Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 13, 1956)

Short Throws Continued from Page 1) er John Clements, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, as was Norman Tucker, director and opera producer at the Sadler’s Wells The atre HEAD of Columbia’s TV operations and studio manager, Irving Briskin has been released from his contract and will form an independent TV film unit. With Columbia for 25 years, Briskin will retain his responsibility of supervising all Screen Gems proluctions and will release an unspecified number of TV film series through the latter company over a period of seven years. The change goes into effect July 1. COMPLETELY air-conditioned and with daylight on four sides, the new building of the Board of Trade of the City of Toronto, at -Adelaide and Yonge in the heart of the downtown section, will incorporate every modern facility. To be named the Board of Trade Building, it will have nine meeting rooms, main and bar lounges, a dining room and cafeteria. All accommodations will, of course, be open to the Motion Picture eBranch of the Board, AWARD of the “program contract” to Roy Thomson, Canadian publisher of a chain of newspapers and owner of five radio and two TV stations in Canada, has been made for a TV transmitter between Glasgow and Edinburgh by the Independent Television Authority. It was the first licence for an independent station in Scotland and Thomson was given preference over a number of interested groups. He may bring some Canadian technicians to Great Britain to train personnel previous to the station’s opening in about a year. ST. ANDREW’S Golf Club in the York Mills section of Toronto will be the scene of the annual head office picnic of Famous Players and the yearly golf tournament of the J. Arthur Rank Organization. The former is scheduled for Thursday, June 21 and the JARO tourney is set for Thursday, Jtly 5. FIRST public showing of a 35 mm. film about Montreal was held at a recent reception for the consular corps in that city. mac by Associated Screen Bit bo rt runs about 15 Bt $32,500 for -rsions. It CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Cummings Makes Presentation to Vincent Massey Maxwell Cummings, president of Associated Screen News, presented Governor-General Vincent Massey with a print of Arctic Journey, the record of his recent trip to the Arctic, which was photographed by Roy Tash. Tash, Cummings and the Governor-General are seen from left to right, with Arnold Hague, chief of ASN's newsreel division, on the extreme right. Feature Production (Continued from Page 1) paratively limited exhibition and the plans for filming Shakespeare are of the long-range variety, covering perhaps 20 years. Another interesting development of limited impact on domestic production is the Billy Bishop story, Ace of ‘Aces. Financing by Canadians will be provided through the Royal Bank, with the legal details for the company to be incorporated here being handled by Senator Salter Hayden of Toronto. Top man of the enterprise, which will arrange a major distribution deal, is the Hollywood veteran, LeRoy Prinz, who has his own company, LeRoy Prinz Productions, Incorporated. Part of the shooting will be done in Canada. Subject of Articles These developments aren’t sufficient to quell the oft-repeated question about why there is no regular feature production in Canada. This question has been weighed in the public prints. Dr. J. Roby Kidd in Canadian Film News, asked: “Can Canadians Make Motion Pictures?” Gerald Pratley of CJBC’s The Movie Scene based a broadcast on: “Why is it that Canada does not produce full-length films for showings in theatres?’ Hugh MacLennan asked the question in Saturday Night in “The Case for a Real Canadian Film.” James Cowan explored the same field earlier in that publication. The British magazine, Films and Filming, had an article on the ued Durst, a direckot documentary owknife, ; for reas nt _<—ian eas an article: ‘‘The Mystery of Can~ adian Film Production.” Most of the probers, of course, acknowledged the ability of our government agency, the National Film Board, and our private industrial, commercial and educational producers. It is recognized internationally. And Canadian production of this kind grows in volume and dollar value every year. The recurrent question has provided a fertile field for the exaggerators, promoters, easymoney lads and others of the ilk. Their operations date back to the silent days and there is a wellmarked trail of lost investments through the financial wilderness. Same Old Story Each year brings a number of public anouncements, given the dignity of serious presentation in the newspapers, about this one or that’s intention of making one or more feature films. These range all the way from such well-intentioned and very capable producers as Powell-Pressburger, Lewis Jackson, Betty Box and Bryan Foy to recent arrivals from Europe who were all outstanding producers in countries now behind the Iron Curtain. They escaped with their talents and all they need now is money. The good ones don’t accept any money until they know they’re going ahead for sure. They never go ahead, realizing that it wasn’t as easy as they had anticipated. The others accept money from misguided investors. Sometimes the money is spent and the picture never gets made because there wasn’t enough. gf-it So néPw ture is made but the °ns that are Russ-Field Si June 13, 1956 legal but still not comforting, lose their money or most of it. They are promotion pictures rather than motion pictures. The newspapers, by not checking too closely, give the appearance of stability to production proposals not well grounded. Some Toronto men, former Europeans, got reams of pub licity in the most authoritative general and financial papers with the statement that they had tied up all TV and film rights to the Olympic games in Australia. This publication revealed that it wasn’t so. Current despatches from Vancouver say that a new film company, organized by a former European producer, had made tieups with RKO and the principals of the Billy Bishop story. Again this publication, through official enquiry, showed these statements to be unsound. But still the stories come and each year there are more that will be added to the fat file in the Canadian Film Weekly office. At this point leading firms are beginning to resent. theuse of their names, justified by minor contact or mere enquiry about a release, to base important publicity for some overnight enterprise. Some Made Money Not that there haven’t been Canadian features produced by Canadians in both English and French. There have been 20 since the end of the war. Some, mostly those made in Quebec, were profitable. The production cost in each case was quite modest. There were also a number of features shot in the Canadian outdoors by Hollywood com. panies on location; Several feature length documentaries were made by producers otherwise engaged in turning out nontheatrical short subjects. Still, no one has been able to work out a continuity of feature production, despite our $100,000,000 movie boxoffice and our British quota advantages. Is the end of the long era of one-shotters, boobtrappers and gropers in Canadian feature production about to be followed by permanent production? Will the financial graveyard called Canadian feature production be replaced by a fertile field? Despite some optimistic indications, it’s a good idea not to bet your money on it. It’s doubtful if anything solid, broad or permanent will happen unless the government gets into it. The government showed an interest in Canadian feature production in 1948, when the Honorable C. D. Howe, Minister of Trade and Finance, spoke of it in the House of Commons but yothing has happened since. Jo Van Fleet Ce» Ven,Fleet has been signed by Russ-Field to star in UA’s The King and Four Queens, ihe te |