Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 23, 1955)

March 23, 1955 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 5 AL C, HARTSHORN of Oshawa, Ontario, an employee of Famous Players for over 28 years, was recently inducted into the Canadian Picture Pioneers at a ceremony which set a precedent. He was the first member ever to be accepted into the Pioneers in a place other than the organization’s club rooms. The _ special ceremony was made necessary by Hartshorn’s confinement at the Mountain Sanatorium near Hamilton and Harold Pfaff and Dan Krendel carried out the initiation and read President N. A. Taylor’s letter of welcome. PURCHASE of the 300-car Huntsville Drive-in in Huntsville, Ontario, has been made by Frank Giaschi from Cecil Hawn. Bud Giaschi, son of the new owner, will manage the ozoner. CONDUCTED by W. A. McCauley, the newly-formed Crawley Films Glee Club, which is made up of 27 members of the Crawley staff and rehearses during lunch hour each day, romped away with the top award in the recent Ottawa Music Festival. It was their first competition and the attempt earned for them the P. D. Ross and E. Norman Smith Shield. SHOOTING has started on the Marilyn Bell film being made by Meridian Productions in Toronto, with Julian Roffman producing. Actual work will take about six weeks and the running time of the short will probably be confined to about 15 minutes. OPPORTUNITY of learning to speak French has been given to NFB English-speaking employees through a course set up by Pierre de Bellefeuille in which those with a knowledge of French are teaching those without. The classes, which are held twice weekly and are free, are in preparation for the NFB’s move to Montreal, when being bi-lingual will be a decided advantage. About 40 are enrolled. TV SETS now in use in Canada number over 1,200,000 and their value is estimated at $465,390,000, with over half of them being purchased during 1954. Of these Ontario has 661,000, Quebec 363,000, the Maritimes 28,000, the Prairie Provinces 74,000 and BC 84,000. DECISION of Federal Judge John Knight on the case of J. Myer Schine and Louis W. Schine, brothers, charged with criminal contempt and heard in Mews Notes NFB SHOOTS FIRST STORY FILM? Filming has been completed in Perth, Ontario of what is claimed to be the first National Film Board story film, The Curlers. Written by Norman Klenman and directed by William Davidson, the short uses townspeople throughout and deals with the sport of curling, with a bonspiel as a climax. Purpose of the half-hour film, according to a recent newspaper story, is for the NFB to explore the possibility of low-budget story-film making, either for the NFB’s non-theatrical circuit or for release to TV. $591,000 FOR CANAD'N KODAK STAFF An estimated $591,000 wage dividend, the largest such bonus, will be distributed by Canadian Kodak Co. Limited to its 1,200 employees. All those eligible will receive $28.75 for each $1,000 earned for the last five years. Last year the dividend payment was $539,000 at a rate of $27.75 per $1,000 earned in the five-year period. This was the record bonus at the time. The plan was started in 1912 and the payments are made in addition to regular wages and have no effect on the wage rate. NEW HIGH FOR USA FOREIGN TAKE Remittances from USA film earnings abroad in 1954 is expected to reach $200 million and set a new high, it is estimated by the Foreign Commerce Weekly, a government publication, Climbing film figures are ascribed by the report to the increasing number of high-quality productions which are being exported; to the growth in theatre facilities, through new construction throughout the world; and to the lowering of quotas for screen time for locally-produced films in several countries. SPECIAL SETUP FOR 'COMMANDMENTS' “To guarantee the greatest and most comprehensive news coverage ever given any motion picture in history,” Paramount has set up a special bureau to disseminate news and information on Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, now being filmed in VistaVision and Technicolor, Jerry Pickman, vice-president in charge of advertising, publicity and exploitation, gave as the reason for the unprecedented scope and depth of the publicity campaign the world-wide interest and appeal of the film. The entire news bureau is functioning as an adjunct of the Paramount publicity department in Hollywood, with specialized experts handling each phase. It is under the over-all supervision of Teet Carle, head of studio publicity, and the immediate direction of Art Arthur, DeMille’s executive assistant in charge of public relations. Buffalo will not be handed down for at least two months. They are accused of conspiring to violate a 1949 consent decree entered into with the government, in which they were to sell certain properties and discontinue monopolistic practices in exhibition of films. CHILDREN’S Movie Guide, a once-a-week feature of the Victoria Daily Times, is proving very popular with parents attempting to select worthwhile films for their offspring to see. The Guide is a combined effort of the theatre managers in the area and Mrs. C. H. Lowdon, chairman of the community standards committee of the Victoria Parent-Teacher Council. AMENDMENT of the entertainment act in BC last year called for payment on all seats occupied, even if no admission was charged. However, when Liberal leader Arthur Laing stated in the legislature that pen sioners and charity cases were being forced to pay the tax, although they did not have to pay an admission charge, several theatre managers stated they had protested and the tax for such cases had been dropped by the government. SEVEN reels of Red Badge of Courage, amounting to about 7,000 feet of film, was _ stolen recently from the MGM exchange on Burrard Street in Vancouver. Assigned Role In ‘Black Pearis' Lance Fuller will appear opposite Virginia Mayo in RKO Radio’s Black Pearls. Royce, Toronto Fined A fine of $200 was _ levied against the Royce Theatre, Toronto in court when the owner, Won Chuck Yuen, pleaded guilty to a charge of having bolted exits, brought recently by the Theatres Inspection Branch of the Ontario Censor Board. MANITOBA REV (Continued from Page 1) man. Elimination of objectionable material was also ordered in one trailer. Total revenue for the year was given as $57,918.40, of which $5,000 was for payment for censorship service facilities by the Province of Saskatchewan, which has none of its own although it has its own censorship branch. Noted in the report was the fact that Manitoba ranked fourth in Canada in per capita expenditures for movies with $7.74, as against a Canadian average of $8.30. The report added that “Ontario was the only province where’ spending on movies was lower due to increased development of television.”’ The film banned was La Ronde, which had been rejected once previously. “Major” reason advanced for the objection was the lack of provision in the province to restrict children from movies billed as adult, a regulation which was in force in Ontario where the film had been given a limited showing. “Horror, torture and flogging scenes accounted for nine eliminations,” the report stated. “Obscene action and dialogue was deleted from six films. Profanity and offensive dialogue was deleted from five films.” "Renegade Roundup' Fred F. Sears has been assigned by Columbia to direct Renegade Roundup, which Wallace MacDonald will produce from an original screenplay by David Lang. Sears recently completed direction of Teen-Age Crime Wave for Sam Katzman. ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’ Dan O’Herlihy has been added to the cast of Sir Walter Raleigh, 20th Century-Fox CinemaScope drama starring Betty Davis, Richard Todd and Joan Collins. Henry Kostor will direct the Charles Brackett production from a screenplay by Harry Brown. Mr. Exhibitor LoS Our specially selected representatives have been trained to sell for you locally our expanding Adfilm service for merchanis in your town, For further particulars contact: Adfilms Limited 77 York St., 10940-122nd St., TORONTO EDMONTON EM. 8-8986 8-2508