Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 6, 1956)

June 6, 1956 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 5 Backs Production Experimentation Believing that art must experiment to survive and that such experimentation is difficult in an art that has become industrialized, the British film industry, through the British Film Institute, has provided a small sum for such activity, writes Stephen Watts in an article prepared for the United Kingdom Information Services. Says Watts: “The British Film Institute set up a committee some time ago to administer a £7,000 grant ‘to encourage new and original talent and ideas in film-making’ and so far nine films have been sponsored and seven completed. Recently two of these, together with an independently-backed experimental film, were shown at the National Film Theatre in London and drew from the critics the opinion that the venture shows promise. One went so far as to describe this program as _‘the most exciting contribution to the art of the cinema’ since the arrival of the documentary film. “But these films are not really, in the accepted sense, documentary. The three samples were shown under the general title of ‘Free Cinema,’ meaning that the makers were free of commercial influences and motivated by ‘a belief in freedom, in the importance of people, and in the significance of the everyday.’ Clearly the spirit underlying these films is realist, and therefore has something in common with the immediate post-war school of Italian film-making, but this comparison should not be taken too far. There is nothing imitative here, and, anyhow, nothing so ambitious as a full-length ‘story’ film has yet been attempt20.7. The first film, Together, made by Lorenza Mazzetti, is about the troubles of deaf mutes living in a normal society; the second, Momma Don’t Allow, by Karol Reisz and Tony Richardson, is a somewhat unflattering look at a Jazz Club; and the third, O Dream land, directed by Lindgay Anderson, explores a_ seaside fairground. In production is The Door in the Wall, in which Glenn Alvey, a young American, has put in practice his patent called Dynamic Frame, a device by which the director can command a picture of variable shape, either by smooth flow or abrupt change. Most of the other films in the first experimental group are cartoons. Stating that the first three films cost less than an average newsreel, Watts says it is not known whether this experimental activity will have any effect on Stratford Enters Production; Variety's Judges The top picture, taken during the press party announcing the partnership of the Stratford Shakespearan Festival with Leonid Kipnis and Judge Samuel Friedman to make motion pictures, was made in the Royal York Hotel, To ronto, The bottom one, showing the judges who chose the London and Las Vegas tents for the Charity Citation Award of Variety Clubs International, was taken in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, during the recent con vention. Top photo, left to right: Judge Samuel Friedman, Westport, Conn.; Leonid Kipnis, New York and Toronto; Tom Patterson, Director of Planning for the Stratford Festival; N. E. Kaye, Stratford, vice-president, the Stratford Foundation, who is speaking; and Bill McNeill of CBC Special Events, who is recording his remarks. Bottom photo: Charles A. Alicoate, executive publisher, The Film Daily, chairman of the judges; Hye Bossin, editor, Canadian Film Weekly; Martin Quigley, Jr., editor, Motion Picture Herald; and Don \Mersereau, associate publisher, Boxoffice. Short Throws SALE of film rights to his book, The Yangtze Incident, has been made by Canadian-born Lawrence Earl to Herbert Wilcox-Anna Neagle Productions, which plans to star Richard Todd in the film. Lawrence divides his time between New Brunswick and London, England, where his wife is correspondent for The Telegram, Toronto. MEMBERS of the _ over-60 clubs in Hamilton, Ontario are normal, commercial film-making. “At least such films will tend to remind directors and producers too long and too closely harnessed to the stereotyped that the film can be an = artist’s medium, and that there is a public quite surprisingly responsive to the unconventional, the poetic, the free,’ writes Watts in his concluding paragraph. Stephen Watts, formerly critic of the London Sunday Express, is London film correspondent for the New York Times, given a special rate of 25 cents to all his theatres by H. W. Braden of United Amusement, which is affiliated with Famous Players. LACK of a suitable Englishspeaking collaborator to work with Gratien Gelinas on his Gelinas Revue, slated for the Stratford Shakespearean Festival’s Avon Theatre in July, has caused the Revue to be cancelled and all money from advance sale of tickets will be returned. FOTO-NITE pool has_ been inaugurated in Hamilton, with the Delta, Empire, Mountain, Queen’s, Windsor and York theatres in the Mountain City and the Roxy in Dundas and the Roxy in Burlington participating in the circuit. First cash offer was $1,000. ELECTED to succeed the late Robert M. Savini as president of Astor Pictures, Fred Bellin has taken over his new duties at the New York head office. N. E. Savini has been named vicepresident and ‘Anthony Tarell secretary-treasurer, Astor product is distibuted in Canada by Peerless Films Limited. UA WEEK IN JULY (Continued from Page 1) charge of distribution. Highlighting the company’s rise to the front rank of the _ industry’s major organizations and involying the greatest concentration of quality product in UA history, the sales effort will be supported by each of the 32 exchanges in the domestic territory’s two divisions and seven districts. James R. Velde, general sales manager, is directing the field phase of the campaign. Cash prizes for United Artistes Week will go to the three winning exchanges. Each member of the first-place branch will receive three weeks’ salary. Personnel of the second-place exchange will be awarded two weeks’ salary, with one week’s salary going to the members of the branch placing third. The sales staff is currently obtaining pledges of support from circuit executives and _ independent exhibitors in the United States and Canada. A roster of special accessories is being prepared for the UA Week push. These include banners, posters and brochures for exhibitor mailings. The outstanding lineup of product involved in the special one-week drive includes multimillion dollar CinemaScope spectacles, suspense thrillers, screen versions of best-sellers, Westerns and adventure dramas, with heavy promotional backing from UA’s record 1956 adpublicity-exploitation budget of $7,500,000. Terry Moore Signed Terry Moore has been signed to star opposite Robert Wagner in the Twentieth Century-Fox CinemaScope production of The Day the Century Ended, World War II story. P@ Theatre Opened Robert Gallichan has opened his 504-seat, seven day Vimy Theatre in Chibougama, Quebec. J. Hylas Gagnon’s 500-seat Chibougama is the only other theatre in the community and the two houses are using both English and French pictures. OUR BUSINESS (Continued from Page 3) sonality Parade” or some name similar to that. The continued showing for a reasonable period in advance would acquaint a number of audiences with the names and appearances of such upcoming players. If a number of companies can now do this as a joint venture perhaps some enterprising producer who is sponsoring a new player will make a short reel or series of reels for the theatres to be shown well in advance.