Canadian Film Weekly (Oct 5, 1960)

Page 6 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY October 5, 1960 News Clips In selecting the operator of a second TV network in Canada the Board of Broadcast Governors stated that it would give preference to a company wholly-owned by Canadians and with the largest number of station affiliations .. . Wm. A. Scully, industry veteran and charter member of the Miami tent of the Variety Clubs, is general chairman for the 34th Variety convention in Miami April 25-29, 1961 . . . Philip Gerard, Eastern ad-pub director for Universal, was a recent visitor to Toronto for conferences with Hatton Taylor and Barry Carnon of Empire-Universal .. . Health Films Ltd. has been incorporated in Ontario as a production-distribution company, with Laurence L., Cromien, long-time production executive, as one of its principals. Capitalization is 36,090 $1-par non-voting preference shares and 4,000 no-par common shares. Charles Everett, director of Crawley Films Ltd. of Ottawa, has been elected a vice-president and made treasurer of the company . Reopening of the 450-seat Avalon, the only theatre in Souris, Man., has been announced by Henry Schol, who took over the house from H. J. Baldwin... Annual dinner of the USA Motion Picture Pioneers will take place on Nov. 21 at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel, NY and wiil honor Joe Levine as Pioneer of the Year . . . Wm. Summerville has been elected a director of the Motion Picture Theatres Association of Ontario, succeeding Robert E. Myers, who left the exhibition end of the industry at Famous Players to join the distribution section at Warners . . . The F. G. SpencerFPCC 510-seat Capitol Theatre in Dalhousie, NB has been completely renovated without missing a performance. 19 Candidates Named For Variety Executive Nineteen barkers of Tent 28, Toronto, Variety Clubs International, were nominated for the 1l-man crew at the recent meeting in the Prince George Hotel and will be voted on at the next gathering on Oct. 25. Nine incumbent canvasmen are on the slate, Jack Fitzgibbons, the Chief Barker, and Peter Myers dropping out. Those on the present board nominated for 1961 are George Altman, George Heiber, Paul Johnston, Lionel Lester, Sam Wacker, Phil Stone, Ernie Rawley and Don Summerville. New names are Frank Fisher, Claude Alexander, Bob Hall, Lou Davidson, Chet Friedman, Sam Shopsowitz, Hye Bossin, Win Barron and Dr. Ja Egan, Late in the year the new crew will meet and elect the officers of\ the Club from among themselves. “dios at-KleinburgIt-will build its-own studio building. n the 7) “Souare REMEMBER the doctor who lived next door to The Apartment, which played the title role in The Apartment? He’s Jack Kruschen, born in Winnipeg and the son of a watchmaker who wanted him to be a doctor. The 38-year-old Kruschen, according to Philip K. Scheuer in the LA Times, took his father to see The Apartment. “It has taken 23 years for me to be able to Say, ‘My son’s a doctor”?! Pop said . . . Summer sight gone with the summer: Young fellows carrying briefcases while wearing shorts. They weren’t business-bound. Just new Canadians, who use briefcases for everything, on their way to the park or the lake ... The CNE North American Table Tennis Championships were held in the nearby Fort York Armouries this year. A banner said that this was the home of the “Queen’s York Rangers, lst American Regt.’’ Some of the USA contestants wondered out loud how come the Queen has an American regiment—and Rangers at that! The “Ist American Regt.’ was that before the Revolution and crossed into British America at the end of it under Governor Simcoe . . . James McLearnon, formerly of Eaton Aud, heads up the O’Keefe Aud boxoffice crew. Help was drafted from the ticket windows of the Gardens and other places for that mad Camelot rush. Bobby Hewitson, who was at the ballpark, and Thelma LeGrow are among the regular staffers. STRATFORD will offer Coriolanus, Love’s Labour Lost and Henry VIII next season, with husky Douglas Campbell playing the gusty, earthy monarch. Import next year will be UK thespian Paul Schofield. The prizewinning play, Donald Jack’s To the Canvas Barricade, will be staged in the Festival Theatre but no director has been named for it yet. Interesting Stratford development was the appointment of young Leon Major as assistant to Michael Langham, the artistic director. I think he got the job because Langham recognized that he had all the right instincts for it rather than for his accomplishments to date. As for the Stratford Film Festival, I think the Foundation would be justified in dropping it. The situation is untenable. The present theatre, which Premier Operating owns, is unsatisfactory, say the critics. You can hardly ask the Foundation to build one. Nor can you get the kind of glamorous whoop-de-do for the Stratford Film Festival that you get at Cannes or even Stratford’s Shakespearean Festival. Yet the Stratford Film Festival has been responsible for fine forums and lectures—things not available at other events of the kind. Now that Canada has film festivals in Montreal and Vancouver, it isn’t as important to keep Stratford’s going. Just the same I hope they do. ADDITION to the Jack Kruschen item above: He’s a regular on the new 20th-Fox TV series, Hong Kong, in which Lloyd Bochner of Toronto is a co-star .. . The Telegram’s Rosemary Boxer, Rome-domiciled, wrote off the Venice Film Festival as a real nothing. Even starlets seeking to catch an eye or a press photo stayed away. Films aren’t going anywhere in Italy because TV is on the rise, explains Boxer, so the starlets figured why blow their dough? .. . TV is like this: The morning after the hour-long Aquanauts made its bow a local teacher asked her class of tweeners to use a word with “aqua” in it and 15 hands shot up, with most of their owners shouting “Aquanauts!” Art Arthur is writing Aquanauts .. . Tony Bennett painted a terrible picture of USA TV to Gerard a film... Hey, Dick Waring! Curly Posen_is looking for you. h is The Telegram station, began a three-month lease of Toronto International-Film 4] FOUR OLD-TIMERS (Continued from Page 1) the Canadian Picture Pioneers and of their service on boards and committees. : : Clare Appel, now executive director of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, has a long record of industry service and just as bright a record of active interest in the work of the Pioneers. Appel, born in the USA, was raised in Brantford and was a singer and orchestraconductor in the Northland. He switched to theatre management, from which he developed into a publicity and advertising director, eventually becoming a top exhibition executive. Appel’s career, which at one time brought him to the presidency of the Motion Picture Theatres Association of Ontario, has included service with The Allens, Famous Players and Odeon Theatres. Tommy Cleary of Montreal, director of advertising and publicity for and a director of Consolidated Theatres Ltd., is a past president of the Quebec Picture Pioneers, which gave him its own award in 1955. He joined Consolidated in 1928 as manager of the Princess Theatre and was given his present post in 1930 but he came into the business at Famous Players’ Capitol in 1921 under H. M. Thomas. In 1925 he came under the late George Rotsky, a great showman and now a Montreal legend, as assistant manager of the Palace. Tommy owns a piece of everybody’s heart in Montreal Show Business. A. E. (Steve) Rolston was born . beside the Atlantic and has worked beside the Pacific since 1927. It was the late Walter H. Golding, when manager of St. John’s Imperial, who employed Steve and sparked what became a 40-year career in the film industry. In 1922 Steve entered the distribution side and has remained in it ever since. Universal, FBO, First National, Paramount, Monogram, Eagle-Lion — these are the companies of the past and present whom Rolston has served. The Canadian Picture Pioneers has had no more devoted member than Steve, who can be found any Sunday night helping put on the Sunday evening drive-in shows that aid the Trust Fund so much. Reg Doddridge of Calgary? Everyone in the East knows the name of this distribution veteran. The details of his background are not at hand as this is written. "Breakfast At Tiffany's' Patricia Neal has been signed to star with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Paramount’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Davies New Academy Head Valentine Davies, first v-p of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has been named pre sident as successor to the late B. B. Kahane,