Boxoffice (Oct-Dec 1963)

^cfront By SYD CASSYD J^LTHOUGH production schedules are comparatively heavy with films under way, December starts are light except for Universal with four new films rolling. Columbia has a heavy load at the lot, with Warners and Metro in the same position. First of the year looks heavy. AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL Muscle Beach Party. William Asher, who has worked out well with producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, will direct this beach comedy story with 20 young girls backing Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Harvey Lembeck, John Ashley, Jody McCrea and Morey Amsterdam. The popular muscle-displaying summer sport provides real mirth during the summer with the gals and guys strutting and expanding their extremities and with eye-catching scenes. Asher has all sorts of directions to go with this comedy. Santa Monica provided the original locale for stories in the newspapers on the novel sport, but the party in the picture will move up the beach. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Judgment in the Sun. The same great combination which produced “Hud,” as a masterpiece of technical excellence, with Martin Ritt directing and James Wong Howe at the cameras will have Ronald Lubin as producer of this modernized version of a Japanese film classic, “Rashomon.” Events of the week in Dallas heighten the interest in a tale of rape and a murder, which has been witnessed by four different people. Each honestly gives his idea of what happened and all are in a different key and each has colored the story in his own way. The setting of this American story is the Arizona in the 1870s. Paul Newman plays a Mexican bandit, William Shatner of “Judgment at Nuremberg” fame plays the gentleman, Laurence Harvey, a preacher, and Howard Da Silva, a prospector, with Claire Bloom in the femme lead. Edward G. Robinson is the man who hears the tales. Related in a railroad station, it flashes back to the trial, and thence to the scene of the rape and murder. PARAMOUNT Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The sciencefiction story to be produced by Audrey Schenck-Edwin F. Zabel finds Paul Mantee in the starring role of Robinson Crusoe, this time as an astronaut who is “shipwrecked” on Mars. Ib J. Melchior, former science editor of Life Magazine, along with John C. Higgins, wrote the original screenplay. Byron Haskin will direct with Technicolor and Techniscope providing color to the story of an abandoned explorer in outer space. Vic Lundin costars as the man Friday. Winton C. Hoch is the cameraman. Where Love Has Gone. This Harold Robbins story, published widely in a paperback edition, is about a socialite in San Francisco, whose daughter kills her mother’s fiance. The John Michael Hayes screenplay may find itself covering many current events, although Susan Hayward and Bette Davis will co-star. Joseph E. Levine produces while Edward Dmytryk directs. UNITED ARTISTS The Satan Bug. This Ian Stuart (Alistair MacLean) story has been scripted by James Clavell and other writers and is a modern setting of the use of microbes in biological warfare. George Maharis will be directed by producer-director John Sturges, supported by 14 other male actors and one femme lead, Joan Hackett. The book was published in 1962. Setting has been transferred from England to USA southwest, where the chase takes place from beginning to end. This is a Mirisch-Kappa Productions film. UNIVERSAL Kitten With a Whip. Harry Keller will produce this novel by Wade Miller with Ann-Margret testing her laurels in a new dramatic role with John Forsythe costarring. The director and final script are not yet decided, although one original was written some time ago, the script is now up for rewrite. This is a drama of a married man, whose family is away, and he gets into trouble over a beautiful young lady who has run away from reform school. Innocently, he tries to help her only to find himself in a mess after the girl is killed in an automobile accident. Marnie. Winston Graham’s novel has been scripted by Jay Pressen Allen with the story written around a compulsive thief, who has the luck to have a man fall in love with her and then straightens her out. This Alfred Hitchcock psychological drama has “Tippi” Hedren and Sean Connery with AH in the chair. The Richest Girl in Town. This contemporary comedy to be shot in Eastman Color by producer Ross Hunter has Jack Smight in the directorial spot. Casting office is looking for wealthy sophisticated types to supplement a stellar cast of Sandra Dee, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams and Maurice Chevalier. The Oscar Brodney original covers the story of an heiress forced to find a substitute fiance to present to her grandfather, who is dying. Complicating the structure of her life is the appearance of love interest in the bogus man presented. Send Me no Flowers. The Broadway play by Norman Barasch and Carwell Moore has been scripted by Julius Epstein. The modern comedy stars Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall, with Norman Jewison directing for producer Harry Keller. The Martin Melcher production concerns a hypochondriac who thinks he is going to die, and to prepare for his wife’s future, wants to pick her future husband. Life becomes involved when he finds he is OK and has to get his wife to change her mind about the competition. Andrew and Virginia Stone will complete two important new feature productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s studio head Robert M. Weitman, with the first one titled “The Secret of My Success,” to be filmed in England. This is a romantic comedy from his own original screenplay. The second project, “The Winning of the Sky,” is an epic dramatization of the development of commercial aviation to be filmed next summer in Panavision and MetroColor. Metro will distribute Stone’s other picture, “Never Put It in Writing,” in Europe . . . Producer-director Delbert Mann has moved into MGM offices to start final preparations on “Quick, Before It Melts,” with coproducer Douglas Laurence and Dale Wasserman, who is writing the screenplay. The film, scheduled to start production next March, is being adapted from the novel by New York Times reporter Philip Benjamin to be published by Random House in February. The romantic farce comedy, set against a background of the McMurdo Sound IGY Base in Antarctica and the South Pole, will be filmed in part near Nome, Alaska. Producer Laurence and Wasserman have been working at MGM on the script. Mann joins them after recently completing “The Out-ofTowners.” nsi Edward Muhl, Universal vice-president in charge of production, set Douglas Heyes as the director of Harry Keller’s production of “Kitten With a Whip” ... At the same studio John Bradford was assigned by producer Ross Hunter to do a polish job on the script of “The Richest Girl in Town,” which goes into production on December 19. Jack Smight will direct . . . Philip Crosby will do a picture in Europe titled “The Monument,” after going on a Christmas visit to American troops in Vietnam. The film about World War n, which King Vidor will direct for producer Charles Weintraub, will have Crosby playing an American corporal in the film, which is due to start in January . . . Jerry Lewis’ new picture “The Disorderly Orderly” will be written and directed by Frank Tashlin for Paramount release, Ernie Glucksman announced. Paul Jones will produce the York-Lewis Enterprises film, which is based on an original story by Norm Liebmann and Ed Haas . . . Jack Warner jr., producer of “The Wild Wild Party,” Wilbo Productions first release which begins in January, has received first shooting script from Alan Balter and Robert Mintz . . . “The Searcher” by Stanley Z. Cherry will lead the return of finance capital group. Standard Capitol, as the first of six pictures they will finance during 1964. Tony Martin and Jean Negulesco are going to do an E. Philips Oppenheim story in Madrid. The famed turn-of-the-century mystery writer has written many thrillers, with “Treasure House of Martin Hewes,” to be filmed next year in Madrid. Cyd Charisse will costar with Martin in their first screen appearance together since 1947. The script was written by Walter Reisch . . . Another Lawrence Durrell novel, “Judith,” will be written for the screen by JP Miller with Curt Unger producing for a Paramount release. June has been set for filming . . . Ben Barzman, whose screenplay will be seen in United Artists’ “The Ceremony,” will write 20thFox’s “Justine” with script based on Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet” . . . Aaron Rosenberg’s company has signed Larry Markes and Michael Morris to write the screenplay for “Smashmaster Caper.” 8 BOXOFFICE :: December 9, 1963