Canadian Film Weekly (Apr 17, 1957)

April 17, 1957 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol, 22, No. 15 April 17, 1957 HYE BOSSIN, 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 WAlnut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year. VARIETY AWARD (Continued from Page 1) which closed the four-day annual Variety convention in New Orleans. Expenditure by the Atlanta tent, whose Chief Barker is Dan M. Coursey, was part of a sum of almost $3,000,000 which 38 Variety Clubs on this continent and abroad had spent on their varied projects in 1956. The tents pledged a total of $3,034,440 for this year. The Heart Report of the Toronto tent, which has 353 of the 10,000or-so barkers constituting the Variety Clubs International, was made by Chief Barker N. A. Taylor and was warmly received. The Canadian tent spent $60,000 on Variety Village, its vocational guidance school for handicapped children, and $5,000 for other causes, Taylor stated, outlining the ways the funds had been raised. Clyde Rembert, past Chief Barker of the Dallas tent, won the plaque for Tent No. 17 which went for the John Rowley membership drive and won for himself an allexpenses paid trip to the Variety Convention in London, England, in April, 1958, for personally securing the greatest number of new members. He brought in 61 regular and 41 associate and out-of-town members and the Dallas tent, as a whole, took in 360, bringing its total to 850. Omaha was second in the competition, Detroit third and Miami fourth. On the Charity Citation Award judging committee with Alicoate were Sherwin Kane, editor of Motion Picture Daily, and Hye Bossin, editor of Canadian Film Weekly. WB's 'Letter From Peking’ Pearl Buck’s latest novel, Letter From Peking, has been acquired by Warners. Warners To Release ‘Counterfeit Plan’ Warner Bros. will release The Counterfeit Plan, a romantic adventure drama of one of the largest forgery operations ever attempted. Zachary Scott and Peggie Castle head the picture’s cast. Montgomery Tully directed and Alec C. Snowden produced The Counterfetit Plan, an Amalgamated production for Warners, at the Merton Park Studios in England. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Fox To Release 55 (Continued from Page 1) tertainment, he said. ““‘We must produce more and better pictures to get people away from their sets.” In support of the program the company will try to revive its outstanding showmanship campaigns of some years ago and it will make a_ special featurelength film about the program for showing to the trade, the press, stockholders, etc. The films, planned with variety in mind, will have 30 A productions, of which 12 will be blockbusters, and eight UK quota pictures are part of the program. Among the planned productions are some with the best titles of modern times. They include The Sun Also Rises, Ten North Frederick, Peyton Place, Kiss Them For Me, A Certain Smile and Stopover Tokyo. Other features that Fox will release are South Pacific, A Farewell to Arms, Tender Is the Night, The Diary of Anne Frank and The Townsend Harris Story. This month five major productions will start off the 12-month program of 55 releases. These are Boy on a Dolphin, the first American film made in Greece, starring Alan Ladd, Clifton Webb and Sophia Loren and filmed in CinemaScope and De Luxe color; The River’s Edge, starring Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn and Debra Paget, produced in CinemaScope and color by Benedict Bogeaus; Break in the Circle, with Forrest Tucker, Eva Bartok and Marius Goring; Kronos, a Regal Films production in Regalscope, starring Jeff Morrow, John Emery and Barbara Lawrence; and She-Devil, another Regal production in Regalscope, starring Mari Blanchard and Jack Kelly. WB Buys 'Philadelphian’ Warners has acquired Richard Powell’s The Philadelphian. Alta. Theatre Burned A recent fire completely destroyed H. Hoppe’s 275-seat Grand Theatre in Mirror, Alberta. The only theatre in the community, the Grand operated two to four days weekly. VARIETY AWARD TO DR. SCHWEITZER Recipient of the Variety Clubs International Humanitarian Award for 1956 for the most outstanding service to humanity is Dr. Albert Schweitzer, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and a man who has dedicated his life to helping others, it was announced at the recent New Orleans convention of the showmen’s organization. He joins a distinguished list of previous winners, which includes Sir Winston Churchill, Herbert C. Hoover, Helen Adams Keller, Bernard M. Baruch, General George C. Marshall, James F. Byrnes, Sir Alexander Fleming, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, General Evangeline Booth, Cordell Hull and George Washington Carver. Born in Gunsbach, Alsace, France 82 years ago, Dr. Schweitzer graduated from the University of Strasbourg with degrees in philosophy, theology and music by the time he was 21. In the next nine years he won international recognition for his work in preaching, teaching, writing and music. In 1905, at the age of 30, he decided on a new career of “immediate service as a man to his fellow men’ and spent eight years fitting himself for the life of a missionary doctor in Africa, while his wife underwent training as a nurse so as to be of help to him. Their now-famous hospital, set up in a chicken coop in Lambarene in French Equatorial Africa in 1913, has since that time been the centre of healing, both spiritual and physical, for the natives. A film biography of Dr. Schweitzer was produced a short time ago by Jerome Hill and is being distributed by Louis de Rochemont Asso ciates, Inc. in the USA. WE POSSESS 4824 Cote des Neiges Rd. Montreal 26, Que. RE. 3-718) The equipment that can remove SCRATCHES from films, either negative or positive stock — 16 and 35 mm. *A RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY IN CANADIAN FILM PROCESSING Page 3 Business PROGNOSTICATION of at tendance trends and boxoffice receipts is more difficult than it has ever been. In recent years, we have lived through many _ periods when there has been a_ general increase only to be followed by a drop. One is never sure, therefore, how long business is ae going to tarry on the plateau or in the valley. This is partly the reason that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to foretell boxoffice grosses. There have been many words of optimism expressed in recent months by important men in our business and future prospects indeed look good. Notwithstanding all this, attendance at the moment is definitely poor. The rare film is doing exceptional business but, generally, attractions are not giving as good an account of themselves as they should. In a period like this, when business is in the valley, we search for reasons. It is always popular at this time to blame some of the drop in business on the period of Lent. Other causes such as income tax deadlines and bad weather conditions also come in for part of the blame. Some voices are heard to say that the best pictures are presently being withheld for the summer — a period which is now conceded to be the best for our business. We have always experienced a falling off of business during Lent and then a rise starting with Good Friday. Again, when the period of good weather comes in, people feel a great desire to get out-of-doors, do gardening, participate in sports and generally take advantage of the milder weather. In many parts of our country this happens around the beginning of May. Because of the lateness of Easter this year it is possible that the arrival of good weather may coincide with Easter and the result may well be that we cannot anticipate an upward curve of boxoffice attendance until sometime in June. The prosperity of our theatres is now based on many factors beyond our control. Mother Nature plays an even greater part than ever before in our fortunes. The quality and drawing power of the prod uct delivered to us by produc(Continued on Page 4)