Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 27, 1960)

January 27, 1960 Sy [EH ASCE AAG 5 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol. 25, No. 4 January 27, 1960 HYE BOSSIN, Editor 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 e Phone WAInut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year UNESCO GROUP (Continued from Page 1) World Screen. Issued in Dec., 1959, it carries the best wishes of Tor Gjesdal, director of the UNESCO Department of Mass Communication, as the official voice of the IFTC and a foreword by its president, John Maddison. World Screen opens with a tribute to Jean Benoit-Levy, IFTC Delegate General, who died recently at 71, and biographical notes by Marie Epstein, his assistant for nearly 40 years. Canada holds membership in the International Catholic Association for Radio and Television, the International Committee of Film Education and Culture, the International Council for Educational Films through the National Film Board’s Wm. Lochnan in London, the International Federation of Actors, the International Centre of Films for Children, the International Federation of Film Societies and the International Labour Film Institute. The last-named organization holds certain distribution rights to four films produced by the National Film Board, which were originally issued in English and French but which are now available in Dutch, German, Italian and Swedish through the Institute’s efforts. The eight associate members of the IFTC are film festivals and Canada participated in three — those of France’s Festival International du Film, the Berlin International Film Festival and the London Film Festival. One of the 14 member organizations of the United Nations Visual Information Board, which was created in 1947, is the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Public Information Service, which is at its head office in the International Aviation Building, Montreal. Since a number of the 28 member bodies are purely national, Canada’s participation is quite broad. Title Changed To ‘Malaga’ Warners’ Moment of Danger, shot in Spain with Trevor Howard, Dorothy Dandridge and Edmund Purdom, will be called Malaga when it goes into the theatres. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY HOWARD KOCH WRITING 'THE WELL’ Howard Koch, veteran screenwriter with many features to his credit, is working on the screenplay of The Well for production in Canada by Taylor-Roffman interests. Yvonne Taylor of Toronto will be president of a Canadian company being organized to make The Well, a story of Western Canada from the novel by Sinclair Ross. This company will also make Execution, the novel that won the GovernorGeneral’s Award, with another leading screenwriter, Ben Barzman, preparing the screenplay. Mrs. Taylor will co-produce both pictures, which will be directed by Julian Roffman. One of those associated with the venture is Ralph Foster, who with Roffman operates Meridian Films, Toronto and The Videotape Centre. Roffman and Mrs. Taylor co-produced The Bloody Brood, which Allied Artists is distributing. Shooting will start on Execution in the Fall. 70 Mm. Installations (Continued from Page 1) stallation and equipment run _ between $25,000 and $35,000. It is unlikely that installations will go beyond 15, since there is a question of product. However, the 70 mm. can be easily reduced to 35 mm., says Al Turnbull, General Sound engineer. At present Canada’s only special widescreen operation is that of Cinerama, which is still running at the Imperial, Montreal. Cinemiracle’s Windjammer will follow Cinerama’s South Seas Adventure. General Sound installed five new 70 mm. systems in the past six weeks. They are in United Amusements’ Seville, Montreal; 20th Century’s Nelson, Ottawa, and Century, Sudbury; Loew’s Uptown Theatre, Toronto; and Famous Players’ University, Toronto. Until their installation Canada had three 70 mm. theatres—the Tivoli, Toronto and the Stanley, Vancouver, both Famous Players’ houses, and the Alouette, Montreal, a Consolidated-FP operation. The next group of installations are for Western Canada, with one each for Famous Players and Odeon houses in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg and another for Famous Players in Vancouver. Trade opinion sees London, Ont. as a likely place for one. The Odeon Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg houses are, respectively, the Uptown, Odeon and Garrick. However, if a decision is made to renovate the Rialto, Winnipeg the 70 mm. installation may go there. The current 70 mm. attractions are MGM’s Ben-Hur, Columbia’s Porgy and Bess and UA’s Solomon and Sheba. News Clipe Produced by Crawley Films, The Great River, a color documentary dealing with the St. Lawrence Seaway, was presented recently on CBLT-TV by Canadian General Electric . . 20th-Fox has acquired David O. Selznick’s interest in his production of A Farewell to Arms . . . Spyros P. Skouras was honored at the AmericanIsrael Cultural Foundation’s recent annual dinner in NY for “‘distinguished contributions’ to cultural exchange . . . Ira Tulipan, head of publicity at 20th-Fox, has resigned to join Columbia as assistant ad-pub director under Bob Ferguson . . . Bell & Howell Co. of Chicago, which has a subsidiary Canadian company, will merge with Consolidated Electrodynamics Corp. of California if the move is approved by shareholders . . . Kenneth Aneser has_ succeeded Gerald Levine as assistant advertising manager at Paramount. Ulric Bell, 69, public relations executive at 20th Century-Fox who was assistant to Spyros P. Skouras, president, died in NY re cently. He joined 20th-Fox in 1947 after service with the USA’s Office of War Information . . . B. G. Kranze, well known and popular in Canada, has been appointed vice president in charge of world-wide distribution and _ exhibition for Cinerama Inc., Hazen E. Reeves, president, has announced. He was with Stanley Warner Corp. as sales v-p when it sold its holdings to Cinerama Inc. ... “I shall not attend any theatre which advertises ‘For the entire family’ until such times as competent, strict, male ushers are employed,” said a letter writer to The Montreal Star, after complaining about noisy children, unclean conditions and indifferent ushers. City Out of Time, National Film Board short about Venice which was produced by Tom Daly and directed by Colin Low, will have its initial Canadian engagement at the Towne Cinema, Toronto, on the same bill with MGM’s Alec Guinness production, The Scapeoat ... Nat Weiss has been named 20th Century-Fox publicity manager at head office in NY and will work under Edward E. Sullivan, publicity director . . . Harry K. McWilliams has been named promotion and publicity director for the 1960 Academy Awards, it was announced by Si Seadler, chairman of the MPAA _ ad-pub directors’ committee. The 90minute telecast and broadcast will be offered on April 4, direct from the scene. Page 3 FREE FEATURE FILMS ON TV T HAS often been said that our business stumbles from One crisis to another. One such moment is at hand in the threatened strike by the Writ z ers’ Guild of | America against the studios in Hollywood. The sore point is the demand by the writers for a percentage of the returns from selling post ’48 films to TV. The producers are adamantly opposed. Perhaps by the time our readers have read this the strike will have been settled, but one way or another the situation portends problems for the motion picture theatre owner. If there is a strike he is bound eventually to be hurt by a shortage of new attractions. If it is settled he may anticipate with some apprehension the appearance on TV of many fine films shown on theatre screens within the last decade. Either picture is not a pretty one. It is doubtful if any major company executive will deny that many more millions of dollars were lost at the boxOffices of the United States and Canada than were realized as a result of the sale of old films to TV. It would be difficult to find a parallel in business history of such cannibalism. Many major company executives have vowed that there is no intention to sell the post ’48’s to TV. Assuming the greatest sincerity, one may still question the final outcome. In England a strong and tightly knit exhibitors’ organization tried to deter the trend by organizing a body called FIDO which bought TV rights from some _ producers and threatened others with possible boycott. It would now appear that the hopefully strong wall which they have erected has been breached and that in the not too distant future it will crumble. Most major company productions are now the creation of independent producers, all of whom will control in part or whole such films on the termination of their current distribution deals. These people may or may not be interested in continuing in production. In any event, they will desire every last dollar they can earn and this is to be found in sales to TV. One must assume there (Continued on Page 13) i : oh " — ee