Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 12, 1961)

July 12, 1961 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 3 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol. 26, No. 28 July 12, 1961 HYE BOSSIN, Editor Assistant Editor . . ... .Ben Halter Office Manager .... . Esther Silver CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Canado Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa Published by Film Publications of Canada, Limited 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario Cancda e Phone WAInut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year MORE ABOUT UA (Continued from Page 1) ductions, produced by _ Robert Wise, co-directed by Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, screenplay by Ernest Lehman, starring Natalie Wood with Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris; and Judgment at Nuremberg, _ starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer. Pictures ready or shooting for the first half ot 1962 are Pocketful of Miracles, One, Two, Three, Road to Hong Kong, Pioneer, Go Home!, Jack the Giant Killer, The Oldest Confession, Badlands, S.S. Phaedra, The Miracle Worker and Infamous. Stars in them are Glenn Ford, Bette Davis, Hope Lang, James Cagney, Arlene Francis, Horst Buchholz, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Rex Harrison, Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Vallone, Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner. Due for production this year and for release in the second half of 1962 are Taras Bulba, Toys in the Attic, Two for the Seasaw, Advise and Consent, Kid Galahad and Five Pieces of Maria. Stars in these will be Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Elvis Presley, Danny Kaye and Sophia Loren. For 1962 production and early 1963 release are ‘The Best Man, Hawaii, Irma La Douce, The Last of the Just, Roman Candle, The Well of Ras Daga and The Great Train Robbery. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Charles Laughton will appear under Billy Wilder of The Apartment fame in Irma La Douce. Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop are slated for the other films. Cast In ‘Advise And Consent’ Otto Preminger has signed Walter Pidgeon to star in Advise and Consent. Hope For IDB Ease-Up (Continued from Page 1) IDB “with additional financing capacity, and wider responsibilities.’’ Financial and other types of assistance ‘‘will now be available for many businesses not previously included under the bank’s operations.’”” Resources will be increased from $160 million to $450 million. Another statement by Fleming: “The predominant business of the bank has been, and will continue to be, the making of term loans to small and medium sized enterprises. However, the bank has authority to purchase a portion of the equity in an enterprise with a view to resale to the owner or to others at a later date, and to enter into underwriting agreements. These powers will be put increasingly to active use.” In 1948 four Canadian producing companies — two located in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Victoria — applied for loans and were turned down. In January, 1949 the Canadian Film Weekly was assured by an important IDB official that motion picture production was an “‘eligible operation’’ and that it would lend money to a producer if, in its opinion, the film he planned had “a reasonable prospect of earning power.” In September of that year Herbert Richardson, deputy secretary of the Bank of Canada, in answer to a Canadian Film Weekly en quiry, wrote that any IDB action “could only be determined on the basis of a specific proposal,’’ since motion picture production is among the “‘more speculative types of enterprise.”” Apparently the proposals of applicants did not satisfy the IDB. Since then several millions of dollars have been invested in studio production facilities and more money is going in. Persons of long standing and good reputations as business men in the theatre and film fields have created valuable production assets. The sound stages of Canadian Film Industries and Toronto International Film Studios represent large sums of money and have facilities that are recognized as among the best on the continent. For 12 years Great Britain has maintained the National Film Finance Corp. to lend producers money. For 11 years it operated at a loss but the Government, knowing how much British international trade and prestige owe to the feature film, saw the loss as worthwhile. This year the NFFC showed a $51,634 profit. Perhaps things have changed enough on the Canadian production scene to warrant the aid of the IDB in establishing a feature film industry that will help Canada’s international trade and prestige. BOOSTING CPP TRUST FUND Calgary division of the Canadian Picture Pioneers held two Sunday midnight drive-in shows for the Trust Fund. The first, in Calgary at Odeon-Barron’s 17th St. ozoner, offered Wild in the Country, courtesy of 20th-Fox, on July 9 and a week later Famous Players’ Edmonton drive-in presented Columbia’s Homicidal. Pioneer members manned the drive-ins. The recent Sunday night Winnipeg premiere of Columbia’s Pepe, presented at the Garrick by the Winnipeg Picture Pioneers, the division which encompasses Manitoba and Saskatchewan, brought the Trust Fund $1,487. The Vancouver Picture Pioneers continues its regular Sundayevening drive-in shows for the Trust Fund. These, on for the past two seasons, are manned completely by members. W. G. Sharp heads the Calgary CPP, R. D. Hurwitz the Winnipeg division and Donn G. Foli the Vancouver one. Frank H. Fisher is the national president. COMMONS COMMITTEE'S CBC REPORT A test case in the Supreme Court of Canada to determine whether Telemeter and other community antenna systems should be regulated by the Board of Broadcast Governors was suggested in the report of the Special Committee on Broadcasting set up by Parliament. Tabled in the House, the report made a number of proposals, among them one that would remove J. Alphonse QOuimet, CBC president, and W. E. S. Briggs, vice-president, from the Govern ment agency’s board of directors. The report recommended elimination of the CBC’s Dominion Network, stricter control over scripts and programming, centralization of film purchasing at headquarters to reduce swollen inventories, separation of management from the board of directors and an increase of the latter from 12 to 15 for improvement of bilingual representation, freeing of CBC-affiliated stations so that they can make other network hookups if they please, and license status for the CBC under the Canadian Broadcasting Act. Study of the CBC by a management survey team was urged — providing that the Glassco Royal Commission on Government, which is looking at the CBC at the moment, offers a skimpy report about it, Our Business lor OLD MOVIES NEVER DIE... IN the realm of perpetual speculation must be the question of how our business would have fared if the flood gates through which came the deDP? lene:«Csluge of old mo' tion pictures to the TV screens had not been opened. In any day of the week, in any waking hour, one may ' discover a wide . ~ selection of erstwhile motion picture theatre entertainment being shown completely free on the TV screens. A recent story in The Hollywood Reporter indicated that in one week no less than 177 old feature films were programmed on Los Angeles TV stations. We hear frequently from various people about the fine old films they have seen on TV. Indeed, there is a tendency to compare them with some of the newer films, which often suffer by that process. Unquestionably, some of the “greats” of the past, even on the small TV screen, do hold up very well and there is little excuse for many which are made today. However, when people sit at home and watch old movies is TV they do not go to theares. There seems to be little which can be done to stem the tide. Even now, major distributors are readying more packages of post ’48’s. While the sum total of money received by producers for such showings may aggregate many millions, the individual prices paid by some of the TV stations are very small in relation to the audiences they reach. Certainly the harm inflicted on motion picture theatres would appear to be out of all proportion to such monies. Nevertheless, there is the defence that these sums are required in order to produce new films — a claim which may be queried. In England the exhibitors have managed, by banding themselves together, to restrict, to a great extent, the showing of old films on TV. This has been partially helped by the local TV quota. In the United States and Canada the condition appears to be incurable and those theatres which hope to survive must do so on the basis of such continued competition.