Canadian Film Weekly (Oct 9, 1957)

October 9, 1957 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol. 22, No. 39 October 9, 1957 HYE BOSSIN, Editor pea sree chee eateries Sees 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 WAlInut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year. SMPTE MEETING (Continued from Page 1) Section took place in Toronto in June. Scene of the meeting was the National Film Board building. Speakers of the evening were Guy Glover, one of the NFB’s executive producers, and Rodger Ross of Toronto, technical supervisor of film operations for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Chairman was Norman Olding, SMPTE program director for the Montreal region. Ross’ paper, Films and Television, revealed that the use of film for TV programs, as distinct from non-TV motion pictures, had grown astoundingly in this country. The CBC last year used approximately 40,000,000 feet of release stock, most of it for kinescope recordings. Technical problems encountered by both the television broadcaster and the film producer were reviewed by him. Glover, speaking ahead of Ross, covered motion picture production, emphasizing that phase of it bearing on the work of an executive producer. He stressed the interdependence of motion picture workers. Roger Beaudry of Toronto, chairman of the Canadian Section, said a few words. Among those from Toronto who took in the Montreal meeting were R. E. Ringler, secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Section, and Spence Caldwell, head of the varied motion picture interests that bear his name. Olding and Ringler are on the Canada Section board of management, along with R. Payne, L. Wire, D. Spring and I. Lomas. The next meeting of the Canadian Section will take place in Toronto. Mary La Roche Cast In H-H-L Picture Mary La Roche, New York musical comedy star, has been signed for the only feminine role in Run Silent, Run Deep, Hecht, Hill and Lancaster production now rolling for United Artists release. Also signed for an important part was Nick Cravat, former circus partner of Burt Lancaster. Harold Hecht is producing Run Silent, Run Deep and Robert Wise is directing from a screenplay by John Gay. Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster star in the film. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY _ Pictures A-Plenty (Continued from Page 1) the same magnitude as Friendly Persuasion and Love in the Afternoon. Paramount, too, is pushing its production, with its distribution organization offering two “Golden 8’ groups, both of which will contain features with tremendous boxoffice impact. Rank Film Distributors in Canada now has a steady flow of product and Lord Rank’s annual report emphasized the intention to keep production strong. The 20th-Fox program, with 24 features produced by Buddy Adler, also holds three Darryl F. Zanuck productions, four Jerry Wald Productions, two David O. Selznick productions and _ four Samuel G. Engel productions. Thirty-five of these attractions will be photographed in CinemaScope, one in Dimensional CinemaScope 55 and one in Todd-AO. In the 1958 20th-Fox program are The Diary of Anne Frank, Mud on the Stars, The Small Woman, The Young Lions, Our Love, Fraulein, Bachelor’s Baby, Townsend Harris, The Bravados, The Hell-Bent Kid, Ten North Frederick, These Thousand Hills, The Wandering Jew, The Day of the Outlaw, The Hunters, Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, A Certain Smile, Blood and Sand, Holiday for Lovers, Oh, Promised Land!, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, Can-Can, Colors of the Day, South Pacific in Todd-AO, Deluxe Tour, Compulsion, The Roots of Heaven, The Long Hot Summer, Jean Harlow, The Big War, The Sound and the Fury, Tender Is the Night, Mary Magdalene, The Captive, The Freebooter, Glory Pass and Gemma Two Five. Early next year Leo McCarey, Interesting Series At AGE Film Society AGE Film Society of Toronto, organized and conducted by Elwood Glover, Gerald Pratley and Aldo Maggiorotti, starts its season of nine Sunday evenings at the Hyland Theatre on October 13 with Grand Hotel. Films running through to March 30 are Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tale of Two Cities, Classic Comedy Night, Maytime, Son of the Sheik, Taming of the Shrew, What Price Glory and Morocco. Ruby Ramsay Rouse will again be at the piano. Membership is obtainable through any of the three persons mentioned at $6 each. MGM's ‘Bay the Moon’ Jose Ferrer will star in MGM’s Bay the Moon. UA's '10 Days To Tulara’ Grace Raynor, Broadway actress, has been signed to star opposite Sterling Hayden in George Sherman’s UA film, 10 Days to Tulara. whose An Affair to Remember is one of Fox’ big current grossers, will start Marco Polo as one of three features for the company. In addition to the studio program Regal Films will turn out between 25 and 30 features on more modest budgets for 20th-Fox release, so that between 65 and 70 features may make up the 1958 program. Among Allied Artists’ pictures are The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn. Paramount sales policy and promotion will centre on Short Cut to Hell, Stowaway Girl, Mister Rock and Roll, The Joker Is Wild, The Devil’s Hairpin, Hear Me Gocd and The Tin Star. Emphasis will continue on The Ten Commandments and two Martin and Lewis reissues, Sailor Beware and Jumping Jacks, will be included in this month’s offerings. Republic Pictures has just set up a distribution program for 50 features and these will reach Canadian exhibitors through The Rank Organization of Canada. American BroadcastingParamount Theatres is finishing five modest-priced features and will produce 15 in 1958. Among the films from Pinewood, the Rank studio, are Up in the World, Robbery Under Arms, Across the Bridge, Campbell’s Kingdom, Dangerous Exile, The One That Got Away, Seven Thunders, Windom’s Way, The Gypsy and the Gentleman, Just My Luck, The Naked Truth, Miracle in Soho. The product picture is healthy from the points of quantity, quality and attitude of the studios toward durability of theatres as places of entertainment. 20 Canada Situations For 'HND' Saturation Canada’s first large-scale saturation booking goes into effect with Allied Artists’ The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn in CinemaScope and Technicolor. It will open in 18 Quebec situations and the Ontario border towns of Cornwall and Ottawa on October 11, Jack Bernstein, Canadian general sales manager, states. MGM's ‘End Of The World’ Harry Belafonte will star in End of the World, to be produced for MGM by Sol C. Siegel and Belafonte’s own company, Harbel Productions. ‘From Among The Dead’ Barbara Bel Geddes has been signed by Paramount to star with James Stewart and Kim Novak in Alfred Hitchcok’s From Among the Dead, now shooting on location in San Francisco. Page 3 Business WA Taylor Now is a good time for the exhibitor to make a careful appraisal of his admission price structure. With the continuing increase in overhead, along with the general decline in the average ‘number. of weekly admissions sold, the _ problem is not a ‘ simple one. The ‘general econo_ my is softer now than it has been “= for some time and this trend is likely to continue for a while. Unemployment is higher than it has been in recent years. In the face of this, it may seem contradictory to suggest that there are theatres which should raise their admission prices, yet there are some which undoubtedly must have a higher tariff in order to exist. They may be advised to make such a move at this time. Later this year it may be more difficult. Experience in recent years has shown that admission price slashes have had little effect in hypoing attendance and have usually resulted in decreased grosses. Conversely, however, theatre owners have always had a fixed opinion that each raise in admission price tends to reduce the actual number of tickets sold. While admitting that there is ground for acceptance of this theory, one must, nevertheless, view it in the light of present conditions. This is a time when the average wage continues to increase. It is also a time when the public, for the most part, is only attending theatres to see such films as it specifically selects. We no longer have the responsibility of providing time-waster entertainment. Accordingly, with understandable exceptions, we cannot hope to base our economy on a high per-seat usage per week. Rather we must gear to a lower per-seat occupancy. In some larger centres the closing of obsolete and uneconomic theatres has, to some extent, been helpful to those remaining in operation. In many smaller situations, particularly small towns with but one theatre, there is today a problem of survival. Present-day competitive conditions have resulted in reducing the number of. seats required to service a_ given area, so that the theatre owner must anticipate the smaller perseat occupancy mentioned earlier. On this basis, he must try for a higher admission price (Continued on Page 6)