Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 19, 1957)

June 19, 1957 WOMPI BANQUET (Continued from Page 1) Scene of the annual installation dinner was the Cascade Room of Town and Country. Officers installed with Mrs. Skinner were Audrey Duke, Odeon Theatres, first vicepresident; Jean Uttley, Paramount, second vice-president; Jean MacLennan, International Film Distributors, recording secretary; Veronica Kiszkiel, Paramount, corresponding secretary; and Ruth Frankson, General Theatre Supply, treasurer. The directors installed were Joan Shields, GTS; Jessie Harkness, Odeon; Mary Sasaki, MGM; Marion Kadey, Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association; Mary Colangelo, Empire-Universal Films; and Muriel Cockerham, General Films. The guest speaker, Ken Johnson of The Telegram, Toronto, gave an amusing account of his recent visit to Hollywood to appear in the Paramount feature, Teacher’s Pet. He was introduced by A. J. Laurie, publicity director for United Artists in Canada. Other guests at the dinner were Leonard Bishop, manager of the Hollywood Theatre, and Hye Bossin, editor of the Canadian Film Weekly. Johnson was thanked by Kerry Watt of Empire Universal. The outgoing president, Miss Rawnsley, was presented with a gift in behalf of her clubmates by Mrs. Skinner. This was followed by a draw for a floral table decoration and much laughter resulted when the winner was Miss Rawnsley. The outgoing president, reviewing the year’s work, revealed that the projects’ fund is now over $1,000. The WOMPI work included an entertainment party and gifts for patients of the Ontario Hospital, Christmas hampers for needy families, aid to the Woodgreen Community Centre, and the provision of a $365 brace to its protege, Diane Hartford. ‘‘Variety helps crippled boys,” said Miss Rawnsley. “We are trying to help crippled girls.” Two rummage sales helped raise almost $300. Miss Dawn Parker sang during the evening, which closed with a screening. Cast In 20th-Fox’ ‘April Love' Pat Boone and Shirley Jones will star in 20th-Fox’ April Love. Gorton OUR BUSINESS (Continued from Page 3) cisions on the selling of any of their films, or further films, to TV until more information is provided by this summer’s results. In this country we have no control over the situation and can only watch and wait. What happens in the next few months will further help to color the picture of the future of the entertainment business in the electronic era. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 7 News Clips wilh NeSOSSWW FOUR FEATURES for major release may be shot around here, with Film Industries’ plant the centre of activity. USA producers have been talking to Dave Coplan. The second sound stage, larger than the first, is completed. That reminds me that the news which Leonid Kipnis asked me to keep quiet about two months ago turned up in Herb Whittaker’s Globe and Mail column: that Guthrie would direct two features—one a Shakespearean drama and the other a Canadian story... Two former National Film Board cabinet bosses, Bob Winters and Walter Harris, were beaten in the election, as was Dr. McCann, the CBC’s senior authority. The Conservative victory may be a shadow-casting event. There’s certainly plenty to think about... The voice ™ eumn of Win Barron, for so many years the voice of the Canadian Paramount Newsreel, returns to the public earways as moderator of the CBC TV show, Front Page Challenge, which Harvey Hart gets under way June 24. Alex Barris, just off the air with The Barris Beat, caught a ride on this summer sustainer, which will be prettied up by Toby Robins and Carol Starkman.. . Title of an NFB Perspective subject is Test Pilot. Same title was used by MGM in 1938 for the picture starring Gable, Loy, Tracy and Barrymore . . . Scott Brady and a lady wandered into the Club One Two at midnight for a drink—and found that it was election night and the place was dry. Came into town unpublicized and unhcnored—and nobody seems to know why .. . Congratulations to Raoul and Esther Auerbach, who celebrated their 25th anniversary at Grossinger’s. MORALS: Just before his death Humphrey Bogart was interviewed by Art Buchwald of the New York Herald-Tribune and the actor made an interesting point that should be filed under It All Depends How You Look At It: “No one who has been married four times can be accused of loose morals.” AROUND THE WORLD in 80 Days continues to make quite an impression on all who see it. But no greater impression than it made on one section of its audience when, as a stage vehicle, it played Winnipeg in the 1880’s. George H. Ham told about this in his book, Reminiscences of a Raconteur, published by Musson in #921. Ham, who worked and wandered through the Northwest, wrote: “It is a general belief that the Indian never laughs. This is incorrect. The red man enjoys a joke as well as the white or black or yellow, and his imagery is poetic.” He had known Red Crow, chief of the Bloods, on the prairie and met him again in Winnipeg, where he and other Indian leaders had arrived on their way to Britain as guests of Queen Victoria. “T took the band to an ice cream parlor and as he ate his first dish, the chief called it ‘sweet snow’ and said that on the next fall of it he would-;send down all his squaws with baskets galore to secure a plentiful supply. “In taking them to the theatre that night, the electric lights were turned on; gazing up at them, he put-his hands over his mouth, and exclaimed, ‘Oh my, oh my, oh my, the white man is wonderful. See! he has plucked a lot of little stars from the skies and put them on poles to light the village with. He is wonderful.’ And to this day Red Crow imagines those lights are little stars captured from heaven and utilized by the angelic corporation of Winnipeg for street lighting purposes. ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ was the play produced and my dusky guests uninterestedly viewed the opening scenes. But when the Deadwood stage was attacked by Indians there came a decided change in their demeanor. All called-out encouragingly in the Indian tongue to fellow reds on the boards, and they became greatly excited and their unceasing activities of person and guttural whoops attracted more attention to the group than did the actors. After the show we met their brothers in red, who belonged to another tribe, and it was explained to them that this was only playacting and stage robbery was now obsolete.” Two-week camping trip to Northern Ontario is the reward of the 13 winning Golden Glovers of Auburn, Indiana. It’s the idea of Hobart E. Hart, veteran local exhibitor and regional Amateur Athletic Union official . . . Forty nations will be represented at the ViIth International Berlin Film Festival, which will last four weeks beginning June 22. A Youth Film Festival will take place during the regular Festival for the first time . . » The Rank Organization is now distributing in Panama, Central America and Venezuela. Biography of John Murray Anderson, who was born in Newfoundland and who died recently, has been published. Written by his brother Hugh, president of the Canadian Club of New York, it’s called Out Without My Rubbers... . Russell Hicks, 62, veteran screen character actor, died in Los Angeles and J. Kent Thurber, 65, actor and director, in Florida. Barbizon Productions Corporation has been formed by Morris Halprin and Alfred W. Crown, who have resigned their posts with Allied Artists to produce two features in the USA, The Cop Hater and The Muggers, and a TV series in Britain . . . Associated Artists paid $600,000 for the One Hundred and Ninety Nine Pictures Corporation, which has AA films for TV ... Because France wouldn’t allow shooting for MGM’s Dreyfus, Jose Ferrer, star and director, moved his crew to Brussels. Robert Giles, whose family helped found United Amusements, Montreal, was the subject of a recent photostory in Weekend. He’s a publicity man with The Rank Organization in London . . . Clyde Gilmour, motion picture critic of The Telegram, Toronto, is looking at the Italian studios and Sydney Johnston of The Montreal Star film-stage staff, is writing from Europe . . . Saskatoon theatre managers have renewed their appeals to the City Council for a reduction in the amusement tax. Decision of Chief Justice McRuer of the Ontario Supreme Court that the CBC must stand trial with Toronto newspapers and radio stations for violation of the Lord’s Day Act may be appealed. The CBC claimed exemption from prosecution because it’s a Crown agency . . . Two Alberta exhibitors, Rill Ramsay of Canmore and Ab Staniland of Edmonton, are on the road to recovery after illnesses which caused hospital confinement . .. The Alberta Theatres Association asks members to refrain from personal statements to press and radio on industry policies.