Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 4, 1956)

Page 6 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY January 4, 1956 SHEA‘S VICTORIA (Continued from Page 1) way for a two-floor parking structure on the 91x170-foot property. The same firm recently acquired the old Toronto Transportation Commission loop on Adelaide, near Yonge, on which it will build a 12-storey building and an eight-storey parking garage, the cost of the two strucures to be $4,500,000. The office building will house the Board of Trade, which has a motion picture branch. President of City Parking Limited is W. B. (Bernie) Herman, who has drive-in interests and is a member of the Variety Club of Toronto. The Victoria, which had a first and second balcony, was opened in 1910 by the late Jerry Shea, who then closed Shea’s on Yonge Street, where he had presented vaudeville since coming from Buffalo to acquire it in 1899. For 15 years before Shea the Yonge Street house was a Musee, the all-embracing Barnum-type theatrical enterprise so popular then. After Shea left it became the Strand, playing movies, burlesque and anything available. During this period the late Leon Schlesinger, originator of Bugs Bunny, was one of the managers. He later worked in Vancouver. His cartoon interests he sold to Warner Bros. Shea’s Victoria, built at a cost of $300,000, was closed in 1926 when films hurt the two-a-day and Shea concentrated on his Shea’s Hippodrome, the four-aday vaudeville house he had erected on Bay Street, across from the City Hall, in 1914. Shea’s Victoria was used for every type of entertainment by those who rented it. Then, in 1949, it returned to something of its former glory. Famous Players refurbished the orchestra and first balcony, as well as installing new projection and stage equipment, at considerable expense for the run of Cecil B. De Mille’s Samson and Delilah. It continued the movie policy for quite a while after that, then closed. The house had about 2,000 seats when first opened but only 1,140 were in use when reopened for films. In 1921 Famous Players, then headed by N. L. Nathanson, entered a pool deal with Shea for his Hippodrome and F'P’s Regent, forming the Shea Amusement Company for this. In 1921 the Shea Amusement Company, jointly owned but controlled by Shea, undertook the operation of Loew’s Uptown and the Victoria. Jack Arthur was moved from the Regent to conduct and produce at the Hippodrome and Vaughan Glaser, occupying the Uptown with his stock company, was moved to the Victoria. About a dozen years ago, following the RKO Stalwart For Many Years Is Honored There are few members of the trade and general press that do not owe thanks to Rutgers Neilson, who was with RKO for 30 years until his recent resignation. His departure from the company was marked by a luncheon in his honor attended by 50 guests. Neilson, standing on the right, is being presented with a travelling kit by Robert K. Hawkinson, assistant foreign manager. Seated on the left is Ann Valladares, Neilson’s secretary, and next to her is Perry Lieber, advertising, publicity and exploitation chief. Next to Neilson, seated, is Herbert H. Greenblatt, Western sales manager. Short “Shnows TWENTY-FIVE years in the theatre business by Frank Colameco, general manager of Timmins Theatres Limited, was marked by associates of the Masciola Enterprises Limited with a banquet in his honor. He was presented with a silver tray. INTERESTING story from New York is about Miss Jeanne Ansell, who controls a _ large foreign-language movie circuit. She was convicted with her accountant of defrauding the Federal Government of $372,000 in theatre admission taxes. They face five years and a $10,000 fine on each count. A divorcee, the 35-year-old Miss Ansell entered the motion picture business in 1944. MOTION Picture Association of America and seven members are being sued in a NY Federal Court for $150,000 by Ellis Films, Inc., which claims that the Association’s Production Code ban on death of Jerry Shea in Toronto, Famous Players acquired control of the Shea Amusement Company and its interests. Walter Graydon, who was assistant treasurer when the Victoria opened, moved to the Hippodrome and became treasurer there in 1927. Later he managed the Parkdale, Toronto and retired in 1947. Shea’s had a Kinetograph projector when it first opened, using it for one-reelers, and it was operated by George Mehl, who organized the projectionists’ union in Toronto. Three Forbidden Stories, its feature, has deprived the company of revenue. COPYRIGHT on British-made films was extended from 25 years to 50 years by the House of Lords after the matter was presented by Lord Archibald at the urging of producers. J. ROBERT RUBIN, permanent chairman of the amusement division of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the USA _ organization, has _ been named as co-chairman of the industry's 1956 Brotherhood Week effort by William J. Heineman, v-p of United Artists, and Spyros S. Skouras, president of Skouras Theatres. Rubin is with Paramount, as is Gordon Lightstone, who heads the industry committee of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews. SAM KATZ, co-founder of the Balaban & Katz circuit and a former MGM vice-president, will form a production company with Joseph Pasternak when the latter’s contract is up at Metro 15 months from now. Katz, who was one of Stanley Kramer’s partners in the Columbia deal that ended a while back, is lining up story properties. NEXT BOOK by Arthur L. Mayer, writer of Merely Colossal, will be America Goes to the Movies, which is being written in collaboration with Richard Griffith, film curator of the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y. News Clips X-ray motion pictures are now practical and growing in use... Ten USA film companies lent the Japanese Electric Power Development corporation $7,500,000 for six years. It’s part of a plan that will enable them to get blocked funds out . .. Famous Players last-quarter dividend will be 37'4¢ per share .. . David O, Selznick sold nine features for TV use to National Telefilm Associates, Inc. for over $1,000000 . Montreal French-language TV station, CBFT, will increase its power six-fold next year, thus reaching a far greater . area. Canadian Repertory Theatre of Ottawa has an option on the Glebe, 858-seat nabe house formerly used for movies and occasional concert and vaudeville attractions . . . William Pilkie, Jr. of the Inglewood, Edmonton, was elected president of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Picture Pioneers ... By 1965 there will be 85,000,000 TV sets in 50,000000 homes in the USA, it was estimated recently ... One toy for a less fortunate child was the admission fee at a recent matinee of the Odeon Movie Club in London, Ontario, with Wishing Well Drinks Limited giving free drinks. Nipawin Theatres Limited of Regina has dropped its idea of building a development that would include a theatre at a cost of $800,000 on city-owned land that was to be sold for $12,000. The city withdrew the offer when the company wanted to build apartments instead ... Foreign film revenue, about half of Hollywood’s total, would not be enough to make up for the USA’s drop in 1955, Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said recently ... Public hearings of the Royal Commission on Broadcasting will start in Ottawa on April 30. The Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, NY, which is headed by Abe Montague of Columbia, will get $25,900 from the Ford Foundation for additions and improvements and for research. “This should stimulate added interest throughout the amusement world in supporting our Hospital,” said Montague. ‘ . Newsreel companies have protested to the Australian Government against the granting of exclusive rights for the Olympic Games to Associated Rediffusion, a UK firm, in return for $100,000 ... Pat Freeman is now general manager of the Canadian Association of Advertising Agencies.