Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 6, 1957)

ae t rs VOICE of the CANADIAN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY " x Vol. 22, No. 43 Incorporating the CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST (Founded 1915) Toronto, November 6, 1957 ms 4 SUNDAY MOVIES IN MANY CINEMAS IF BASEBALL, WHY NOT PICTURES? CANADA OBJECTIONS LESSEN Those Canadians who are used to thinking of their country as a place where you can’t see a movie on Sunday will be surprised to learn that of 1,931 theatres, 294 are open on all seven NFB Spends Half On TV Product'n During the 1956-7 fiscal year Can ada’s National Film Board, which made no reference to television production in its 1953-4 report, devoted $874,238 of its total filmmaking expenditure of $1,840,244 to it. In 1955-6 it devoted $577,919 of its total production expenditure (Continued on Page 8) CFI Conference On Our Films Toronto will be the scene of a two-day Conference on Films, sponsored by the Canadian Film Institute and to be attended by representatives of eight film and educational groups, states Charles Topshee, CFI executive director. They will gather in the Unitarian (Continued on Page 4) days. This, of course, won’t surpr ——— Contest: Which Papers Have Best Coverage? Some members of Canadian provincial and regional exhibitors’ associations have suggested that contests among daily and weekly newspapers to determine which have the best movie coverage should be undertaken in this country. The idea was originated by the Motion Picture Theatre Owners and Operators of Georgia, who awarded trips to Hollywood, government bonds and other prizes to the winners. The Council of Motion Picture Organizations, Inc. of the USA based one of its long series of ads in Editor and Publisher on the contest. “But why should a newspaper wait? After all, regardless of the value of contest prizes, the main prize is increaséd readership. And that, it seems to us, is an award any newspaper can win immediately,” the ad states. 3 Some Canadian daily papers have amusement pages that are quite barren of editorial and feature material. Big-city papers, however, have realized the value of film material. zs Canada Has1,93135 Mm. Theatres (236 D-Ins) There are 1,931 places of more-or-less permanent 35 mm. motion picture exhibition in Canada at this time, ranging from the six-day 3,344-seat Imperial in Toronto to the two-day 100seat Capitol in the 100-person hamlet of Fir Mountain, Sas katchewan. In the total is the drive-in figure, 236. Although the 1,931 theatres represent a decline of 83 compared to the number in operation at this time last year, there are 12 new ones, built from the ground up, among them. The drive-in total this year is stable, it being smaller than last year’s by one. Some closed during the 12 months covered here but three new ones were opened. (Continued on Page 3) MGM's ‘Law And Jake Wade’ Patricia Owen will star with Robert Taylor and Richard Widmark in MGM’s The Law and Jake Wade. CORRECTION: NFB COST CANADIANS $6,545,508 IN ‘56-7 Le Roy To Produce Pictures For Fox Mervyn Le Roy Productions, Inc. has signed a long-term contract to produce pictures for 20th CenturyFox. The contract calls for a series of pictures which Mervyn Le Roy will produce and direct and will go into effect as soon as Le Roy completes his next picture for Warner Brothers, The F.B.I. Story. The contract was negotiated by Arnold Grant. Mervyn Le Roy Productions, Inc. has a contract to produce for Warner Brothers and will continue to operate there as well as at Fox. The annual report of the National Film Board arrived ot our office last week after the paper was ready for the press. In our hurry to include it we took a wrong arithmetical turn and deducted its rentals and royalties from its government allocations to arrive at its cost to Canadians, our wrong figure ise residents of the Province of Quebec, since 291 of them are located in it. Quebec provides about 25 per cent of the national attendance. Ontario, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories each had a_ seven-day house. And it is likely that most of Quebec’s remaining 129 35.mm. theatres, which operate. from one to six days, are open on Sunday. Also Quebec has 153 places of 16 mm. exhibition and many of these are Sunday operations. What makes the figures interesting at this time is the changing attitude toward Sunday entertainment. This was first acknowledged Universal Plans 39 ‘57-8 Films Thirty-three of Universal-International’s 39 1957-58 features are ready, the program representing the greatest production investment in the history of the company, which Empire-Universal Films represents in Canada. Executive vicepresident Alfred E. Daff listed top (Continued on Page 4) New BC Theatre Webb Theates Limited, owned by Frank Webb and Helen Miller, has opened its new 284-seat Lux Theatre, the first in Taylor, British Columbia. Booking and buying for the Lux, which will operate six days weekly, will be done by Allied (Continued on Page 3) Booking Association. LOUIS B. MAYER, 72, PASSES IN LA Louis B. Mayer, the former Saint John, New Brunswick resident who, as chief of MGM studios for many years brought a new concept of quality into mass production, died in Hollywood last week at the age of 72 in the medical centre of the University of California at Los Angeles. In charge of MGM production since 1924, he turned out over 800 films until his resignation in 1948. For a number of years his salary was the highest in the United States, reaching $1,138,992.47 in 1943. He was known as a discoverer of stars and as owner of one of the finest racing stables. He did not retire from the industry when he quit MGM after differences with Nicholas Schenck but became chairman of the Cinerama Productions Corporation and had plans for several films. Born Louis Burt Mayer in Minsk, Russia on July 4, 1885, he came to Saint John with his parents, Jacob Mayer and Sarah Meltzer Mayer, when he was two years old. After working in the family salvage business he left at 19 to enter the theatre business through remodelling an old burlesque theatre into a movie house in Haverhill, Mass. He developed it into a circuit partnership with Nat Gordon. Later, as a franchise holder for Metro, he was drawn into the expansion of production and exhibition. Marcus Loew’s investment in Metro in 1920 was followed by a merger with Mayer’s interest. Then came the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deal in 1924 and Mayer, as production chief, made the company’s initials and symbol stand out, while the studio grew to be the largest anywhere in the world. Mayer held an honorary degree from the University of New Brunswick and always remained close to his family, some members of which still reside in Saint John. Divorced from his first wife, Margaret, in 1947, he married the former Mrs. Lorena L. Danker. His children are Mrs. Irene Selznick, formerly married to David O. Selznick, and Mrs. William Goetz. being $3,363,766. Actually the NFB got $4,960,143 trom the government and royalties and rentals brought its total to $6,556,520. It spent all but $11,012, so it cost $6,545,508. It got $977,013 more than the previous year. And it cost the NFB $1,252,573 to move from Ottawa to its Montreal plant,