Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1963)

By SYD CASSYD ONLY two months of the year left it can be noted that overall feature production this year is 10 per cent above 1962 figures, though still far below the normal Hollywood production cycle. To date, 119 features have gone into production for the year. Perhaps, worthy of note, is the fact, that of 15 starts this month, only two are scheduled for overseas. ALLIED ARTISTS THE IRON KISS. Leon Fromkess’ production for Allied Artists release represents another in the cycle of Samuel Fuller stories which have been written for his own direction and production. The picture, which is being made at Samuel Goldwyn studios, is a modern melodrama of a regeneration of a prostitute, with the locale set in a small town in the midwest. The cast of seven principals is involved in the fight toward respectability by the leading character. As this is being written, the final cast has not been chosen. COLUMBIA FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. Charles Schneer is shooting this H. G. Wells story, which though written long ago, is now in the current interest category because of space exploration keeping up high interest on the part of the public. Ray Harryhausen lends his special effects background in acting as coproducer. Nathan Juran will direct the Panavision-Dynamation-Technicolor story, with a cast of Edward Judd, Martha Hyer and Lionel Jeffries. THE NEW INTERNS. Producer Robert Cohn has set John Rich to follow the success of the first film in this group which also gets exposure in television utilization of hospital material. Michael Callan, Dean Jones and Stefanie Powers head the cast of this dramatic story behind the city life of a young intern. Telly Savalas also has been signed. THE TRAVELING LADY. Under the intriguing guise of Boardwalk Productions, Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan have taken the play by Horton Foote and set him to do the screenplay as well. The drama is set in Texas and the stage play will be used as the starting point. MAJOR DUNDEE. Charlton Heston will look well in Panavision and an unnamed color in this Jerry Bresler produced original story and screenplay by Harry Julian Fink. It covers the adventures of post-Civil war adventures of the major in the violent west of that period, and is being filmed in Hollywood and on location. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER LOOKING FOR LOVE. A Ruth Brooks Flippen original and screenplay is called “a comedy with music,” the music being eight musical numbers. Miss Flippen has built her screenplay on the story of a singer who doesn’t want to pursue the thrush career, and goes to Wall Street, where she gets a job in a brokerage firm. While there, she invents a trick coat hanger, which is given its publicity through an inventor’s show, and the whimsical singer sings on it, in addition to displaying her wares, and so becomes famous as a — yes, a singer. Joe Pasternak has set director Don Weis to direct Connie Francis, Jim Hutton and Joby Baker in the Panavision-Metrocolor film. KISSIN’ COUSINS. Elvis Presley will be directed by Gene Nelson, in this Sam Katzman comedy, in a group he is making for Metro. It involves the saga of a “loner,” an independent Tennessean who fights the government when ordered to lease his land for an ICBM installation. He gets up his dander and refuses to be budged until a government employe, formerly from the area, cons him into the deal. Presley gets to play a dual role in this short story by Gerald Drayson Adams which has been scripted by the director Nelson and Adams. The comedy brings in 13 vivacious beauties, too. HIS AND HIS. This original comedy, set on a vacation and honeymoon island, will be produced by Pandro Berman and directed by Henry Levin. Robert Goulet, Robert Morse and Nancy Kwan are set for the involvement when two bachelors leave for the honeymoon island after one has been jilted and can’t return his tickets. With his best man they go to the area, and one falls for the woman life-guard, the other witnesses his New York boss arriving with his girl, and they go on from here. Panavision and Metrocolor. SIGNPOST TO MURDER. Producer Lawrence Weingarten with director George Englund will do this widescreen picture with Stuart Whitman and Joanne Woodward. No story has been released. THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY. Producer Martin Ransohoff has changed both cast and leading actor. With William Holden and William Wyler out of the production, all we can learn about it is that it will be filmed in London, starting this month. UNIVERSAL THE RICHEST GIRL IN TOWN. Ross Hunter stars Sandra Dee in this original Oscar Brodney comedy with final script by Bob Fisher and Arthur Marx. It is the story of a rich girl involved with two suitors, with her grandfather taking steps to see that there is smooth sailing. Miss Dee will be wearing Jean Louis gowns. Casting is still proceeding, with the end of the month set for a start. WARNER BROS. THE OUT OF TOWNERS. This Martin Manulis production will be one of the first to be shot off the Warner lot because of lack of shooting space and will be lensed on an old Warner lot, in what is now the Paramount-Sunset studio. Delbert Mann will have Geraldine Page and Glenn Ford in a drama of a young postmistress from a small town, who goes to New York for the typical last fling at life before marriage. It doesn’t turn out that way when she falls for city slicker Glenn Ford. ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS. This satirical comedy is set in Chicago in the 1920s and concerns a hood who steals from the rich to give to the poor, a defensive mechanism for the spoils, when the guy realizes how nice it is to be a benefactor. The original by Evelyn and Richard Condon will be scripted by tongue-in-cheek writer John Fenton Murray. Bing Crosby, who loans his house to Presidents, will play a Sherwood Forest type of character, appropriately named, “All A. Dale,” surrounded by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis jr. and James Darren. Gene Kelly produces and Gordon Douglas directs. In Panavision and Technicolor. THE UNDEFEATED. A post-Civil war drama from a novel with screenplay by Casey Robinson and Stanley Hough will be shot on location in the town of Caretta, Mexico, by producer-director Henry King. A moving band of defeated soldiers becomes news when they cross the border for further adventures. SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL. With Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood cast in this William T. Orr story to be directed by Richard Quine we learn that the light frothy comedy by David Schwartz will be based on Helen Gurley Brown’s nonfiction best seller. The book undermined the idea that every girl should be married, and provided means for single girls to fulfill their destinies as good bachelors. How they go from this premise is up to the writer and this will be kept quiet for some time. One of the first feature films to meet the threat of the John Birch Society head on, and cover pressures from the left side of the political sphere, will be written by Gore Vidal in Rome. Vidal told Boxoffice that “America the Beautiful,” would be started next May. Billed as a script which handles a young New Frontier bureaucrat, trapped by the far-right “fringers” and involved with factions of the left, Vidal, who was an important adjunct to the New Frontier group when it started, is supposed to base his story on reality, combined with fiction. Locations will be in the midwest and Hollywood. Famed writer W. R. Burnett reports to the Culver City Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot to work on an original comedy melodrama for producer Ted Richmond . . . “The Agony and the Ecstasy” best-selling book to be produced by a combination with 20thFox finds Darryl Zanuck in Rome to continue talks on the film about Michelangelo, which started in New York. The scope of the film, due to the subject matter, will be on a grand scale, with color film reaching its greatest heights, because of the mastery of the art of color by the artist, whose works are in Italy . . . Following the success of “The Great Escape,” will be another story with a war background to be produced by 20th-Fox. Based on the published memoir of Felice Benuzzi, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” will be scripted for Elmo Williams’ supervision in England by Joseph Heller and Jerome Chodorov. The book was published in 1953 under title of “No Picnic on Mt. Kenya,” setting the automatic location for the adventure-drama. Sol Saks comes back to feature writing when he joins Stanley Roberts to work with Joe Pasternak at Metro on an assignment. He is marketing his stage production, “Balloon Going Up,” for another production. Another Pasternak move has been to snag Danny Thomas and Johnny Carson for “Looking for Love.” BOXOFFICE :: October 7, 1963 19