Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 31, 1968)

PICTURES NEWS GLIPS ONE ROXY CLOSES and another one re-opens, which reflects the ebb and flow of motion picturing in the Canadian hinterland. Closing recently in CHESLEY, ONT. was the Roxy run by the LANGELOTZ family, while out in NEEPAWA, MAN., the Roxy which has been closed since March will re-open under the new ownership of M. G. RAY w ov ss ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S weirdy, THE BIRDS, scored the top TV audience so far for a _ feature, according to NBC who claimed 47,000,000 viewers recently, 3,000,000 more than scored by THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI in September, 1966 * * * WIN BARRON, Paramount’s Can_adian ad-publicity chief, back from a_ three-day promotional seminar at company HQ in New York. The TOMMY STEELE starrer, HALF A SIXPENCE, was the conference subject, and Barron is restrained from turning handsprings over promotional plans only because of recent surgery * ** * Another New York visitor was NICK LANGSTON, ad-publicity director for UNITED ARTISTS, getting the 1968 product message from UA’s sales VP JAMES VELDE and_ Eastern divisional manager, EUGENE TUNICK * ** * LANGSTON also a news item following his recent election as chairman of the Canadian FILM ADVERTISING CIRCLE. Other appointments: BUD BARKER (FAMOUS PLAYERS), vice-chairman, CHARLES MASON (ODEON), treasurer and HILDA CUNNINGHAM (MGM), secretary. Joining the four executives on the board of directors were BILL MORLAND (ASTRAL), BRIAN LINEHAN (ODEON) and HELEN CONWAY (COLUMBIA) vx vy vy Same group met Jan. 24 in Toronto’s OLD MILL, to honor Jim NAIRN, one of the founding executives and a former president, who retired recently as advertising and public relations director for FAMOUS PLAYERS. FOR SALE 1 Pr. Bausch & Lomb Cine Scope Lens. $200.00 the pair. 1 Pr. Superlite Model 3C 6'/, E.F. Back up Lens. $75.00 a pair. 1 Spare DB Simplex intermittent. $25.00. LIBERTY THEATRE, Box 41, Amherstburg, Ont. Fage 4 Panorama w&kkek vv vx by Stan Helleur For a man who confesses to “ego problems,” Al Waxman, a 32year-old Toronto actor and writer, manages to equate with some success in the positive thinking department. A short subject called Tviggy is a case in point. This highly entertaining bit of color whimsy about a plain young girl who dreams of being a fashion mode! : a ™ has been showing in theatres across Canada, wherever Columbia Pictures’ Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner has been the main attraction. Tviggy cost Waxman $18,000 to make, including his own talents and services as scripter, director and producer. “And who knows,” he said, “I may even make a buck with it” * * * The real reason for Waxman’s spirit of adventure, however, was to record something of value on film as a reference for what really has been bugging him lateaos ~}y—to produce and direct a feature picture based on his own original story about young people and their hang-ups (right now he’s calling it About Tomorrow). “There was no other way for me to get close to any major distributor with my idea,’ Waxman explained. “I had to have something to show. Matter of fact I couldn’t even get to direct my own script in the Wojeck TV series. Nobody around the CBC wanted to take a chance on me” * * *% Harvey Harnick, Canadian general manager for Columbia, was eager to take a chance on Waxman once he’d screened the short. “I’ll have no trouble booking this one,’ he told Waxman, establishing some kind of Canadian film history in the process—a privately-produced, indigenous product getting major distribution. Tviggy also has been getting good critical reviews which Waxman, conscious of his ego problems, has been photostatting in quantity * “* »* Curiously, Columbia in New York didn’t react as positively as Harnick to the short and Waxman took his print and a copy of his feature script to Universal. There, in New York, the reaction was positive but an opinion and final verdict was required from the company’s production HQ in Hollywood. Accordingly, a meeting was set up in New York, with Waxman in attendance. “And wouldn’t you know,” said Waxman, “‘that the day of the meeting was the day Mother Nature chose to excrete on Toronto with so much snow that I missed the day’s only flight to New York?” * x * Since then arrangements have been made for Waxman to meet the Universal production brass in Hollywood, a meeting he expected to be called at any minute. For Waxman it would represent at least a modest triumph—returning to Hollywood at somebody else’s expense. In 1965 he was there trying to make it as an actor, without success. “The best I could do was a job as counterman in Barney’s hamburger joint,’ he recalled. “T finally got fired for serving too many over-sized helpings. Bacon also had something to do with. I hate it crisp and wouldn’t serve it any other way but gummy.” There’s some kind of personality message there. Ww WwW Ww SMALL TOWN THEATRES might be well advised to switch from 35 mm. to 16 mm. projection, N. A. Taylor, president of Twinex Century Theatres Limited, told the BC Exhibitors’ Association convention in Vancouver. “The advantages are obvious,” he said. “The equipment is fully automatic and much cheaper than 35. No licensed projectionist is necessary. Not only are prints cheaper but express charges for the exhibitor, particularly in remote places, would represent an enormous saving . . . Sixteen millimetre has been with us for a long time. Perhaps it’s time we learned to use it properly and for the benefit of our own survival.” Taylor also recommended the dual auditorium concept for small towners, an evolution which Twinex pioneered in 1948 with the Elgin and Little Elgin in Ottawa. “If I were operating in a small town today,” he said, “I would rather have two small theatres of three or four hundred seats each than a single six or seven hundred-seater. I say that two small theatres using 16 mm. automatic equipment might be the answer for many a small town operation.” Ww Ww we RANDOM JOTTINGS: Warner Bros.-Seven Arts’ Canadian adpublicity chief Al Dubin headed a Toronto delegation attending the premier of Firecreek in El Paso, Texas and neighboring Juarez, Mexico (about which more in our Feb. 14 issue) » »* ** Curly Posen one of eight regional vice-presidents named by NAC president Julian Lefkowitz. Another Torontonian, Syd Spiegel, appointed chairman of the concessionaires’ Membership Retention committee. ‘CANADIAN FILM-TV BI-WEEKLY HOLLYWOOD TPORONTO actress Susan Clark has had her option picked up by Universal Pictures and is currently starring in The Big Prize, a full-length feature for CBS-TV ve ve Xx German actor Hardy Kruger has joined Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani, Virna Lisi and Sergio Franchi in the cast of United Artists’ The Secret of Santa Vittoria, to be produced and directed by Stanley Kramer in Italy starting next May % * The Fox, the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts feature shot at Studio City, outside of Toronto, will have its New York premiere Feb. 7. Sandy Dennis, Keir Dullea and Anne Heywood are the co-stars * * % The London hit play, The Flip Side, has been bought by 20thFox for production next September. A Broadway version will open in March “ * % Now that Andre Previn has said “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” composer lyricist Leslie Bricusse has been signed to write the score for MGM’s musical version of the classic x * %* Winner of two Academy Awards last year, Born Free will have a Columbia Pictures sequel called Living Free, based on the second and third volumes of the famed Joy Adamson trilogy * *« * A powerhouse cast has been signed for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts’ production of The Madwoman of Chaillot. To date it includes Katherine Hepburn, Simone Signoret, her daughter Catherine Allegret, Yul Brynner and Danny Kaye. John Huston will direct the screen version of Jean Giraudoux’ celebrated stage play. ae axe vw Sammy Davis joins Frank Sinatra and Raquel Welsh in 20thFox’ The Lady in Cement, a sequel to the current hit, Tony Rome. Location shooting due to start Feb. 19 in Miami * * x They gave Edith her head about 1,000 pictures ago and she’s still whipping out Academy Award winning clothes for Hollywood Stars. Edith Head’s current assignment is to dress Shirley MacLaine for Universal’s version of Sweet Charity, representing designer Head’s 35th musical and her 1,100th film all told * * * David Lean, who brought Dr. Zhivago to the screen, and Robert Bolt, who wrote it, have been brought together again by MGM for an as yet untitled production going before the cameras in Ireland this coming summer. It will be a roadshow film (for 1969) based on a Bolt original set in the 1900’s x %* *% At Paramount they’re enthusing over the signing of Carol Channing to co-star with Jackie Gleason in the Otto Preminger produced-directed comedy, Skidoo. January 31, 1968