Canadian Film Weekly (Feb 16, 1949)

Page 4 Metro Disc Deal Helps Canadians The phonograph record industry of Canada and the United States will be more closely together and Canadian talent will have a new opportunity in the international field, as the result of the agreement signed by the MGM Record Division of Loew’s Inc., and Quality Records Ltd. of Toronto. The agreement’ grants a franchise to Quality Records for the exclusive manufacture and distribution of MGM Records in Canada and Newfoundland, It also clears the way to a new market for Canadian _ talent through the exchange of original recordings between the two companies. Quality Records Ltd. is a new corporation controlled by AllCanada Radio Facilities Ltd., an organization which owns. or operates a number of radio stations and handles the sale and distribution of the majority of transcribed radio programs in Canada. The board of directors will be comprised of Harold R. Carson, president of All-Canada Radio Facilities; Clifford Sifton, president of Armadale Corporation Ltd.; Duncan MacTavish, KC., representing Southam Newspapers; A. G. A. Spence, of Mills, Spence and Company Limited, investment dealers; Guy Herbert, general manager of All-Canada Radio Facilities; C. C. Moskowitz and Leopold Friedman, vice-presidents of Loew’s Inc., and Frank Walker, head of MGM Record Division. Harold R. Carson has been elected president, and Guy Herbert vice-president. A complete plant for the manufacture of records will be erected in Toronto. MGM Records will provide matrices of its discs for pressing in the Toronto plant as soon as equipment has been installed. In the meantime, Quality Records will begin distribution of MGM discs pressed in the American plant at Bloomfield, New Jersey. In addition to processing phonograph records, the new company plans to record and press sixteeninch transcriptions for broadcast purposes. Full production facilities will also be installed in the new building. In its export of matrices produced in Canada and featuring Canadian talent, Quality Records will participate in a three-way exchange with MGM and Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd., of Great Britain. This company holds a similar contract with the MGM Record Division, giving the MGM label wide distribution throughout the world. Canadian FILM WEEKLY | laa es Th OZQUARE There Is a Border The Royal Commission will study cultural influences in Canada and is bound to examine the part played by American films and publications. The fear of being flooded by American programs is one reason for the television tieup. I think one of the most important duties of those who represent American enterprises in Canada is to make their superiors aware that Canadians have ideas and institutions of their own. To be unaware of the separate feelings of Canadians is to be stupid in a costly way. In their “Ottawa Report” column for the Montreal Standard Gerald Waring and Robert McKeown had a part called “Uncle Sam’s Public Relations.” Read it: “There is a growing opinion in the US State Department that the US has been taking Canada too much for granted. Probably one reason for this view is the realization that Canada has changed enormously in the last 10 years and thati she is much more important than she used to be. She makes her weight felt internationally: in trade, in the capitals of the world, in the councils of the UN. Indeed the freshness of viewpoint that Canadians have brought into UN deliberations has more than once startled the State Department. This alone might be a good reason for Washington to send a first class diplomat to Ottawa, as it did when it appointed Laurence A. Steinhardt as ambassador. But in addition, Washington is concerned over the number of little incidents in the last couple of years which have ruffled the Canadians. We didn’t take kindly, for example, to hints of US infringement on Canadian sovereignty over the far north, to overzealous American efforts to get rights to truck in bond through southern Ontario, to the ill-considered US ban on coal exports to Canada until the CNR returned empty coal cars, and to the stupid action by the US Embassy in protesting unofficially against the appointment of Edmont Turcotte as consul-general at Chicago. Steinhardt’s job is to smooth over past diplomatic errors and sweeten US-Canadian relations, to keep the St. Laurent administration as friendly toward Washington as was Mackenzie King’s, and to persuade it that America’s interests abroad continue to be Canada’s.” ? I submit that Canadian representatives of American enterprise, including those in the film industry, are small counterparts of Steinhardt. They, too, are ambassadors who must, in their own field, copy Steinhardt’s work, thereby assisting him to accomplish the things set forth by Waring and McKeown in their last paragraph. Failure to do that and their employers in New York and Hollywood will suddenly have reason to ask: “What happened ?” Heard a story about two men watching a high wire walker doing a split and playing a Beethoven concerto on the violin at the same time. “Isn’t he wonderful?” enthused the first. ‘“Personally,” was the reply, “I like Heifitz.” Glad to hear that “Un Homme Et Son Peche” is such a success in Quebec, for Paul L’Anglais is a sincere and popular person. If anyone is an exception to the guarded attitude people now have towards Canadian production, it is Paul. In the Montreal Gazette recently Herbert Whittaker did a story headed “True Quebec Production” and in it wrote: “This simple action is set against backgrounds of Quebec country-side, remarkably well-caught by some sensitive camerawork, and played by a group of character actors that I swear you could not match on the continent. These are true Canadiens, but there are echoes of another great heritage, of Moliere, of Balzac, of Zola.” ; The newest story, by the way, is that Whittaker will fill the reviewing post left vacant by the passing of Roly Young. Early rumors had Clyde Gilmour in the spot. About the L’Anglais film — in English “A Man and His Sin,”’ —I hope that it will be dubbed for distribution all over Canada. February 16, 1949 Charles Skouras Top USA Earner Charles P. Skouras, president of National Theatres, received the largest salary paid in the United States to an individual in the calendar year 1946 and the fiscal years ending in 1947, according to the final report for that period by the USA Treasury. His earnings amounted to $985,300. Highest-paid woman was Bette Davis, who received $328,000 from Warner Brothers. Leading male earner among actors was also a Warner Brothers star, Humphrey Bogart, and he was paid $467,361. Deanna Durbin, with $323,477 from Universal, was second to Miss Davis. Betty Grable, 20th CenturyFox star and top-salaried feminine player the year before, was third on the movie actresses’ list with $299,333. The Treasury is required to make public all salaries over $75,000 paid by a corporation, but is not required to do so with earnings made by investment and thus the incomes of many of the wealthiest families in the USA are not listed. Figures given as earnings here are before taxes, which in the upper brackets can amount to 90 per cent of the total. Relative figures show that the Treasury takes $63,540 on a salary of $100,000. A $200,000 salary is taxed at $148,551; $250,000 at $191,771; $300,000 at $234,996; $400,000 at $321,446; $500,000 at $407,896; $750,000 at 624,021, and $1,000,000 at $840,146. Screen luminaries dominated the list of the top ten salary earners and include Stanley Morner, known to movie fans as Dennis Morgan, $325,829 from Warner Brothers. William Goetz, producer, $284,000 from Universal. Ann Sheridan, $269,345 from Warners. Robert Montgomery, $250,000 from Universal Pictures. Here are some of the other salaries listed: By Universal Pictures: Bud Abbott, $120,730; Charles Boyer, $125,000; Claudette Colbert, $83,871; Lou Costello, 128,345; Fred MacMurray, $325,000, and Walter Wanger, $224,127. By Warner Brothers: Lew Ayres, $105,000; Jack Benny, $125,000; Joan Crawford, $156,250; Errol Flynn, $199,999; Walter Huston, $100,000: Thomas Mitchell, $206,250: Ida Lupino, $120,000; Ronald Reagan, $169,750; Alexis Smith, $120,000, and Sidney Greenstreet, $96,250. By Columbia Pictures: Rita Hayworth, $94,416; Ginger Rogers, $241,620; Rosalind Russell, $190,104; and Charles Vidor, $92,916,