Canadian Film Weekly (Oct 27, 1943)

October 27, 1948 =e Films Via Televn Okay in New York Motion pictures projected on home sets through television have been found worthwhile and will be placed on a regular schedule arranged for military hospitals. The National Broadcasting Company television channels started reaching into hospitals in the New York area on October 25th and over one of these will go two hours of motion pictures, from 8 to 10 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. At least one television set will be installed in each hospital in the New York area and these will present sports, civilian training films and sports events. Because no sets have been manufactured since the USA went to war NBC officials turned in their personal receivers for hospital use. CBS is bearing all expenses. The first television program showed the rodeo at Madison Square Gardens on October 25, with George Putnam, news commentator, acting as master of ceremonies. Track meets, basketball games and hockey will get regular presentation. Philadelphia and Schenectady stations will pick up the New York broadcasts for rebroadcast in the areas served by them. Scophony Corporation of America recently announced that its television would be ready for immediate use in large screen theatres, homes and halls as soon as the war ended. It admitted that the existence of alternative methods removed the menace of monopoly. Paramount and 20th Century-Fox are both tied up with Scophony and other film companies are known to be interested in rival corporations. Canadian documentaries are being televised on a large scale. CBS has already televised National Film Shorts, among them being “Road to Tokyo,” ‘Hot Ice,” ‘‘Forward Commandos,” ‘Mask of Nippon” and ‘Quebec, Path of Conquest.” The New York schedule is a peep at things to come in the entertainment world. Ask for British News The subexecutive of the Local Council of Women, meeting in Toronto last week, urged that larger theatres present more British newsreels. Canadian FILM WEEKLY Sketches in Sulphuric Acid—wNo. 4 These press releases were written by a movie publicity man while suffering from Acute Blurbitis, a condition resulting from slow saccharine Seepage. The effect of Acute Blurbitis {is violent revulsion, leading to reversal of customary conduct. The publicity man has now fully recovered and is back in line but his soul, in the form of these uninhibited expressions, goes marching on. The persons and events depicted herein are fictitious and any resemblance to Hving persons is purely coincidental—except in such cases where someone recognizes himself and is foolish enough to admit it by getting mad publicly. PRODUCER Napoleon Klainer, chief of production at Elba Studios, announces that “Be Gentle, My Love,” which stars Gedilla Delamour, is nearing completion. This great film is being shot in the commissary, a hamburger stand, because the lot is too crowded. He found it more profitable to rent the space to a used car dealer waiting for the war to end. Prints of Elba’s last picture, “Hold Back the Yawn,” were bought by the Royal Canadian Air Force and dropped on Berlin, causing Hitler to protest against the frightful tactics. “‘Be Gentle, My Love’,” the Elba chief states, “will be an example of Hollywood conservation these days.” It is being shot with a pre-war Brownie camera and will be projected on the screen through some magic lanterns that were found when the Los Angeles River dried up last year. It will be sold to theatres by hawkers peddling razor blades, rubber goods and needles as their regular lines. Klainer expects to make enough from the picture to buy a new truss, his general living expenses being defrayed as usual by his brother, a presser in the Bronx, who says there’s no plague like home when Nap is around. The Klainer story is a rats-to-riches one. Many remember when he didn’t have one particle of intelligence to rub against another. Those who know him say that success hasn’t changed him one whit. He is a simple man with a simple philosophy. ‘I always preach that honesty is the best policy,” he says. (It helps disarm the neighbors and ripen them for plucking.) ‘Do someone good every day,” is another of his precepts. (He does.) His labor relations are beyond criticism, he feels. “When casting female roles,” he explains, “I try to make sure that everything is fair to both sides by using a starter’s gun.” The legendary ‘“‘Klainer touch,” when not prescribed by screen writers, can be recognized in that familiar shot of piglets busy at a teat-a-teat. This is his idea of a really big scene. Elba does not represent Klainer’s complete production interests. He is a partner in Epitome Films as a result of keeping quiet the information that the president of that company is in the USA illegally. Elba, which Klainer owns outright, is bankrolled by Elsa van Doodle, a rowdy-dowdy dowager who went for him hook, line and stinker and can’t quit for fear that Nap will turn out to be a cad. Klainer, self-unemployed until then, got into the film business to avoid being charged with vagrancy when California, during the depression, was chasing those who proved that they were sub-humans by heing broke. He announced himself to be a producer because (1) anybody can call himself a producer since no one knows what a producer does and (2) a producer isn’t expected to produce. The American Lexicographer’s Association, in 45 years, has never been able to agree on a definition ‘of the word as applied to films. He reached Hollywood in a cattle car, the hapless beasts being only too glad to give him as much room as possible. Klainer likes California because it costs too much to extradite him to New York—and New York is satisfied with things as they are now. And anyway, there are a couple of boys in Gotham waiting to put all his brains in one basket. His next production will be made with his partner at Epitome, It will be called “Life Begins at 60—Per Cent.” Distribution will be handled by the unjailed members of “Murder, Inc,” Page 7 5 Pelee ome Pp ‘A ul » Sey. Tie ee 7” a de ’ — —————————= TOPS IN ACTION and PULLING POWER 16 WESTERNS 16 8 Buster Crabbe with Al (Fuzzy) St. John BILLY THE KID RIDES AGAIN Action Romance Adventure 8 TEXAS RANGERS With Jim Newall, Dave (Tex) O’Brien and Guy Wilkerson He Sings As He Rides ° PLEASE SCREEN THESE PICTURES BEFORE YOU BUY ANY WESTERNS Producers Releasing Corporation LIMITED Executive Offices: 277 Victoria St., Toronto, 2, Ont.