Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Jan 24, 1948)

Page 2 Lou Michaelson With SRO As Winnipeg Branch Head lou Michaelson, salesman for United Artists in the Toronto office, has resigned to accept a position with Selznick Releasing Organization as Winnipeg branch _ representative. Michaelson recently came to Toronto from Saint John where he was Monogram branch manager. Prior to that he was associated with Columbia Pictures in the Maritimes. Pickford Charms All In Whirlwind Tour Winding up a triumphant three-day personal-appearance tour in Ottawa. Montreal and Toronto, in connection with the world premiere of “Sleep, My Love’, and her tireless efforts on kehalf of the Canadian Appeal For Children, Mary Pickford played hostess at a cocktail party in the Royal York Hotel, Toronto, on Wednesday, January 14th. Immediately after the party, attended by theatre circuit heads, executives of the various distributing organizations, representatives of the press and radio, and co-workers in the Toronto office of United Artists, Miss Pickford planed to New York to attend important sales conferences with Gradwell Sears, president of United Artists, who was compelled, at the last moment, through illness, to remain in New York when Miss Pickford and other U-A executives came to Canada. Accompanying her from New York were: Paul N. Lazarus, Jr., director of advertising and publicity; Joseph Unger, general sales manager and Ed Schnitzer, Eastern and Canadian sales head, all of United Artists; as well as Ralph Cohn, co-producer of “Sleep. My Love’; Sam Dembrow, Jr., the film’s sales representative and Joseph Curtis, advertising representative ; Mrs. Beth Lewis, Miss Pickford’s secretary and Mrs. L. Norberg, her travelling companion. Also travelling to Ottawa in Miss Pickford’s party were George Heiber, Montreal branch manager; Larry Stephens, Canadian publicity representative, and Douglas Rosen, U-A Toronto branch manager. U. OF T. FORMS FILM SOCIETY Following a period of inactivity during the war years, the University of Toronto Film Society has been rejuvinated. With the purpose of presenting films of an unusual or outstanding nature, the Film Society, following its introductory meeting held recently, has arranged for Sunday evening programs to be held exclusively for members of the University of Toronto. Among the pictures promised for forthcoming meetings are “Forgotten Village’; “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’; “Italian Straw Hat”, Rene Clair’s first distinguished comeds on French life; and a series of outstanding documentary features. Chairman of the Board of Advisors is Gurston Allen. CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST January 24th, 1948 Audio Films Opens New Studio Over 1200 Guests In Attendance The talk in Toronto is about the party given by Arthur Gottlieb inaugurating the opening of the new studios of Audio Pictures and the office and building of Film Laboratories of Canada Limited, which was “‘a party to end all parties”. There were approximately twelve hundred guests, who started to pay their respects from 3.30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 17th until the midnight hour. As a matter of fact, this was a reception where the guests were, no doubt, expected to come and to go, but one thousand of them, at least, decided to come, but did not go. Dozens of baskets of flowers, sent by friends were on display on the desks of the various offices, upon the tables in corridors, in the main reception room entrance, and were banked to the ceiling like a flower show display, in the main studio room, where the hosts received the guests. Those who know what a gay nightclub in a Metropolis looks like, with gaily colored balloons, huge pictorial canvasses, their subject matter painted for the enjoyment of the hour, will have an idea of the festive note for this happy occasion. cross the entire length of one side of the studio was a table, on which there was displayed, every variety of meat and fowl with which your vocabulary is familiar, including all the delicious bits and pieces which go with such a spread. On that snowy covered table there was a variety of sea-food, salads, jellies, and in case one grew a little more hungry as the evening galloped on, trays and trays and trays of hot savours were passed among the far from thirsty guests. Despite the huge crowd of people, the studio was not crowded, people stood about in groups, laughing, drinking, eating, talking, listening to the corks pop out of the bottles of the real champagne, for Mum was the word of a vintage old enough to join the Pioneers. Groups were sitting around the tables, the show was a continuous one, with a barber-shop quartette, an Emcee, a singer who looked like Lillian Russell at her best, and in an atmosphere of the Gay Nineties. At midnight, your editor thought that she had stayed long enough, having arrived at 5,30, just in time to hear His Worship, Mayor Saunders of Toronto, pronounce his words of welcome to Audio Pictures of Canada Limited. However, at least five hundred guests believed the night was. still young, and remained to eat and drink a little more, to dance a little, to hear their lucky number, perchance called by Lorne Green, for the lucky number meant a Radio prize; and among the prize-winners was none other than Mrs. Jules Allen. We could not begin to name the list of guests, it looked as if Arthur Gott lieb remembered everybody; and in that crowd there were leading film executives from Canada, from the United States, as far as Los Angeles, there were Government dignitaries, bankers, bookers, operators, cameramen, lawyers, doctors, producers, directors, engineers, construction chiefs, architects, good-looking gals and their aunts and mothers, there were young men, old men and elders of Social Service Bureaus. Democracy as those who really practice it, know the interpretation of the word; and through that cheery mixed crowd went Arthur Gottlicb and his wife, Hans Tiesler and his wife, making each guest feel that they were the most important guest in the room. Those who could tear themselves away from the gaiety of the evening walked through some of the various studios, each one named and each one designed to house equipment and services for a special job. Everything for the production of Kducational, Commercial, Short Subject films, everything for the manufacture of prints, everything necessary in space and equipment for the mechanics of film-making and the designing of a picture from the script stage to the finished product, has been provided for in these studios and laboratory, together with vault space to house hundreds and hundreds of pictures. The setting is on the Lake Front, the Lake-Shore Highway of Toronto, with shipping facilities right on this building’s doorstep. Modern equipment, the latest in mechanical and technical perfection, a Laboratory and Studio in which Toronto may feel a justifiable pride, and which is right in line with Canadian national progress and that which makes Canada one of the most important countries in respect to Motion Picture Trade and Commerce. _ It is reported that the building and Its equipment, furnishings, cost over a half a million dollars, what it cost 1s certainly important to the man who pays the bills, but the cost is not the subject for discussion, or amazement. what is amazing is that Arthur Gottlieb and his associates had the courage, the vision, the ambition, to give Canada such a Film Service. The Digest extends its good wishes, thanks Arthur Gottlieb for his contribution to the Canadian Film Industry, and wishes for him that his business may sO grow in volume and in profits, that he may find it necessary to add to his present building.