Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 21, 1948)

Page 6 NFBoard s Shows For Tourists Something new has been added to the growing list of tourist activities across Canada. At nearly 50 major tourist points motion pictures of Canada and Canadian subjects are being screened regularly. Tourists planning to cover the Dominion see places they expect to visit, while those visiting only one or two points are being shown a great deal of the rest of Canada and will probably be interested in seeing more of the country. Practically all the films screened are in color. The screening program for tourists, on a national scale, is being operated by the National Film Board through its regional and field staffs, with the co-operation of the local authorities, including parks superintendents, government and civic officials, libraries, theatres, community groups, film councils, etc. In Ottawa the programs are screened in the lecture hall of the National Museum. Among places for showings are Minaki and Pictou Lodges, Bigwin Inn, Niagara Falls, Highland Inn, Royal Muskoka Hotel, Devine Lake Lodge, Banff, Jasper, Waterton Lakes, Elk Island Park, as well as a number of Quebec and Maritime resorts, lodges, camps, hotels and parks. Programs include films on salmon fishing in British Columbia, tuna fishing off Nova Scotia, a flight across Canada by TCA, Banff, Jasper, Winnipeg, the Calgary Stampede, hockey, skiing, the St. Lawrence and Peace Rivers, the Great Lakes, the Isle of Orleans, the Canadian north, the Alaska Highway and many more. Brazzi To Star In "Little Women’ Rossano Brazzi, one of Italy’s top actors and star of “Furia,” “We the Living’ and “The King’s Jester,” will have a starring role in MGM’s production of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, “Little Women.” Others in the cast include June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O’Brien and Janet Leigh. Robert Florey To Meg ‘Outpost in Morocco’ Robert Florey has been sign° ed by Producer Samuel Bischoff to direct “Outpost in Morocco,” starring George Raft and Akim Tamiroff. Location shooting was completed more than a month ago when Raft and other cast members together with production and camera crews spent several months in Morocco, United Artists will release the film. Pe ad Re SK ~» a@ Canadian FILM WEEKLY Boxoffice Barometers (From the Toronto Financial Post) Canadian movie distributors and exhibitors are taking more than an academic interest in the U.S. Supreme Court decisions against several long established practices which exist in the United States and Canada. Distributors and chain exhibitors in this country say these decisions are not likely to have any effect here and emphasize that their operations are carried on without any direct control from across the line. The court in Washington has ordered the film interests, after 10 years of litigation started by the Justice Department's antitrust division, to change their ways in regard to block booking, pooling, clearances, and fixing of minimum admission prices as a condition of film rental. All but the last of these are carried on in Canada. Under block booking, theatre operators contract to rent films sight unseen, often before they have been made, and take what they get. Pooling is an arrangement! by which normally competitive theatres exchange films and divide their revenue on a pro rata basis. Clearances stipulate the length of time which must elapse between showing of films at first-run theatres and neighborhood houses. Principal agitation in the U.S. has been between large production, distribution and exhibition interests and independents who maintain they are too often left out in the cold. Sporadic jousts along these lines in Canada have flared up and petered out; one large exhibitor attributes this to the fact that our population is more widely scattered and tensions in the trade do not occur to the same extent. ; Independent theatre operators in Canada, however, take the view that this may be the time to work for adjustment of some of these practices. They claim that practices regarded as unethical by the U.S. Supreme Court exist in the industry here and should be corrected as soon as possible before the situation develops to the same extent it has in the United States. Canadian film men who oppose the independents’ point of view say their main concern is that Hollywood and British movie makers will keep on making good, and better, pictures that Canadians will keep on paying to see. The box office tells them promptly and without fail whether the public approves of their wares and their way of doing business. Maylia Set To Star In Boston Blackie Pic (Maylia, Chinese actress who scored a hit inher film debut in Columbia’s ‘To the Ends of the Earth,’ will return to that studio for the leading feminine role in “‘Boston Blackie’s Honor,” with Chester Morris. The film, which Seymour Friedman directs with Rudolph Flothow producing, has a Chinatown locale. Richard Lane, George E. Stone and Frank Sully head the supporting cast. Following her appearance in “To the Ends of the LHarth,” Maylia appeared in “Singapore” for Universal-International, then retired temporarily from _ the screen to await the birth of her child. Joseph Cotten Cast In ‘The Third Man’ Joseph Cotten will have the starring role in Carol Reed’s production, ‘The Third [Man,” which goes before the cameras this October in Vienna. “The Third Man,” a new unpublished novel by Graham Greene, is one of the films being produced under the terms of an agreement entered into recently by David O. Selznick and Sir Alexander Korda to produce films for world distribution. Carol Reed will produce and direct “The Third Man.” A top actress to star with Cotten will be selected by Selznick and Korda shortly. It is not yet determined whether she will be an American or an English actress. July 21, 1948 Charles Skouras Leads Earners The man who earned the biggest salary in the USA during 1946 was Charles P. Skouras, theatre circuit operator, according to a treasury report. Skouras earned $985,300 as president of National Theatre Amusement Co. Inc., and Fox West Coast Agency Corp. He was one of three Californians who topped the new list of more than 900 individuals who had earned more than $75,000 during the calendar year 1946 and fiscal year ending in 1947. Skouras was followed by William Wyler, movie director for Samuel Goldwyn Productions Inc., $432,000. Screen Actress Betty Grable was tops among women wageearners with $229,333 from Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Her husband, Bandleader Harry James, earned $100,036 from the same company. The figures represented salaries before taxes. Under the old rate, the tax varied from $47,324 on $80,000 of income to $840,146 on one million dollars without exemptions. The list did not cover income from investment. Bing Crosby got $325,000 from Paramount Pictures, Inc.; Hedy Lamarr earned $179,800 from the Mars Film Corp., California; Marlene Dietrich, $100,000 from Paramount; Maureen O’Hara, $199,330 from Fox; Dorothy Lamour, $175,083 from Paramount; and Gene Tierney, $151,083 from Fox. The list also showed that Robert E. Sherwood, playwright, earned $208,000 from Samuel Goldwyn Productions. Paramount Pictures paid comedian Bob Hope $275,000 and actor Alan Ladd $212,000. Plans Fourth Theatre Construction is expected to start shortly on a 660-seat theatre, the fourth in St. Thomas, Ontario. Builders will be National Theatre Services, Limited. Stars Assigned For Wanger's ‘Tulsa’ Pedro Armendariz and Robert Preston have been signed by Walter Wanger for the male starring roles opposite Susan Hayward in his Technicolor production, “Tulsa,” at Eagle Lion (Hollywood) Studios. “Tulsa,’’ which is slated to go before the cameras late this month, carries a budget of more than $1,500,000, and is planned as a cinematic saga bringing to the screen a segment of American history in the manner of “Cimmaron” and “Stage Coach,”