Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 16, 1959)

Page 4 MERIDIANS TAPE (Continued from Page 1) along with Herbert Alpert, director of Meridian’s film department, had a busy time greeting the wellwishers. Among those on hand were Grant McLean, Mike Spencer and Joel Samuels of the National Film Board, and Ross McLean, former Government Film Commissioner. Leonard Crainford, Jim Guthro, Ted Pope and Murray Chercover were among the many CBC people present. Art Chetwynd, Donald Gordon, Louis Applebaum, Ron Leonard, Bob McStay, Ed Gould, Monica Mugan, Helen Beatty Palmer, Norman Phillips, Bert Brown, Gene Fitzgibbons, Kingsley Brown, Dean Walker, Bert Wilkes and Harry Allen, Jr. were seen in the crowd. Most interesting was a demonstration of Videotape and the audience heard Bill Walker and others explaining it. Guy Roberge, Government Film Commissioner, paid his compliments to Foster and Roffman on the screen. Both appeared in a scene in which they got out on a limb and sawed themselves off. The limb did not fall but the tree did. Foster, originally a newspaperman, was formerly Deputy National Film Commissioner for Canada, Australian Film Commissioner and chief of films and TV for the UN in New York. Roffman has a long and distinguished record as a film maker. The Centre is the only complete visual production centre in Canada combining all film and television facilities. The installation includes a complete television station (with the exception of a transmitter), plus a coaxial cable which will enable Meridian to pipe television programs instantaneously to interconnected television stations anywhere, from their own studios. Equipment includes two Ampex Videotape Recorders, Pye High Definition Electronic Film Recording equipment and all conventional motion picture production facilities: lighting, design and construction shops, make-up department, etc. Following the policy of assembling the top Canadians in both the electronics and broadcasting fields, the personnel of The Videotape Centre includes John Stacey, operations manager; Robert Hinze, chief recording engineer; James Leitch, chief production engineer; Bruce McIntosh, lighting director; Phillip Styles, floor director; and Douglas Jones, technical director. Fox’ 'Sons And Lovers’ Dean Stockwell will star in 20th-Fox’ Sons and Lovers. WB Lifts Sherman Option Warner Bros. has exercised its option on the services of Vincent Sherman, now directing Edna Ferber’s novel, Ice Palace, for the third year of his three-year contract. This will be his 16th year with Warner Bros. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY SOME YEARS ago Cap Palmer of Hollywood came to help Associated Screen News make a feature-length documentary about Kitimat, The Man with a Thousand Hands, which was narrated by Ray Massey. He brought ASN’s Jack McDougall, cameraman-director, back with him from Mont real and later Bob Martin, also an ASN lenser, joined them. Recently the Taylor-Roffman production group bought the Canadian prize novel, Execution, to make a big-budget film. Execution is by the registrar of McGill U, Colin McDougall, who is Jack’s younger brother. So now both McDougall boys have a direct interest in films. Says Jack loyally but no doubt impartially: “It’s a hell of a book and should make a hell of a picture” ... Larry Matanski and Blake Owensmith dropped in before heading for NY in search of a distribution deal for their $200,000 Western Canada feature, Winds of Chance. They had dates to show what Toronto trade viewers called an excellent job to a couple of the majors and Tiger Productions will follow with more films if they do well with this one... Another visitor was Jacques Nicaud, Unifrance’s resident rep, a personable guy who makes pleasant and sensible listening. MEANT TO WRITE at Grey Cup time that you can take the boy from the West but you can’t take the West from the boy. The Prairie exiles, among them Frank Vaughan, Doug Rosen and Frank Fisher, rooted for the Bombers, although they’ve been Eastern residents for years . . . Ron Haggart of The Star gives a lot of space to needling Mayor Phillips, sort of suggesting that The Old Grey Mayor ain’t what he used to be—and never was. The other day he wrote, perhaps ruefully: “In Toronto, nobody likes the mayor but the people.” By the way, the licence plate number of the mayor’s official car is 5,000. Are you as over-impressed as I am with low licence numbers or those with the same figure in succession? .. . Clyde Gilmour, in Hollywood doing a series for The Telegram, offered his readers a sensational innovation. He interviewed, of all people, a screenwriter. Until the controversy about who wrote the screenplay for Ben-Hur the public seemed to believe that the director and the actors made up what they said and did as they went along. Clyde talked with Stanley Shapiro, whose credits include The Perfect Furlough, Pillow Talk and Operation Petticoat. This must be the fellow that’s keeping Universal in business . . . Take note: If you intend to place an ad in Variety, do so through Bob McStay in Toronto ... Louis Applebaum just scored the Twentieth Century TV segment called The Week That Shook the World, which is about the period just before the outbreak of war. THE PAYOLA, which is the distribution of money and gifts for plugs and playings of songs, dates back into the ’90’s. In his book, They All Sang, (The Viking Press, 1934) Edward B. Marks, a leading music publisher, tells how it was done in the days before radio and TV. He and a companion called Louis the Whistler would go from one New York beerhall to another inducing the singers and musicians to use the song, after which they would leave chorus slips on the tables. On the second chorus Louis would whistle and a few of the men patrons would follow him. Perhaps the next day some of the ladies present would buy a copy of the music for their pianos and so the song might be on its way to being a hit after a couple of years. They covered 60 joints a week. ‘“‘When the number was introduced from the stage of one of the more pretentious beerhalls, that was a plug!” The Atlantic Gardens was such a place and here is Marks’ note after a successful mission there: “I paid the check: 21 beers for a nickel, two Bass at fifteen, a ten-cent cigar for the comedian, who had promised to sing You’re Not the Only Pebble on the Beach.” Yes, the Payola isn’t new—just refined and modernized to meet the economic and moral levels of the times... Eric Greenwood says he can have Odeon’s Fairlawn for a run of his projected live London musical hit, Lock Up Your Daughters. Right now he’s locking up backers for it. December 16, 1959 TMETER SESSION (Continued from Page 1) their questions answered. Telemeter was much talked about at the MPICC annual meetings in the past few years. With E. E, Fitzgibbons, head of Trans Canada Telemeter, at the audio-visual presentation were Bert Brown, program director; Bill Crampton, production manager; and Sandy Day, chief engineer. Telemeter, when it is reaching 5,000 subscribers, will have cost $1,500,000, Fitzgibbons said. In the USA the cost would have been $500,000 lower, since sales tax and duty added one-third in this country. Purchase of an office-and-studio building ran the cost up. It was such a good buy that it was acquired instead of being rented. “T understand Telemeter is ready to proceed in the New York area,’ he said. Bell Telephone, which is making the installations, is now quoting on other Telemeter markets in Ontario and Quebec. What were the main preferences of the people of Etobicoke, the Toronto suburb where Telemeter will be inaugurated? ‘‘Commercial-free motion pictures,’ revealed Fitzgibbons. They had made this known in a survey before subscription blanks had been published in the newspapers. Questions directed at those who had filled and returned the blanks brought the same replies. Questions were asked about the freedom of the viewer. It was learned that he can’t pick up the unused portion of the program he paid for the next night. Frank Fisher wanted to know if a viewer could switch from one channel to the other, since there is a film on each. He can’t, once he’s made his choice. ‘‘He just walked into the wrong theatre.” What about Telemeter on Sunday? There’s no law to prevent it. The six-day laws apply to theatres. “This may bring the matter to a head,” said Fitzgibbons. A token amusement tax is not unlikely, either. Fitzgibbons impressed on the exhibitors and trade delegates from other sections of the industry that they had first refusal in their situations. Exhibitors could band together to form a company where there was more than one in a community. Where this privilege wasn’t exercised it would go to other applicants—probably the local radio or TV station. Terms and rentals were referred to without much clarification. “How much is left over for the exhibitor?” Dave Rothstein of the Rothstein circuit in Western Canada wanted to know. ‘‘No less than he’s getting now.” Observed Fisher humorously: “That doesn’t include the candy money.” In Montreal Joseph Strauss of the Theatre Owners of Quebec continued to provide the TOA of the USA with critical statements.