Canadian Film Digest (Nov 1972)

ld tee all % wut The Canadian Film Digest November 1972 International Scenes Universal announces that the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid team is almost together again for the production of The Sling with the signing of Paul Newman. Newman joins Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill in the Richard Zanuck-David Brown story of the big con during the 1930’s . Speaking of Newman, his leading lady for the Irish-set The Mackintosh Manis Dominique Sanda. Director is John Huston... . Brigitte Bardot set to play a female Don Juan in ex-husband Roger Vadim’s movie of the same name .... And Ali McGraw has been hinted as a possible lead for The French Lieutenant’s Woman.... Closer to home, in a way, John Huston will direct and star in a screen version of Brian Moore’s Catholics to be filmed in Ireland next summer .... More old timers: Samuel Fuller has survived being cult status, and is currently working on a larger-scale production for Warners. Called Riata it is now filming in Almeria, Spain, with Richard Harris as lead .... Joseph Losey plans to make Ibsen’s The Doll’s House in Norway. Jane Fonda will star ....John Wayne starts shooting for Warners on November 13 in Durango, Mexico .... To complete the oldies: Alexander Salkind to film The Three Musketeers; and French TV plans a production of Les Miserables, the 18th screen telling of the classic .... On to newies: Paul Mazursky’s Blume in _ Love has added Shelley Winters to a cast in cluding George Segal, Susan Anspach, and Kris Kristofferson. It currently films in L.A. .... Sequel Division: Ron O’Neal set to star and direct a follow-up to Superfly, and Shaft tries to find his roots in Shaft in Africa. ... Festivals: The First Annual USAInternational Animation Film Festival will be held Nov. 18-22at the New York Hilton. A threepart program includes screening, a symposium on Extensions in Animation, and an Audio-visual equipment exhibition. A major salute to the National Film Board is also planned .... The Second Annual Erotic Film Festival is to be held Dec. 5-15 in New York. Originally scheduled for Nov. 7-17, it was postponed because of insufficient number of entries. Last year organiser Ken Gaul lost money because of legal fees required to fight obscenity busts. All but one were dismissed. Conventions and Dinners: Columbia Pictures prez Leo Jaffe will be honoured as Pioneer of the Year when the Motion Picture Pioneers hold their 34th Anniversary dinner at the Americana Hotel in New York on Nov. 15.... The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) held their annual convention Oct. 22-27 at the Century Plaza hotel in L.A. Nov. 18-21 sees the National Association Of Concessionaires Annual gathering in Bal Harbor, Florida. It is to be in conjunction with the Motion Picture Theatre Equipment and Concessions Industries Trade Show. Latter is co-sponsored by the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), National Association of Concessionaires (NAC), and the Theatre Equipment Association (TEA) .... Another Festival: Chicago International Film Festival, the largest in the U.S., will be held Nov. 3-23. The program features 23 different features, and tributes to British Animation, Paul Morrissey, and Abel Gance. Pioneer Gance will return to the U.S. for the first time in 15 years for this event... . Companies: Time-Life Films has joined the American Film Institute to distribute films by young film makers. Shorts, dramatic or abstract, lasting from 6% to 50 minutes are being shown at colleges and other non-theatrical positions. Royalties are being shared by the film makers and the Institute. A catalogue has been printed to outline what is available .... The Macfadden Women’s group of publications reports a 12 percent increase in ad pages during the first half of 1972. So much for the sophisticated movie audience theory: among other like mags, the Macfadden Group includes True Confessions, Silver Screen, and Photoplay ....20th Century-Fox continues to tighten operations. A deal has been concluded with MGM to share foreign administrative setups. Each will have same number of first place title positions; staff will be garnered from both organisations; less office personnel and paper pile-up results Shepperton Studios, Britain’s remnant of a Hollywood past, lost 80,000 pounds last year, despite a revenue increase of 44,000 pounds. Government is currently discussing whether to okay a closure and sale.... People: Glenda Jackson says she will quit films in two years to take up social work .... W. H. (Jamie) Jamieson will retire at the end of this year. Now Managing Director of Rank’s Overseas Film Distributors Limited, Jamieson has been in show biz for over forty years with Rank, fifty years in total. He was best known for setting up a publicity organization for Rank in South America .... Sir James Carreras means to keep his Hammer Films: in the family: company will pass to son Michael. But offspring wasn’t handed a gift; he had to scrounge plenty for the money .... Charlton Heston has been named Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Film Institute... . Howard Koch is to repeat his chore as producer of the Academy Awards show. To be held in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion again, the date is March 27 .... Paul and Linda McCartney and their group Wings will perform the McCartneypenned theme song for the Spring released James Bond film Live and Let Die .... Mike Nichols returns to Broadway for a director’s chore on Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. Cast includes George C. Scott, Nicol Williamson, and Julie Christie. Place is Joseph E. Levine’s theatre. Misc: Paramount Pictures received a reported $3,000,000 for the TV showing of Love Story — similar sum was paid to Warners for My Fair Lady, but two showings were stipulated .... Lexicon of Waltham, Mass., (distributed in Canada by Rogers Stewart Cox and Associates ) have developed a cassette tape recorder that enables playback to be compressed or increased in time. No variation in pitch or speaker identification occurs. Film possibilities are for application in slow-or-fastmotion. A one hour tape can be audited in 24 minutes .... First Media Press of Cincinnatti is marketing six sets of slides, each set on a major director. Slides are taken directly from the film. Included are Renoir, Eisenstein, Welles, Godard, Fellini, and Bunuel. Each package looks like a book and _ includes synopses and brochures with captions. One sells for $35 .... The Tournament of Roses Parade on New Years Day will salute Hollywood for the first time in its 84 year history. And its location, Pasadena, is twenty minutes from Hollywood... . In Finland extra taxes have been imposed on Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange because of excessive violence. Deed was done by the tax collector, who has the power to do so to any film he considers ‘‘bad.’’ From Halifax with Love: The Neptune Factor Returned to Toronto to Complete Filming Filming The Nepturne Factor for Fox in Halifax — photographer Harry Makin (black cap) v —— rv wel? <a Pe ms ‘ ay Souths f\ wie 4 and Director Dan Petrie (white hat) aboard the R.V. Triton. WOMPI Holds Meeting BY SHIRLEY MORRIS Women of the Motion Picture Industry, a service organization, is trying to recruit more members. The Toronto club, which has a membership of 25, invited all women working in the industry to a Meet and Greet party to hear about the club’s activities. Right now the group is planning a wine and cheese party at the Variety Club, Nov. 22, to raise money for its charitable projects. A magnum of Canadian champagne will be raffled. The club is one of 16 WOMPI groups. The others are in the U.S. and have a total membership of nearly 700. Toronto members make monthly visits to Laughlen Lodge, a home for the aged; and Second Mile Club, a day care center for the elderly, entertaining residents with movies, sing songs, Bingos and refreshments. Two members are volunteer workers at the Wellesley Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital. At Christmas, members collect gifts for children to be distributed by the Salvation Army, and supply candy, cake and other refreshments to the Good Neighbors Club for unemployed men. . The international organization has pledged $2,000 to the Will Rogers Hospital at Saranac Lake, N.Y. As part of its commitment, Toronto members each give a dime a week — Dimes from .Dames — and solicit funds from the Canadian industry. As Sylvia Crossley of Universal Films, president of the Canadian WOMPI club, put it: ‘“‘We may not be doing a great deal but by doing it together we’re accomplishing something.” WOMPI meets once a month, tries to have a screening at most meetings, and has a mem bership fee of $6 a year. The organization was started in the early 50s when women working in the industry in Dallas, Tex., met frequently for lunch and decided to form aclub. Other groups were formed in New Orleans, L.A., and Memphis, Tenn., and a convention was held. The Toronto club was chartered in 1955 as the sixth group. Biggest in the organization is the Hollywood club with nearly 70 members. Executive members of the Canadian club are Hildegarde Koblich of Universal, vicepresident; Margaret Wills, retired from Universal Films, second vice-president; Jean Royce of MGM, corresponding-secretary; Olive Copleston of MGM, treasurer; Florence Van Heek Of Famous Players, recordingsecretary; and Betty Bellamy of Warner Bros., community services chairman. The Clapper Board Goes Silent The slate or clapper board is about to be put to rest. Leo O’Donnell of the National Film Board has developed a new system which will replace the clapper board. Called the Time Index System, O’Donnell’s system enables the cameraman and the soundman to work completely independently of each other. The sound and the picture are now matched by a printed date and time on both the film and the tape which is accurate to 1/24th of a second, or one frame. “One of the major values of the new system,”’ says O’Donnell, “is for the filming of cinema verite, documentaries, or newsreel footage, in which the introduction of the slate is often a disturbing influence on the subject and can result in a loss of a shot through the time involved in shooting the slate.””. . O’Donnell introduced his new technique in a paper delivered to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Convention in Los Angeles at the end of October. Page 15 Digest Movie Quiz No. One 1. Who was the unbilled star who delivered the Maltese Falcon to Humphrey Bogart? 2. Gene Kelly’s first film co-starred Judy Garland. It was 3. Robert Montgomery played Philip Marlowe in a unique film in which the audience played the camera. The film was 4. Who were the three stars of Three on a Match? 5. George C. Scott played Noah 1f¢\ i Reis Ses 6. Whom did Charles Laughton defend in Witness for the Prosecution? 7. Who said, ‘“‘Who put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?”’ | 8. In what film did Dick Powell sing I Only have Eyes for You? 9. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who played Puck? 10. In what movie did Judy Garland sing The Boy Next Door? Answers: “phGEL “SINOT 3g Ul 9] JBOIN ‘OL “Aouooy ANON “6 ‘PE6I ‘Soule ‘8 ‘SPPPlT “OM “L “JamMod suosAy, 9 ‘aIqid OYL “SG “HeIOAC UUY ‘Tepuo[_ ueor ‘SIAed 2310 “b ‘9P6I “OXI 94} Ul ApeT € ‘Spel ‘Tey AIA, pue II JOY ‘Z ‘uo}sNH Jaye ‘Jayjey S,uoJsNY uyor 10j9eI1q “T MGM Children’s Matinee Lauded The Third season of showings of MGM’s Children’s Library in Special Matinee format has begun, and the response is greater than ever. Running from October to May, the series is shown basically in North America; there are 180 places in Canada which run them every weekend afternoon. One showing is held, witha second added if the crowds warrant it; with the blockbusters, the crowds do. Included in the lineup are The Wizard of Oz, Little Women, National Velvet, Captains Courageous, and Tom Thumb, all of them Academy Award winners. Governors, mayors, boards of education, P.T.A. groups, and threatre owners have lauded the films, and endorsed the programs. And they should, because despite all the talk about lack of family films, and the obvious lack of support for current efforts in this category, the MGM library does well. What everyone forgets is that current product, with the exception of Disney, is simply not as good as the past productions. And, more important is the programming method: by playing the films at the right times, more box office mileage can be obtained. The family audience does not attend 9:00 pm showings. Need a Lab? Popcorn all gone? Your print is scratched? To get the people and information you need to cope with every aspect of the Canadian Film world, Order the 1972/73 Canadian Film Digest Yearbook. Only $5.00 per copy. Or $4.50 for 2 to 5. Or $4.00 for 6 to 10. Send your order to: Yearbook The Canadian Film Digest 175 Bloor St. East Toronto 5 pl et. a ay PO 8 ee Se ee ee ees