Canadian Film Weekly (May 30, 1945)

@ May 30, 1945 Warners 45-46 Policy Okayed (Continued from Page 1) and theatre controls. The groups are: Five specials, four in Group 1, eight in Group 2, six in Group 3 and two in Group 4. Production of about 75 per cent of the films to be offered have been completed, it was stat .ed by Ben Kalmenson, general sales manager of the parent company, during the recent meeting in Toronto. Among the pictures to be rcleased in the new groups arc “Rhapsody in Blue,” the longawaited film biography of the late George Gershwin, and the Technicolor epic, from the story by Edna Ferber, “Saratoga Trunk,” in which Ingrid Bergman plays the lead. Pictures released during the balance of the current season are “Conflict,” with Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet; “The Horn Blows at Midnight,” with Jack Benny, Alexis Smith and Dolores Moran, “My Reputation,” Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, “Escape in the Desert,” with Jean Sullivan, Philip Dorn, Irene Manning and Helmut Dantine, ‘‘The Corn is Green,” with Bette Davis and John Ball, and “Pillow to Post,” with Ida Lupino and Sydney Greenstreet. “Hotel Berlin,” Roughly Speaking” and “God is My Co-pilot” are in current release. LEATHERETTE For Repairs NEW SHIPMENT Dark Brown Spanish JUST IN Heavy Quality 54’’ Wide ORDER NOW CANADIAN THEATRE CHAIR CO. ‘40 St. Patrick. St. TORONTO SY! yf LL r a!) f Canadian FILM WEEKLY ‘On J . “SQUARE Babble, Babble, Black Sheep Bob Murphy, Para booker, was boosting “Bring on the Girls.” The subject switched suddenly to politics. “I’m going to vote for Bracken,” said Bob. “John—or Eddie?” he was asked . . Thought: Let’s hope historians of the future won’t date World War III back to the Sanfrisco confab... A manager who played the news with the scenes of Mussolini’s rough fate at the hands of Partisans and the mob said: “They ought to show it once a year for the benefit of would-be dictators.” ... Talk about local lads who have gone places, there’s Harry Popkin of Dundas Strezt, Toronto, who just transferred his Los Angeles’ Million Dollar Theatre to Charles Skouras and associates in a deal. He'll concentrate personally on production, being behind “Ten Little Indians,’ but retains his other theatre properties .. . Thompson’s, favorite filmite eatery, has changed hands . . . Shooting Sunny Eason took those swell shots at the banquet of the Twentieth Century Club. . . Freddie Trebilcock is in Mexico on his vacation . .. H. Eckert, proj at the Capitol, St. Catharines, just completed 25 years in the biz . . . Bea Shapiro, Mono public relations contact, was married on May 20. She received many whole-kearted congrats around here, being the critics’ fave in the blurb field . . . F/O Tommy Dowbiggin, son of Montreal’s Tommy, Sr., has been liberated from a German prison camp. He was first reported missing but happily time proved it untrue. * 3k *% % Food and Literature One of the wisest and wittiest books of the season is Morton Thompson’s ‘Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player,” from Doubleday Doran. That frivolous title in no way indicates the quality of the reading matter it identifies. There are some giveaways on the craft of columning by Thompson, one of whose most devoted readers I was when, because of geographical advantage, I read his column daily in the Hollywood Citizen News. Wrote he: “I long ago came to the intimate conclusion that the quality of a column is a matter between the columnist and his viscera. There are days when you stumble onto the grandest kind of material and it has no more effect on you than a glass of warm fish. You consider it moodily; sullenly you make a column out of it. There are other days when the littlest damned thing, a nothing, a sudden breeze, an odor, a remark, just the day itself, will set you flailing away at your mill, taut and delighted and unerring as the Recording Angel. Then you make something trivial seem important.” Wonder where I put that diet table? A Bad Penning Always Turns Up The sick list was pretty long last time I checked it — Archie Laurie, Tom Bragg, Ernie Moule, and Jules Wolfe. . . . Lieut. Jack Midwinter, formerly assistant to Connie Spencer at the Capitol, Hamilton, is back from overseas. He was one of 650 Canadians who volunteered to transfer to the British Army and landed with it on D-Day. He was wounded twice .. . At Mickey’s delicateria the lads were listing men of many talents and someone compared radio’s Norman Corwin with Orson Welles. “That’s like comparing Shaw with Horatio Alger,” sneered’ Harvey Dobbs, the radio announcer and a Corwin admirer. “Don’t talk that way about my favorite author,” chided Barney Fox. “Who, Shaw?” asked Dobb. “No, Alger,” replied Barney . . . In referring to the death of Walter Golding in Saint John, Judge H. O. McInerney said he overheard one newsic tell another: “Gee, it’s tough, first Roosevelt, now Golding.” To which the judge added: “Don’t think that the boy didn’t know that one was president of the world’s greatest republic and the other prominent in a small city to the north. But he had them bracketed in his wee mind as friends of the kids and of all who suffer and need comfort.” . .. PRC will likely move its premises within the next few months. Page 5 Decorated F/L BILL DeMILLE Formerly of Paramount head office booking staff in Toronto, who was awarded the DFC. He won his wings at Uplands and was overseas for a year and a half. Bill was a bomber pilot in a Lancaster. Morris Milligan, Veteran, Passes (Continued from Page 1) Delta, Empire and Queen’s theatres, Hamilton, Ontario, and held an exhibition interest in a Newfoundland house. The late Mr. Milligan, a member of the Canadian Picture Pioneers, was Canadian general manager of Paramount from 1925 until three years ago, when he resigned to enter exhibition. He was succeeded temporarily by Del Goodman, who returned to the USA upon the appointment of Gordon Lightstone. Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, he was the publisher of the local paper with his brother, Carl, who passed away several years ago, both having succeeded their father in that post. In 1917 he came to the Pantages Theatre, Edmonton and several years later joint Paramount in Winnipeg. He came to the Toronto branch in 1922, left to take over the management of the Cincinnati office in 1923, and in 1925 returned to Toronto succeed Phil Reisman, now of RKO, as Canadian general manager. A supporter of athletic activities by his sponsorship of teams, he enjoyed many personal friendships and was held in high regard by the industry as a whole,