Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 8, 1942)

July 8th, 1942 Fox Execs Meet In Cinema City Twentieth Century-Fox Beverly Hills studio will be ready for screening when President Spyros P. Skouras, Vice-president Tom J. Connors, in charge of world-wide sales, and. Advertising and Publicity Director Hal Horne reach the coast. The home office executives will be joined in Chicago by Tony Muto, Fox-Movietone Washington representative, who also will visit the studio. In addition to the pictures now completed, four features will be shooting and at least five productions will start during the time the Twentieth Century-Fox executives are holding their studio conferences with Darryl F. Zanuck and other production heads. This is the first season that the studio has been so far ahead on product. After screening the completed pictures, Tom J. Connors will announce the first releases that are to start off the 1942-43 selling season. Important production plans will be announced at the same time and also plans for either regional sales meetings or home office conferences with district and branch managers on the new product. The twelve completed productions are: “The Black Swan,” “Orchestra Wives,” ‘Footlight Serenade,” ‘‘Thunder Birds,’ ‘‘The Pied Piper,’ “The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe,” “A-Haunting We Will Go,” “Twelve Men in a _ Box,” “Little Tokyo, U.S.A.,” ‘Careful Soft Shoulders,” “Berlin Correspondent” and “Tales of Manhattan.”’ The following four features are before the cameras: “Iceland,” “Girl Trouble,” ‘‘China Girl” and “Man in the Trunk,” and five out of the seven following features ready for shooting are expected to start within the next two weeks: “Manila Calling,” “Springtime in the Rockies,” ‘‘Ten Dollar Raise,” “That Other Woman,” ‘‘Ox-Bow Incident,” ‘Buried Alive” and “Meanest Man in the World.” Laudy Lawrence, Twentieth Century-Fox foreign distribution chief, has appointed Maurice Silverstein as special home office representative for Cuba, Central America and several South American countries. The new Latin American representative will make his first trip through his territory in August and will visit branches in Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and two or three Central American capitals. Mr., Silverstein was with the Metro foreign department for sixteen years and has been Far Eastern manager with headquarters in Singapore. Y oo Twelve productions now being edited or re-recorded at the| TORONTO DAILY STAR z os (Some thoughts worth remembering are printed on the editorial page of this paper. They are about the National Film Board. Every third Thursday in the month, the National Film Board releases one of the “Canada Carries On’’ documentary shorts. It is shown every month in 900 motion picture theatres throughout the Dominion and also in commercial theatres in the United States, Latin America, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand. The distribution of the “Canada Carries On” series in the United States and Latin America is done by United Artists under the title, “The World in Action.” These films are released through the Dominion public information office. Canadians probably know little of the extraordinary value and significance of the National Film Board’s work. Under the direction of John Grierson, internationally renowned as the pioneer in the field of documentary films, films are being produced in Ottawa which not only are helping Canadians to learn about their own country, about each other, about the war and the place of Canada in the war, but they also serve to publicize Canada to the world at large. : The unique feature about the “Canada Carries On” series is their timeliness. Every month, Since the inception of the series early in 1940, the film released has dealt with an urgent topic of the war. It seems that the staff of the National Film Board possesses an uncanny intuitive faculty to select the burning question of the day and develop it in that highly intelligent and absorbing style that characterizes this series. Film critics in the United States have acclaimed this series as the outstanding contribution in the field of public information. To a young government service this is a weighty tribute, especially since the work is being done at a minimum cost and under the high pressure of a country at war. The fact is that the “Canada Carries On” and the “World in Action” series are drawing a revenue from commercial theatres which more than pays for the cost of production—a record which in itself is unique. The film released this month, opening in the commercial theatres today, is “The Road to Tokyo.”’ The film board has announced it as a contribution to Canadian Army Week. It records, among other things, Canada’s modern army and her Pacific front line. Camera units have been working in barracks and training Canadian FILM WEEKLY NS (Just for the record we reprint what a reader of the New York daily has to say about “Mrs. Miniver.” Dear Editor: Would anyone mind a minority report on Mrs. Miniver? (and the writer a lost and abject worshipper of Miss Garson. Seeing tnis film, I wondered what the people in the slums of London would think of it. is courage the property of the beautiful and the well heeled? We forever are given the graceful people. What of those who have lost everything in the war, having so little to lose? od > + For what did the Minivers lose? Their son’s fiancee and the roof Throughout, they have remainec aggressively beautiful, every hair in place, every smile in order. Onc wonders whether these people, if they exist, are real. One wonders if perhaps the very people whc most need the war brought home are not actually being spared the real, educative horrors. I think of the heroes and heroines of Russia—who know what they iive and fight and die for, who need no lesson in chaos—I think of the battle cry on their lips even as the trap is sprung and the noose tightens. Why are they dying? So the Minivers of the world can go on throwing their whimsy over an expensive new hat and an exorbitant new car? I wonder if anyone can say that the Minivers of our world have even yet either suffered or awakened? New York John Hastings centres from coast to coast, and a permanent record has been made of Canadian regiments and their training in modern assault warfare. Coming as it does on the heels of the Japanese raids on the Pacific coast, this film is unusually timely. It shows the rushing to completion of the Alaska highway for the defence of this hemisphere, the many details in the defence preparations of the northland, and, in addition, some of the Japanese plans for the invasion of Alaska. Where they get these foreign “shots” is the secret of the film board. It is to the utmost benefit to Canadians to watch for the appearance of “Canada Carries On" series. In addition to the valuable information they contain, these films give pleasure to the eye be cause of the clever photography, ; and pleasure to the ear as well from the musical, moving voice of Lorne Greene, Canada’s ace commentator. Page 7 /Stromberg Busy At United Artists Hunt Stromberg, who recently joined the United Artists roster of independent producers, announced today that he has acquired the film rights to ‘“Dishonored Lady,” one of Katharine Cornell’s greatest stage hits. ‘Dishonored Lady,” which was produced on Broadway by Gilbert Miller and was directed by Guthrie McClintic, premiered at the Empire Theatre. After a long Broadway run, Miss Cornell took it on a triumphant tour across the country, in her first coast-tocoast appearances. The play was authored by Margaret Ayer Barnes and Edward Sheldon. It enjoyed a 35-week run. Stromberg will shortly announce a top ranking feminine star who will play the controversial role created by Miss Cornell on the stage. “Dishonored Lady” is the third property acquired by Stromberg for his forthcoming program of United Artists releases. He will also produce the current New York stage success, “‘Guest in the House,” and the new Clarissa Fairchild Cushman novel, “Young Widow.” Joe Sawyer has just been signed by Hal Roach for a leading role in support of Jimmy Rogers and Noah Beery Jr., in ‘Prairie Chickens,” latest Roach streamliner. This is Sawyers’s eighth role on the Roach lot during the past year and the fourteenth which the popular actor has played in the past twelve months. He recently finished a role in Roach’'s “Tari, Mister” in which he is costarred with William Bendix and Grace Bradley. In “Prairie Chickens,” Sawyer plays a “heavy,” in contrast to the comic roles which he has played in the recent Roach pictures. Paramount Officers Await Trial Verdict The Paramount minority stockholders’ suit before Justice Walters in New York to force an accounting of monies paid Browne and Bioff by company officials is at an end and the verdict is being awaited. Dismissal of the entire suit was sought by Paramount lawyers who argued that no proof had been forthcoming that the company suffered any damages as a result of the payments. Defense lawyers claimed that the evidence clearly showed that payment of extortion had _ prevented a disastrous strike. Justice Walters ordered briefs to be submitted on the dismissal motion by Thursday.