Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 24, 1955)

Vol. 20, No. 32 HYE BOSSIN, Managing Editor Assistant Editor Ben Halter Office Manager ~Esther Silver CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Canada Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa Published by Film Publications of Canada, Limited 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada — Phone WA!nut 4-3707 Price $3.00 per year. CONFED'N FILM (Continued from Page 1) ing about the country in two station wagons and hauling its own equipment, is in Quebec right now. Jekste is acting as executive producer, while the director is Otto Kurth, a German well known in Britain, whom the film is providing with his first assignment on this side. The feature, which will run to about 85 minutes, is being photographed by Ralfs Balodis in 35 mm. Anscocolor, with the footage being processed at Ansco’s plant in Binghampton. Cecil Dawes is handling sound. Shooting will be finished in September and the film ready for distribution in December. A theatrical release is being negotiated now. Interiors will be shot and editing done in Atlantic’s own studios in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Jekste says that co-operation has been excellent, the CBC and the National Film Board having been helpful in a number of places, while extra equipment has been made available by others when needed. Local citizens have been used as actors but “Canada is the star and the provinces the co-stars.” From Latvia, where he entered the industry in 1925, Jekste came to Canada from Europe in 1951, founding Atlantic Films and Electronics Limited. The company produced 12 shorts last year for Canadian and Danish interests, most of which were shown in Canada. His goal is the production of Canadian features and he feels that his Confederation story will be a good start. August 24, 1955 UA Manager's Prize To Canadian District Winner of the District Manager’s Prize in the recent United Artists Week competition was the Canadian District, which was under the leadership of Charles S. Chaplin, Canadian general manager. In the drive week 759 theatres throughout Canada played 1,412 UA features. In announcing the winning of the award Chaplin stated that the wonderful co-operation of the exhibitors was the big factor and extended his_ sincere thanks to them. -the shorts for 1955. Last CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Plan Hwd. Canada Tour (Continued from Page 1) ing, under the chairmanship of Archibald A. Day of the Department of External Affairs, was told that Blake Owensmith, Hollywood representative of the CCP, had resigned and that the post was now held by Alfred Corwin, a man of great efficiency who has a wide knowledge of the motion picture industry. Owensmith, Mills said, had done a fine job. Mills, pointing out that a number of Canadian producers now desired to make features, stated that financial success lay in the ability to find a place in the American market. One of his functions is to help them do that. A number of features in the past year contained references to Canada. In The Purple Plain Gregory Peck plays an RCAF pilot and in another, The Searchers, the Alberta government had provided a Buffalo herd. A Warner Bros. feature about Kitimat and Fox’ The Sixth of June, which has Canadian ingredients, has the CCP interested. Eighteen Canadian short subjects, among them several from the National Film Board, were released in the USA in 1954 and the number would be about the same this year. Here’s Hockey, Bush Doctor, Blinkity-Blank and a subject on gold were among year there were 200 Canadian newsreel items and 79 had _ been shown up to July 19 this year, Mills reported. Newsreel editors are now Canada-conscious and most helpful because of the CCP. Introduced by Day, Mills said that his affection and respect for Canada were even greater, now that he had just concluded a two-week tour of Western Canada. Day noted that the Canadian Co-operation Project had outlived its original purpose, which had been related to Canada’s dollar exchange problems in 1948. It was now playing an even more significant role in an important sector of Canadian-American relations, the motion picture industry. Other members of the Interdepartmental Committee who participated in the meeting, which took place in the Main Conference Room of the East Block of the Parliament Buildings, were Glen Bannerman, Canadian Government Exhibition Commission; S. R. N. Hodgins, Department of Agriculture; L. H. Ausman, Department of Trade and Commerce; J. W. Cosman, National Film Board; Inspector Bayfield, Royal Canadian Mounted Police; L. Connery, Canadian Government Travel Bureau; W. S. Jobbins, National Film Board; D. B. Hicks, Department of External Affairs, who acted as secretary; and W. F. Harrison, MacLaren’s Advertising Agency. Dougias In ‘Lust For Life’ Kirk Douglas will star as Vincent van Gogh in MGM’s Lust for Life. PALANCE FOR OTTAWA-MADE FILM? Negotiations have been completed with Jack Palance, Hollywood star, to play the lead in the first motion picture to be produced by a Canadian company now in the process of incorporation, North American Film Productions, Inc. of Ottawa, Fred C. Leavens, an exhibitor of that city, told Canadian Film Weekly. Leavens, who will be the vice-president, wrote that “within five years we plan on making Ottawa a second Hollywood, California, only better.” The company, which has been in the process of organization for the past year, will have its studio and offices in Ottawa. Canadian artists and technicians will be used and a Canadian story filmed when, “in the opinion of our directors, the right one comes. along.” More news will be forthcoming shortly. Ottawa papers recently announced that Nicholas Kairez, a former European film maker, had formed a company with Leavens. CRAN QUITS FPCC'S TELEMETER President of Famous Players’ two Telemeter subsidiary companies since January, 1954, W. C. Thornton Cran has resigned to direct two companies in which he has an important interest, Decca Radar Company and Decca Navigator Company. The companies, in which he held a directorship, are owned by Decca Records of London, England, which no longer has any connection with Decca Records of the USA. It is expected that Cran will not be replaced at the present time, since Telemeter in Canada will remain inactive until something happens with it in the USA, but his former responsibilities. will be shared by Eugene Fitzgibbons and Jean Pouliot, the company’s TV executives. Cran, who has wide experience in the electronics field, organized Canada’s first pay-see TV service, Rediffusion Inc. of Montreal, some years ago for Broadcast Relay Service (Overseas) Limited of England, his native country. He first came to Canada in 1940 and returned here in 1947, August 24, 1955 OW IS a good time to face the problem of overseating in our business. It has been said that there is no solution to overseating. Too many theatres in a given situation result in a lack of profit for most of them. Actually, the cure for overseating is the elimination of seats. For many years our business had a sort of rule-of-thumb about seating and overseating. An average town was not considered overseated unless rated theatre capacity was beyond one seat for every ten persons. Thus a city of 100,000 population could generally support about 10,000 seats and one of 30,000 about 3,000 seats. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule based on varying conditions, but generally it held pretty well true. Today, in TV-saturated areas, it is questionable if this rule is applicable any longer. Unquestionably, we shall eventually establish a new rule-ofthumb. It may be one seat for every 15 people or one even for 20. Economic factors and other circumstances will determine this, and in larger areas the process of elimination through business mortality will level things out. The number of theatre closings in larger cities will attest to this. Such closings are not cause for alarm in our business. It is hard on the individuals involved, but on the overall picture not a tragedy. Most of the theatres which have closed, or will close, are either obsolete or have always been borderline. It is logical to expect that when so many theatres have been built in so few years, some must have been erected in economically-unfeasible locations and were therefore doomed from the outset. (This is presently happening in the drive-in theatres.) If one accepts the theory that motion pictures have been replaced by TV as a time-waster, one should not thereby conclude that people do not or will no longer go to the movies. Actually, it means that some may not go so often and that when they do go they are more selective in the choosing of their shows and that generally they want to see films when they are new and “hot.” Most of the theatres which have closed and will close have contributed very little in dollar quantum for film rentals. Therefore our business as a whole suffers very little from the standpoint of the availability of large sums of film rentals for the continued production of top screen attractions. It is important, however, that when the press, as it (Continued on Page 8)