Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Mar 6, 1948)

Fivase cneck your name off the list and return magazine to Reference Library. t fr yy & de 7Y 4 2 “YS WEN IT IS 10 / gy ey ay ~ Victoria St. RONTO Vol. 39, No. 45 Yes, We Have No Bananas! HILE it is quite true, that in New York, there are a number, a noticeable number, of Europeans, who talk French and Italian, this cannot be the entire reason for the dominant presentation of French and _ Italianlanguage pictures, for despite a large patronage from these new American citizens, the theatres which are presenting the Italian and French-language pictures cannot play to capacity houses, without the attendance of the English-speaking patrons, and this attendance is noticeably large. Look at the theatre page of a New York newspaper, there is a considerable difference in the display advertising the foreign-language pictures, this year, are using over last year. We would say, the lineage has increased five hundred percent: and with the exception of circuit space, the lineage taken by foreign-language pictures, is more than double the lineage utilized to advertise Hollywood productions. Last year, even the most successful foreignlanguage picture spent little money for daily newspaper advertising, one had to search to find where a foreign-language picture was playing. Newspaper lineage in New York is expensive advertising and we must conclude, that the foreign-language picture is making money for its distributors and exhibitors, to induce them to take the display advertisements which they are taking. At the Art Theatre, the French picture, “Farrebique”, is being presented; at the Elysee, Marcel Pagnol’s French production, “Fanny, with Raimu; at the Ambassador, in its fourth month, “Volpone”: at the Sutton, John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl”, in English, filmed in Mexico, with Pedro Armendariz and Maria Elena Marques; at the Little Carnegie, Emile Zola’s “Passionnelle”, French: at the TORONTO, CANADA NATIONAL FILM BOARD LIBRARY’ CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE Plaza, “Green For Danger”, British: at the 68th St. Playhouse, “This Happy Breed”, British; at the Ascot, “Open City”, Italian: at the World, in its third month, “To Live In Peace”, Italian; at the Cinema Dante, “Eternal Melodies” (Mozart), Italian: 50th St. Beverley, “Children of Paradise”, French; at the Pix, “The Blue Veil”, French: at the Esquire, “Pagliacci”, fifth week, Italian, with Gigli and Alida Valli; at the Bijou, Cocteau’'s “Beauty and the Beast”, French, tenth week: Avenue, “The Raven” (Le Corbeau), French, following a six months’ run of the Italian-produced production, “Shoe Shine”, which is now in its fourth week at the 55th St. Theatre. The list presented is not the entire list, but sufficient for our purpose. Not all of these pictures are good, but those which are, are very good, and among the good ones are several which are outstanding. All of them, put together, did not cost as much to produce, as one of our Hollywood productions, which are in the millions of dollars’ classification; and some of them cost less to produce than the average good program picture made in Hollywood. Several named, received critics, public, trade reviews, including our own producers’ comments, of such eulogistic quality, that Hollywood producers would have given their eyeteeth to merit. Perhaps the titanic effort, which we put into a picture, is so weighty, that the result is labored, and being labored loses its charm and appeal. What has the foreign-language picture got, which we have not, despite the fact, that we spend millions on a production and the foreign producers, by comparison, spent bananas? Is it a case of “Yes, we have no bananas”, meaning, the dollar value has numbed the earth-touch? —EDITOR PUBLISHED BY CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST COMPANY LIMITED 277 VICTORIA STREET TORONTO ESE. Cans