Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 3, 1954)

CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY November 3, 1954 November 3, 1954 Vol. 19, No. 42 HYE BOSSIN, Managing Editor Address all communications— The Managing Editor, CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Canada Entered as Second Class Matter Published by Film Publications of Canada, Limited 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada — Phone WAInut 4-3707 Price $3.00 per year. Aid Hurricane Fund Allied Theatres, with midnight shows in 19 houses, raised $5,300 through collections for the Ontario Relief Hurricane Fund, while three owl shows by Premier Operating provided another $1,600. Films and services were donated. To Co-Star With Bogart Casting for Paramount’s The Desperate Hours is almost complete with the selection of Dewey Martin to co-star as Humphrey Bogart’s younger brother. Columbia Acquires Serial Jack Finney’s Five Against the House, serialized in Good Housekeeping, will be brought to the screen by Columbia Pictures with Guy Madison starred. UA's "Not As A Stranger’ New York stage and television actress Tamar Cooper will make her screen debut in United Artists’ Not ‘As A Stranger. Mrs. Louis Rosenfeld Passes In Toronto The passing of Blanche Burditt Rosenfeld at 58, following a cerebral hemorrhage, brought sadness last week to the Toronto motion picture community, in which she was loved for her kindliness and unfailing humor. She died in the Mount Sinai Hospital, which she had helped build as a charter and life member of the Women’s Auxiliary. She was also a member of the Council of Jewish Women, and the Women’s Committee of the Variety Club of Toronto and the Holy Blossom Temple Sisterhood. The late Mrs. Kosenfeld was the wife of Louis Rosenfeld, president and general manager of Columbia Pictures of Canada and a director of Premier Operating Corporation. Born in Toronto, she lived for some time in Winnipeg. Her home was at 120 Rosedale Heights Road, Toronto. Services were held in the Holy Blossom Temple and interment followed in the Holy Blossom Memorial Park. Surviving are her husband; one son, Gurston Rosenfeld, Toronto; a daughter, Mrs. Marion Mirsky, Ottawa; a sister, Mrs. Ronnis Hudson, and a brother, M. Burditt, both of Parry Sound, JEBEC DISTRICT CHAMPIONS OF 1954 CONFECTIONS At Odeon Theatres’ Quebec Regional Meeting Some of those who attended the recent Quebee regional meeting of Odeon Theatres (Canada) Limited in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Montreal, are shown here. Honored at the meeting were A. P. Bahen, who won the prize for the top district in The Odeon Big Show, and J. J. Martin, manager of the Mercier, top district showman. i At the head table, standing from left to right, are T. F. Moran, director of confectionery sales; A. P. Bahen; David Gricsdorf, general manager; E. G. Forsyth, assistant general manager; and Harvey Hunt, director of booking end buying. Seated, first row, are J. P, Papincau, W. Smith, M. Desjardins, C. Labelle, A. Miner, R. Gaboury, G. Joanette and R. Gagne. In the second row are W. C. Tyers, director of advertising; Bob Gardner, movie clubs and screen advertising and I. Goldsmith. "Seven Bad Men’ Nat Holt Production Company’s first film for RKO Radio release, Seven Bad Men, has gone into production. The effort is in Superscope and Technicolor and costars Randolph Scott, Mala Powers and Forrest Tucker. Para's 'The Girl Rush‘ In preparation at RKO, the $2,500,000 Technicolor Rosalind Russell starrer, The Girl Rush, a musical about Las Vegas, has been switched to Paramount by Floyd B. Odlum, whose ‘Atlas Corporation controls the film. ARTICLE ABOUT CANADIAN INDUSTRY “The movies . . . glamorous history . . . competitive future” is the title of an article about the Canadian motion picture industry by Frederick Bell in the October edition of Canadian Business. States the introduction: “The story of Canada’s movie theatre business today comes in Technicolor and black and white. As the motion picture production industry passes through a period of uncertain metamorphosis—3-D, Cinerama, CinemaScope—theatres in some parts of the country are faced with competition from TV. But movie boxoffice receipts are close to an all-time high in Canada. The movies have had a brilliant past, and so far in this country are holding their own in what looks like a competitive future.” Since it carries little that is new, the article is of greater, interest to non-movie readers than to movie industry readers. JOHNSTON RE UNIT DISTRIBUTION Unit revising and shipping will be tried in New York in the future, Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said recently in Hollywood. The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association undertook a survey of this method in Canada last year, with Harvey Harnick, Columbia general sales manager, checking the possibilities. It would mean that such work would be done for all the companies through a single agency in each exchange centre. Johnston said also that he was opposed to foreign countries insisting on subsidies, usually from domestic rentals, to aid native production but that he believes that a better approach would be to assist producers of other lands to obtain wider distribution in the USA. | oe ee ae § Qur Business a WAT lor OW high is up? As terms go up, so do admission prices. At the same time all other costs of theatre operation are rising. How far can we go before we price ourselves right out of our market? The success of our business in the past has been based on the fact that it is a mass entertainment medium and we have always strived to cater to the greatest number of potential patrons. Every time an admission price is raised a segment of this patron potential disappears. Utopia, of course, is the sale of the greatest number of admission tickets at the highest prices. The advent of 3-D started the practice of charging higher prices simply because entertainment was presented in a new medium. Most of the pictures were bad and the public rapidly showed its displeasure by staying away in large numbers. There seems to be a tendency to charge higher prices simply because a picture is in CinemaScope. Such theatres as persist in this practice may rapidly find that they are alienating a large group of their potential patrons. It would seem today that admission prices are, to a great extent, determined by the terms demanded by the distributor. If he asks higher than normal terms, the exhibitor can only hope to make a profit by charging higher admission prices. If the public responds in sufficiently large numbers the film is a success and the policy is thereby vindicated. If, however, the public does not respond the antithesis is true and distributor and exhibitor must both change their sights. A reiteration at this point would not seem amiss: “The public is the final arbiter and gives us its answer at the boxoffice.” The exhibitors’ problem is to cater to as many people as possible 52 weeks a year. The distributor is only interested in his current epic. The pattern of advanced prices has to some degree been accepted by sufficiently large numbers of the public to be voted successful—but only for such entertainment as it thinks or knows to be outstanding, whatever the medium. Willingness to pay advanced prices in reasonable measure has been indicated. We should not thereby accept this as carte blanche to charge whatever the distributor suggests or demands. It is in the interest of exhibitors to encourage producers to make the best entertainment possible but there are pitfalls to be avoided. Cooperation between all segments of the industry is more vital today than ever but should not be misinterpreted,