Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 17, 1957)

4] a 4 ory sf r ——— July 17, 1957 Observanda STRATFORD can have a Broadway hit second time up if it will offer its rollicking Twelfth Night post-season. Incidentally, I’ve never read such varied opinions about the Festival players’ performances from Canada’s and the USA’s leading critics. If one critic passed off this player and praised that one, the other had the reverse approach to their work. That meant each player’s performance was great in the eyes of some of the continent’s most respected critics — and that’s a fine average .. . Where are you going to meet a friendlier fellow than Ted Galanter? Ted, intro’d to local press people by Len Bernstein of Columbia here, is assistant to the famed George Sidney, producer of Columbia’s Kim Novak starrer, Jeanne Eagels. Though mild of mien and gentle of voice, he did a fine job of talking up the picture in his offhand fashion, as local art and story breaks proved . . . Hugh McKandy’s separation from the local film scene after many years brought so-long souvenirs from Jim Nairn, Jack Clarke, Gerry Collins and other theatre men, for whom he was the Globe and Mail ad contact. Hugh is now the editor of the paper’s house organ, The Inside Story, a monthly blend of news and sentiment . . . Steve York had to blow off the rugged nightclub beat for the Globe and Mail. Been sick a couple of times of late. He’s back on sports. YOU’LL BE SORRY to hear that Leonard W. Brockington met with an accident in New York and will be in the Lenox Hill Hospital for several weeks. He went to the metropolis to attend the BOAC reception and stumbled getting off the plane, suffering fractures in his left leg and right foot, but kept his promise to be present. The accident caused him to cancel his speaking engagement at Oxford University before the senior officials of Her Majesty’s gaols. I’m told that he is making the most of it, listening to the all-day music of the New York Times station and reading or resting. His NY clients, who showered Brock with evidence of their high regard for him professionally and personally, found him lively and cheerful. In that mood he’s one of the world’s most entertaining persons... To bring a film in for Stratford festival exhibition without paying customs duty it must be accompanied by a document issued by the government of the country of export. This document certifies that the film is educational or cultural. Oedipus Rex, the film record of the Stratford play, was produced in Toronto but the color print, of necessity, was made in the USA. Tom Patterson found it quite amusing when, to bring the print of this Canadian film into Canada, a document classifying it as educational had to be provided by the USA! JAY SMITH, ex-publisher of The Digest, was in town from Phoenix and told me that George Georgas of the Owen Sound cinema family has settled there. Jay’s 19-year-old son, Ray, just got married and Jay’s wife, Jean, will present dad with an addition a while from now. Ah, that Arizona air!... Article about Spadina by Ken Lefolli in the current Maclean’s keeps referring to it as “The Strip.” None of us has ever spoken of it or heard it spoken of that way. We call it “‘The Avenue” .. . Chet Friedman thinks the time will come when people will work from Tuesday to Thursday during two months of the summer, instead of taking the usual two-week vacation. Good idea . . . Jimmy Kaplan, the one-time Joy Boy of radio, now operates the King Size Restaurant on King Street, near the Variety Club. A couple of times a day he steps out for a breather and drops dimes into parking meters due or overdue .. . Missed Jack Wellard, manager of Premier’s Stratford houses on my first two trips to Stratford but I’ll catch up with this likeable lad yet. However, I met Mrs. Allen, his assistant at the festival house — the Vogue — and found her to be a charming lady . . . Fine and funny is the NFB’s cartoon-with-a-point, It’s a Crime. Sound theatrical fare... Cinerama wants the University Theatre ... Tommy van Dusen, ex-NFB info officer, is Labor Minister Mike Starr’s exec assistant. Tommy almost ran for MP himself. ieee CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 5 V ariviews A BRIGHT ONE, that Jerry Lewis. Paramount and Famous Players threw a press thing for him at the Variety Club and we got to hashing over things: the murderous schedule that will keep him clowning under contract until December, 1959; those partnership blues; the business of comedy. This star glitters offstage — conversationally. About the schedule: it’s no hardship; he loves audiences and lives for new ones. The partnership situation grew out of things that are quite common in ordinary relationships but take on the aspect of gigantic abnormality in the case of spotlight occupants. As for comedy, he has it down to a science — even though its an inexact science. There are funny men: the naturals who “bare their souls in public’ and appeal to the deepest instincts of people, so human are they. From their ranks come the great comedians. And there are the comics — the machine comedians who affect comedy and project it artificially. They win a place for a while but they don’t win many hearts. Win Barron had a great time whipping Jerry around town like a hurricane — between four 25-minute gross-boosting shows on the stage of the Imperial, in which the fans had gathered for his film, The Delicate Delinquent. I caught Jerry’s first show after the interview. His every sound and movement reflects the distinctive personality and the instinctive showman. THE LOUD LAUGHS from that table in the One Two Club the other a.m. were caused by Lou Jacobi, home for a couple of days before resuming his role in The Diary of Anne Frank, which moved from Broadway to Los Angeles. At the table was Nat Goodman, manager of The Diamonds, who needed a laugh badly. The day before he had been below the stage in the New York theatre where his quartet was appearing on the Paul Winchell TV show. He looked up and saw a big Russian bear headed for him. The bear, member of a restless group he knew were onstage at the very moment, might have been the one that clawed the lady trainer earlier that day. The fact was that it had fallen off a high stool while on camera and ran off the stage into the area below. It was in a bad mood and Nat ran in this door and out the other. Mr. Bear, loaded for Nat, was right behind. Up a spiral staircase toward a trap door on the stage went Nat. He pushed the door but someone onstage, to save the scene as set up, pushed back. The bear had arrived at the stairs. Trapped! Then, from nowhere, the male trainer ran in, grabbed the bear by the collar and turned it away. Nat was still shaking as he told about it. About Lou: He and CBC producer Lloyd Brydon, also at the table, were reminiscing about English Variety, the latter having played it in support of Wee Georgie Wood, the vet comic. Lou, then a comedian, later became a legit player and was brought to Broadway by Garson Kanin, after appearing in a play of his in London. Lou had little inclination to stay in Anne Frank after 21 months but the management kept increasing the inducements and he gave in. “If you don’t want a thing bad enough,” he cracked, “‘you’ll get it.” KID SENSE: Walter and Shirley Manley’s little girl, Susan, got them to thinking with a question. She was given butterscotch pie. “Why do they call it butterscotch pie?’ she asked. “Is it made of butter and scotch?” BILLING: One of the greatest earners in Paramount history is Cecil B. DeMille’s Royal Northwest Mounted Police. There’s plenty of money in sight for a reissue of it, since Alan Phillips’ semi-official book about the Mounties, The Living Legend, is becoming so popular. Then there’s the RCMP TV series Crawley will produce soon. That ought to stir up interest. What I started to say was that Cecil B. DeMille visited a number of Canadian cities during the release of his film. In Winnipeg he found himself in the company of some Famous Players officials. The conversation turned to Winnipeg’s unique fish, the Winnipeg Goldeye. DeMille asked what it was. Several persons tried to tell him without success. It was Morris Stein who made it clear. “A Winnipeg Goldeye,” he explained, “is a $2 herring.’