Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1956)

Whit Tkey'te hiking About □ □ □ In the Movie Business □ □ □ THE SWINGING PENDULUM. Some of the keener film executives will tell you that movie production is likely to swing from the spectacle cycle of the past two years to a greater output of less-costly films of the off-beat and intimate varieties. Filmgoers are fed up, they say, with magnitude and want the unusual and the human interest theme. This change in public taste is rapidly becoming visible and will be reflected in future movie production programs. If it developes, the trend will be just what Hollywood needs to get itself off the hook of its present production dilemma — high-cost pictures that demand star names to insure big returns, with only a handful of such personalities being available for casting. United Artists and Columbia are two companies that disprove the popular theory that a distributor can only make money with big shows. In between their big ones, these two companies deliver many programmers that help keep theatres open and help meet distribution overheads. SEX AND CELLULOID. Hollis Alpert's interesting article in "The Saturday Review" of June 23 has attracted lots of attention. Titled "Sexual Behavior in the American Movie", its major thesis deals with the treatment of sex on the screen, contends that the motion picture medium can never be artistically successful until it has learned to treat sex with candor and energy. And, Alpert says, this it has not learned to do. Some choice observations by the movie critic-anthropologist regarding Hollywood's treatment of sexual behavior are these: "To avoid coming to grips with the bed-climbing bit Hollywood has developed a set of pictorial symbols. These presumably are to fool the censors while the audience is kept informed of what is going on . . . An influential segment of Hollywood still regards the wiggle of hips as talent, and an oversized bust line as box-office . . . Hollywood appears to be relying on a conditioned reflex: Lana Turner dilating her nostrils equals sex . . . While Hollywood finds it all but impossible to portray love meaningfully, it nevertheless strives to inject 'sexiness' into its movies . . . Passion to be believed in must be felt. This does not mean that a man and a woman need to be shown climbing into bed, but if the plot calls for it the director ought at least to head them in that direction. It is unlikely that many members of the audience would panic . . . The assertion of freedom of expression for movies is largely up to the industry itself" (and not, Alpert says, to outside censorship which is often ineffectual). 0 THE BIG HASSLE between United Artists' Max Youngstein and the New York Times over film critic Bosley Crowther's "Trapeze" review is still getting ripples of in dignant pro and con argument. Most industryites concecl that Youngstein was defending a point of honor when hi yanked all UA advertising (for a short time) from thl Times, but that neither the Times nor UA benefited Youngstein finally relented and gave the Times a big a that quoted the very favorable review by Arthur Knigh critic for the "Saturday Review". In defending himsel Crowther said that he had never been a part of the movi industry and that his loyalty must lie with his employe! and the public, not with the movie industry. YoungsteiJ contended that the Times reviewer had allowed personal factors to sway his judgment. Thus another of those publ lisher-advertiser wrangles got itself again into the publil eye with nothing decided and nothing gained. O KISS THE BOYS GOODBYE. The best of friendship often come to an unhappy ending— even very profitably business relationships. So it is with Dean Martin ancl Jerry Lewis. A once-potent boxoffice combination is splij asunder. It is an economic axiom that all business prol ceeds on beliefs, or probabilities, and not on certaintiesl And so it is with Martin and Lewis. Where are they goind from here? Obviously, each believes he can go it alonel and make it pay. Observers believe that Jerry Lewis is big-time all the way, but there are many doubts abou Martin's ability to hold his own as a winning entertained in the movies and television. The odds are that Lewis will continue on to new triumphs in every entertainment media while Martin will be able to garner the greenbacks only or| the nightclub circuit and as a minor movie personality. 10 ALLIED ARTISTS' MOVE. This outfit is just bustin out all over, both with pride and with production. In giv ing more than lip-service to its promise of bigger things t come, AA has the industry talking about these things: it first booking in the Radio City Music Hall, Willia Wyler's "Friendly Persuasion", started "Notre Dame ol Paris", with none other than Gina Lollobrigida ; has al ready in the can pictures starring Mickey Rooney, Ida Lu pino, Laraine Day, David Wayne, Joel McCrea, Jacque Bergerac, and others. In this day of complaint and doubt it's good to see some thought going into the future of thi industry, thought buoyed up by an optimistic spirit as dis played by both AA and RKO. j 0 THE OLD SHELL GAME was being practiced again this time with the Warner's controlling interest. Along with reports that Si Fabian's possible participation in the sale to Serge Semenenko had hit a snag. Walter Winchel broadcast his "inside" information that control will rever back to the Warners themselves. The brothers are silent P. it 8 FILM Bulletin June 25, 1954