1963. LETTERS A Candid Look af Pay TV I read with great interest your article concerning the announced pay TV operations to be instituted in Santa Monica. I wonder if our film companies and general public realize the really full impact this situation, if accepted, will have on the whole entertainment business as we know it today. As I see it, the film companies will be the ones to gain ... at first. Looking in their direction, we can see that they stand to have a sure market for their product, eagerly waiting to present it, and in a medium with greater accessibility to people who are known as the “stay-at homes” who “don’t see many movies anymore.” Many folks, they feel, would not mind paying to see a really topnotch film if they could see it in the comfort of their living rooms, instead of the inconvenience of “going out.” 'This is probably true in many instances. However . . . have they (the film companies) thought recently of how fast their product already sold to television is being eaten up? Our television station here is currently in reruns of features from the Warner Bros, mass release of last year. Many smaller companies who turned over their product early to 'TV are not even heard from now due to their repeated exposure. In order to keep pace with the fastmoving pay TV screen, the film companies will have to step their production up as it has never been done before. Continuously, in the meantime, they will have to retain the quality which is now present generally in our main theatrical attractions of today. How many programs on television today, all of which are produced on a continual grinding basis, can you name having the production quality of even some of our “B-pictures?” Only a handful. Added to this, the film companies will have lost much of their revenue from the closing of theatres, a situation most surely to occur in the afteiTnath. Tallahassee has, at present, three indoor theatres, and two drive-ins. Should pay TV arrive, how many would have to close . . . two . . . four . . . all? Let’s look at the general public. Sure, pay-TV will seem to have its advantages. For many, wouldn’t it be convenient to see “Ben-Hur” or “Gone With the Wind” with Academy to Mail Ballots March 15 for Awards HOLLYWOOD — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will mail the final ballots for the April 7 Oscar ceremonies on March 15, allowing 15 days for voting before the March 30 poll closing date. The Oscar awards planning began November 8 with the meeting of the scientific or technical awards committee, with other meetings and deadlines scheduled throughout March. out leaving home? Economical, too. Under the prices slated for the California project new films could be seen for $1.50. If a man and wife and, say, two children were to go out to a theatre here in Tallahassee, it would cost them up to 60 cents more (and our theatres’ prices are very reasonable in comparison to other cities’ theatres of equal and larger sizes) for the complete family’s attendance. But looking at the other end, and, to my viewpoint, a more far-reaching and realistic one, as I see it, pay 'TV will be a direct and ruthless competitor to free TV as we know it today, as well as to our theatres. Talent now in homes for nothing will be lured to this new medium seeking an even greater revenue for themselves than they now enjoy. If this happens, what will be left for free TV? Film companies will no longer pennit their top feature product to be seen “for free” as in the past, if they can squeeze more revenue from the public. A welterweight championship fight was broadcast over a major network last week. Will this be taken by the token-boy also? How about our young people? Is the local movie house not their main mecca for recreation today? And for more adults than the general public seems to realize, also. Television, good or bad, is here to stay. The motion picture industry and the forward-looking exhibition branches of the business have bucked the not-too-distant bleak past by an upgrade in product and a fresh new surge in showmanship. Bigger and better pictures are being made, wider use of color is now being utilized, with the exhibitors making stronger pushes toward “re-acquainting” the public of their superior product. (Now that stereophonic sound is a word on everyone’s lips and ears, what has happened to this not widely ballyhooed advance prevalent in the past?) From where I sit, only the promoters of pay television will stand to gain in their proposed future. Or, will they find in the end, also, that they, too have lost their shirts? JAMES E. LIPSCOMB Tallahassee, Fla. Praises 'A Child Is Waiting' Last week in Washington, D.C., I was a guest of the Trustees of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation for a dinner attended by President Kennedy and his family. At this time, they screened the year’s finest picture entitled “A Child Is Waiting.” How it will do at the boxoffice I cannot say because it does not have Elvis and it does not have sex. Here is a picture so real that it is just like a page torn out of your life or your neighbor’s across the street. Every exhibitor should make just a little extra effort to put it over . . . you will be glad you did, because someday the five and one-half million retarded children in the United States will thank you personally, although they cannot speak for themselves now. RUSSELL ARMENTROUT Clark Theatres, Inc., Louisiana, Mo. BOXOFFICE December 24, 1962 13