Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 30, 1961)

CANADIAN ILM WEEKLY August 30, 1961 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol. 26, No. 33 August 30, 1961 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 WAlnut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year SHORT THROWS (Continued from Page 1) Truffaut is one of the best known of the new film makers of France and Logan, who has great stature in the live theatre, directed the Warner Bros. film, Fanny. He came to Montreal with Mrs. Logan just before its opening. DIRECT governmental participation in helping to establish the film as an information medium in the less-developed countries was suggested in a recent Unesco report to the UN. Agencies for production and distribution should be set up by the state or, alternatively, assistance should be lent “by means of development loans, tax exemptions and other initial concessions.” TELEPHONE conference lasting two hours was conducted by CTV Network executives in Toronto with 15 people over new-type speaker phones in the eight affiliated stations from coast to coast. Gordon Keeble, exec. v-p, said it worked out excellently. Manager of network operations at CTV will be Stan S. Wilson, states Spence Caldwell, president, and Al Coyne has been added to the promotion and publicity department to handle -advertising and sales promotion. CBS REPORTS, a TV series, recently provided an interesting hour about film restrictions in the USA in a show called Censorship and the Movies. Censors, Bosley Crowther of the NY Times and Geoffrey Shurlock and aides appeared on it. The program made one reference to British censorship, using a clip, but it didn’t draw on the Canadian situation in any way. Canada has nine censorship boards in its ten provinces and a film censor’s association. BOARD of Broadcast Governors proposes a_ regulation that would require an advertiser who purchases a non-Canadian TV program to buy equal participation in a Canadian program. The move will help the CBC and CTV, the new private network, meet the BBG’s 55 per cent Canadian Content regulation. Agency and network representatives will meet next month to discuss the plan. 12 From MGM (Continued Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one of the biggest films ever made by MGM, the company that has produced more of the big ones than any other. Vincente Minnelli has directed Glenn Ford, Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb, Paul Lukas, Paul Henreid and Yvette Mimieux in it. September will see the release of A Thunder of Drums, a CinemaScope and color story about the Indian wars with a large cast headed by Richard Boone, George Hamilton, Luana Patten, Arthur O’Connell and a popular recording artist, Duane Eddy. October will bring Bridge to the Sun, story of an American girl married to a Japanese and living in Japan during the war. It stars Carroll Baker and James Shigeta and its showing in Venice as the official USA festival entry will be followed by a simultaneous world premiere in Washington, San Francisco and Tokyo. November brings Bachelor in Paradise, a comedy starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner, and The Colossus of Rhodes, a spectacle in SupertotalScope and color starring Rory Calhoun and offering a huge cast. The Hope-Turner film also has Janis Paige, Paula Prentiss, Virginia Grey, Jim Hutton, Don Porter and Agnes Moorhead in it. The Wonders of Aladdin, in CinemaScope and color and starring Donald O’Connor, Vittorio De Sica and Noelle Adam, is for the Christmas season. Light in the Piazza, with Olivia de Havil land, Rossano Brazzi, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux and Barry Sullivan, will follow in 1962. Also due for release during the winter is All Fall Down, star ‘rom Page 1) ring Eva Marie Saint, Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury, Karl Malden and Brando de Wilde. Wii'iam Inge wrote this one, which, like several of the others, is based on a best-selling novel. Other films for showing early next year are A Very Private Affair, starring Brigitte Bardot and Marcello Mastroianni; Joe Pasternak’s mew comedy, The Horizontal Lieutenant; and Sweet Bird of Youth, in which Paul Newman and Geraldine Page repeat their roles of Tennessee Williams’ Broadway hit. Among the producers and directors who were connected with one or the other of the films mentioned here are Jules Blaustein, Robert J. Enders, Jacques Bar, Etienne Perier, Joseph Newman, Ted Richmond, Jack Arnold, Henry Levin, Arthur Freed and Guy Green. Right now MGM’s The Honeymoon Machine, starring Paula Prentiss and Steve McQueen, is doing strongly everywhere and Ada, starring Susan Hayward and Dean Martin and_ co-starring Martin Balsam, is due in the theatres. Newest production development is the casting of Oscar Homolka is the George Pal production of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, in Cinerama, which will star Laurence Harvey and Karl Boehm, along with Claire Bloom. Col's 'The Reluctant Saint' Columbia has signed an agreement with Edward Dmytryk for co-production of The Reluctant Saint, to be filmed in Italy beginning in October. BO DURABILITY OF "BEN-HUR' Boxoffice durability of Ben-Hur is astounding. After a year’s hard-ticket run in Toronto the picture did healthy business in Famous Players’ multiple-run setup and it is still to play the driveins. In Sudbury it did turnaway business at 20th Century Theatres’ drive-in after the in-town engagement and the sam2 thing happened in Ottawa. A French-language version is now running at the Champlain and Cremazie theatres in Montreal and may go six weeks The trade is curious to see what sort of business it will do at the Toronto drive-ins after doing so well in the hard-ticket and the popular runs. It may indicate that drive-in audiences are almost untouched by what goes on in covered theatres, “ CHAPLIN TALKS TO ROTARIANS Importance of the motion picture theatre to the community and the absurdities of motion picture censorship were Chaplin, general manager of United Artists and Stressed by C. S. public relations chairman of the Motion Picture Industry Council of C address to the Rotary Club of Fairbank, a Toronto ane ae luncheon meeting took place in the Town House, ey ae Even now one of the first buildings in new northernucene nities is a movie house, sharing the and perhaps a restaurant. A theatre helps meet enter as well as being important to places of business. honor with a church, school tainment needs Chaplin pointed up the inconsistency of censoring films for the atres while TV programs are outside thousands of Canadians have already Saskatchewan banned it and the ban board. In that way a handful of people great public. such authority, Hundreds of seen Never on Sunday but was upheld by the appeal impose their tastes on the NEED PIC HOUSES (Continued from Page 1) they knew in them when news that they are closing gets out. This is true of patrons whose own attendance has become less frequent because of increasing years and other attractions. Newspapers and shopkeepers dread their communities becoming theatreless. A recent editorial in the Journal-Argus, St. Mary’s, Ont., headed End of a Theatre, is an example: “One of the many services in our community is that given by our local theatre. In many towns and cities across the land the local theatre has disappeared from the scene this past few years. We think it is a pity that this trend has continued as far as it has, The film industry is no doubt here to stay and although many theatres have been having a tough time of it, we feel that there js something better in store for them in the future when the television trend wears itself out a bit more. “Another local theatre disappeared in Aurora recently when, according to the Aurora Banner, the Royal Theatre was crumbled to the ground to make way for a parking lot. Says the Banner concerning this loss: “This is a sad circumstance. We hope that now that the old theatre is gone for sure, there will be more hope of a new theatre. Our town misses its own movie hotise, which would bring business to Aurora, lights to its streets and provide good entertainment at home for young and old. Surely a town of this size can support a small theatre with good pictures. We hope somebody will look our way.’ “It might be noted that the town of Aurora has a population of 7500. It might also be mentioned that we are fortunate in St. Mary’s to have an enierprising theatre operator who goes to very great trouble to see that the best possible program is provided six nights of the week at our own Lyric Theatre.” Koster To Direct Fox Film” Henry Koster has been signed to direct 20th-Fox’ Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. Warners’ Rev Fattened By ABP Stock Sale Warner Bros.’ fiim revenue from theatres and TV totalled $63,574,000 in the nine months ended May 27 compared to $66,392,000 for the same period of the last fiscal year. The company’s net consolidated earnings, $4,983,000, was equal to $4.42 per share but a special non-recurring capital gain of $4,511,000, or $4 a share, brought the total net income to $9,494,000, equal to $8.42 a share. The non-recurring special income was from the sale of 1,000,000 ordinary shares of Associated British Pictures Corp. Ltd.