Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 9, 1969)

stenapensnenesepmpererctenpokteenrtey muses te eogmnnes: rer egrapmennonaas Name International Jury For Canadian Film Awards King Vidor, Peter Watkins and Elmer Bernstein have agreed to form the international jury for this year’s Canadian Film Awards, it was announced by chairman Gerald Pratley. The jury will convene in Montreal to adjudicate entries a week before the awards presentation itself Oct. 4 in the Canadian Room of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel, Pratley said. Entries for the 69 competition are reported to be coming in at a record-breaking pace. Pigskin's View of Game In Fox Football Scenes A pigskin’s view of a football game will be seen for the first time in 20th $Century-Fox’s M*S*S*H, comedy-drama of the Korean War now filming. Technicians at the 20th-Fox grip department perfected a camera base inside a _ steel-framed ball which will provide this unique viewpoint of a football sequence. Director Robert Altman conceived the idea for the special camera mount, which rolls erratically like a football, and can be kicked and moved mid-scene by the players, therein giving the sequence a documentary effect. He took his concept to E. T. Grant, head of 20th’s grip department, who with his staff came up with the steel-framed ball, covered with padded vinyl, 30 inches in diameter and housing plates to which camera, magazine and battery may be bolted and strapped in place. Complete with contents, the affair weighs approximately 85 pounds. Pull Of Radio Over Print? When a Montreal newspaper columnist suggested that Montrealers weren't intercsted in the 1969 edition of Man and His World, even if tickets were free, French language CKVL-radio’s morning man, Yvon Dupuis, invited listeners to write the station for free ducats to the fair’s first two days. “We expected about 1,000 requests,” said sales manager Judah Tieotelman, “but got 15,000 in two days, plus 60 to 70 long-distance calls per day. We actually wound up with more than 20,000 letters.” THEATRE FOR SALE 350 Speakers Modern Snack Bar The only Drive-In within 30 miles Contact FILM WEEKLY, TORONTO 175 BLOOR ST. EAST Tp RS ES TR RES July 9, 1989 PANORAMA (Continued from Page 4) parison. When a reviewer says, to cite some recent ads in the Times, that a movie js ‘great’ (Liz Smith, Cosmopolitan) or ‘an absolute must-see’ (Newsday) or ‘Stunning!’ (Glamour) or ‘like a dipperful of fresh spring water’ (Howard Thompson, N.Y. Times) or ‘a yummy movie-movie (Judith Crist, New York Magazine), he, she it means no more than that it is great or yummy or dipper-fresh compared to the current crop; which may be correct. Critic-critics like me or John Simon are accused of ‘not liking movies,’ which is also correct, seasonally speaking. I disliked most of the new releases I saw while I was reviewing for Esquire from 1960-66. But this was because I have for so long had such a passion for movies—'like’ is too mild—that I ask a lot from the experience. My comparisons are not with the relative junkiness of one as against another item in the mayflower swarm of junk that flourishes yummily this year and is forgotten next. My idea of cinema is more extensive, going back to the sound renascence that began fifteen years ago and, in extreme cases like comedy, to the Keaton-Chaplin-Sennett period. Like its older sisters, cinema has in its history a few great innovators, a larger number of talented followers (‘school of’ or ‘minor’ but they are essential to the life of the medium, ecologically—also enjoyable in their own special way) and an enormously greater quantity of energetic, untalented hacks who produce the bulk of any period’s works, as one may see by walking through: the remoter galleries of any large art museum. The critic’s job is to discriminate between these three categories; with reasons” ¢e ¢ % All of which may be valid within the slick, sophisticated context of publications like Esquire. But it’s interesting to note that not anywhere in Macdonald's proposition does the word ‘entertainment’ figure. As a critic he’s interested only in the deeper, aesthetic values of what he sees. It seems to us that when a reader is contemplating any expenditure on a movie he’d want to know about that surface entertainment factor in the broadest sense. That’s where the reviewer as opposed to the critic becomes essential. Newspaper editors might want.to mull that one over. bie ks Xe RANDOM JOTTINGS: Mickev-Stevenson, Paramount’s new vicepresidentfor domestic distribution has been commuting week-ends between New York and his home in Cooksville, Ont. but all that will end at the end of the mounth when he moves wife Anne and the three boys into their new home in Darien, Conn. Stevenson and his ex-Toronto counterpart at 20th-Fox, Peter Myers, were to have their first New York get-together over lunch, July 14 * * “ ASI president Harold Greenberg reports that Murray Briskin is making good progress following major surgery at Doctors’ Hospital in New York. Greenberg also advised that Arthur Nalven, Briskin’s assistant general manager, had returned to Du-Art in New York * * ~ Andre Link, obviously astute co-producer of Cine-Pix’ boxoffice winner, Valerie, said he prefers to mix sound for his pictures in France “not because of the French thing but simply because of the combination of economy and quality” ***** The recent Toronto press conference for Valerie and its star, Danielle Ouimet, was well staged and handled by Harry Pollock in a Yorkville discotheque. Projection of silent footage from the frankly erotic film provided an excellent opportunity to grade the girl-watchers, from the unabashedly salivating to sneaky furtive. Go ahead. Put us somewhere in the middle. Died Samremmantens emcees Ae esate Al eelgrass period. This compares with net earnings in the first three months of 1968 of $52 per share based Bob Brooks Forms Company Robert (Bob) Brooks, director of photography for Chetwynd Films, Toronto, for the past 13 years, has left the company to freelance under his own compa: ny name, Robert Brooks Associates, at 10 Banigan Drive, Toronto 354, Ont. Fox Nets $2,464,000 1st Qtr. Darryl F. Zanuck, president of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation has reported net earnings after taxes for the first three months of 1969 were $2,464,000 as compared to adjusted net earnings of $3,636,000 in 1968. Net earnings for the first three months of 1969 amounted to $.31 per share based on _ 8,006,108 shares, the average number of shares outstanding during the on 7,035,285 shares outstanding during that period. Sunday Movies In B.C. ’ Sunday movies in British Columbia have become a local option in each municipality, based on plebiscites, following passage of an appropriate bill in the provincial house. Unorganized areas must obtain an Order in Council before proceeding. Lou Jacobi Signed By UA Native Torontonian Lou Jacobi, one of Broadway’s best-known character comedy actors, has been signed for a starring role in Cotton Comes to Harlem, being directed by Ossie Davis for United Artists release. CANADIAN FILM-TV BI-WEEKLY Denis Whitaker Is Named Station Rep's President W. Denis Whitaker, D.S.O., E.D., president of Major Market Broadcasters Limited, Toronto, has been named president of the Station Representatives Association of Canada to fill out the term of Bob Quinn who has re signed from Radio-Television Representatives Ltd., after 14 years. Other officers include Al Slaight of Stephens & Towndrow Ltd.; Andy McDermott of Radio & Television Sales Inc., and Ross McCreath of All Canada Radio & Television Limited. Talent Photo Catalogue Is Launched by ACTRA ACTRA (Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists) has launched a talent catalogue called “Face to Face with Talent” in which photographs of members will appear along with pertinent background facts. Early reaction to the idea has been favorable. “This kind of photographic index will encourage producers to consider performers for various kinds of roles, not just those in the range of type-casting,” says panel moderator and announcer Fred Davis. From TV _ hostess Lorraine Thomson: “If you are listed as a dancer but your face is the type they are looking for in a commercial—you could be called— something that wouldn’t happen without a list of the type that ‘Face to Face with Talent’ will provide.” Leslie Yeo and Hilary Vernon, actors: “The impact of an actor’s most memorable performance can be lost before the next casting session comes around. Now it can be recorded in print and serve as a permanent reminder to those who may think that all the best talent has migrated south,” Lewis To Direct, Won’t Star Jerry Lewis has been signed by producer Milton Ebbins to direct Salt and Pepper II, co-starring Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford in a sequel to last year’s mystery comedy hit distributed by United Artists. It will mark the first feature directed by Lewis in which he has not also starred. Al Waxman's Second Film Al Waxman, Toronto writerdirector-actor whose first film, a 20-minute short called Tviggy was a successful theatrical release by Columbia Pictures, is making his second film in collaboration with Crawley Films of Ottawa. It’s called Tomorrow Through My Window. Page 5