The Film Daily (1942)

0*\ DAILY Friday, December 1 1 , 194i Women Engaged May Equal Men Shifted (.Continued from Page 1) Daily yesterday. A survey of the industry's personnel needs and problems is now under way, covering all branches of the industry, it was I revealed by Calvin Core, formerly a member of the Pennsylvania board of censors, who has been assigned It is probable that final conI sideration of the new communij cations job listing will take i place next week. Because the committee has a small staff and j could not handle a large flood of suggestions for inclusion, j THE FILM DAILY'S Washington Bureau has been asked to "edit" any last minute suggestions that members of the inj dustry may wish to have considj ered. He has been asked to I solicit suggestions from the industry and turn them over to the Commission next Monday. If there are any further sug, gestions, send them to A. H. | Older, FILM DAILY, 520 Third Street, TS.W., Washington, D. C, | and they will be passed along to the committee. by the Manpower Commission to work out a plan for the orderly withdrawal of workers from the film industry as they are needed in more essential industries. Core pointed out that there is no cause for immediate alarm because there is still a large reservoir of women available for industry jobs. The Commission, he said, has not yet decided definitely what it will do once men in non-essential jobs are transfe:red from the film industry, but he would not deny that there may be no relaxation of efforts to continue inducing film workers — even the women who replace the men transferred — to shift to war industries. He said, that the only workers whom he would not try to nersuade to shift their jobs were those named as essential by the Essential Activities Committee. "The motion picture industry," paid Co: e, "is a vital part of our American way of life, and is tremendously important in our South American relationships," He said the . Government will do nothing to balk Police Ban Smoking in Newark Theaters Newark — With their fingers crossed and their eyes on box-office reaction, theater managers here, acting on orders from the police department, have placed a ban on smoking. Aftermath of the recent Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, smoking in the larger downtown houses was only permitted in the loges and boxes for which top prices are charged. The privilege of smoking, some exhibitors believe, was the only incentive for the higher priced seat. TO THE COLORS: % Albany— C. R. ROSEBERRY, mo; tion picture editor of the Knickeroocker News for the past five years, j has been commissioned a lieutenant, senior grade, in the U. S. Navy Roseberiy reports Dec. 15. No successor has been named. New Haven — PAUL J. MEAD, former assistant manager of the Warner Capitol, Ansonia, and weekend manager of the Tremont, Ansonia, is now in the service, and Edward Agello, former chief usher at the Commodore Hull, Derby, succeeds him. Wilmington, Del. — HENRY L. SHOLLY, former Wilmington correspondent of The Film Daily and one-time film critic of the Wilmington Sunday Star, has been promoted to the grade of sergeant technician at the Ordnance Replacement Training Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., where he is in the Personnel section. Milwaukee— LOUIS W. ORLOVE, exploiteer for M-G-M ni Wisconsin and Upper Michigan and former local theater manager, leaves for the A. my on Dec. 18. Warner Bros.-Pathe Deal Said Still in Talk Stage (Continued from Page 1) offer that was approximately a million less. In any event, it is said that the deal at the present time certainly is not to be regarded as dead. While there remains a distinct possibility that, in lieu of purchasing an existing reel, Warners may launch their own, according to wellfounded reports reaching here yesterday from Washington. Government agency reaction to the plan recently has been far from encouraging. That is said particularly to apply to the WPB. Initially, however, the plan was said to have been well received in some quarters. The Warner position in the matter is said to remain as it was in the beginning — that its newsreel venture was conceived as a public and exhibitor service, with the company convinced that a reel utilizing the format devised would mesh perfectly with the war effort. With full realization that the newsreel could not be expected to return a quick profit, Warners on those grounds was said prepared nevertheless to make the investment on the long-range basis. It was pointed out that such a policy was not exactly new on the company's part. the industry's efforts on behalf of public morale and the furtherance of the war effort. Any effort to transfer workers — he will not admit the possibility of a labor draft — will be made through he offices of the United States Employment Service, which seems destined to play an increasingly important role in our wartime economy. Core said that whatever plan he might develop, it would certainly allow the industry time to recruit and train replacements. In the meantime, it was made increasingly obvious to The Film Daily that the Essential Activities Committee of the War Manpower Commission is thinking along communications lines when it considers occupations to be listed as essential in _ the communications bulletin, which includes motion pictures. War Injecting New Life into Film Laboratories (Continued from Page 1) able by the Motion Picture Laboratory Technicians Union, Local 702, 1ATSE. The reason given for the business improvement chalked up by the laboratories is the emergence of the screen as a medium for teaching our men the arts of war. The discovery of the Government that pictures are more potent than lectures and simplify the work of training the nation's armed forces has worked to the advantage of the laboratories. Most of the East's labs, are said to be busy turning out training films for every branch of the service. A spokesman for Local 702 expressed the belief that eventually all labs, will be handling such work. DeLuxe and Consolidated handle the bulk of the Government work. Dunphy Sees Conversion Saving 2,000,000 Gals, of Oil Washington Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Washington — Figures compiled by the amusements section of WPB's service branch reveal that conversion of 96 theaters in the 15 Eastern seaboard states will mean a saving of 1,572,000 gallons of fuel oil during the course of the winter. The study has not yet been completed, and C. J. Dunphy, chief of the section, estimates that additional conversions which did not require priority assistance will swell the total of the saving to more than two million gallons. Again urging theaters to do whatever is possible toward conversion before Jan. 20, when fuel rations will be refused operators who cannot prove that they have made every reasonable attempt to convert, Dunphy estimated that each conversion in a motion picture theater would result in a saving from 9,000 to 13,000 gallons of oil during the winter. Saef Back in Old Spot Boston— Jack Saef becomes the publicity director of the Paramount and Fenway Theaters, returning to a post he held several years ago. Raftery Asserts UA Will Show "Serve" (Continued from Page 1) words deemed objectionable by the Code Authority but not injurious tcijfo' the picture by their deletion. In a cable to the producers, paftery reminded them that UA' n tract gave the distributors the * .ght | to re-edit or make desirable cuts He told them such words as "bloody,' "Hell," "damn," "damned" and "God' were remaining in the picture, and that the only cuts of any conse quence were the use of the word "bastard" and reference to the Ital ians which the U. S. Government officials requested to be deleted in international interest. Raftery said UA would stand strictly on its contract and de manded that the producers accept the "final payment of guarantee as made without any conditions." Reports from London said that Two Cities Films, the producers, had refused to cash the check for $90,000 which UA had posted as a minimum guarantee. Raftery further asked that the producers "desist immediately from issuing statements and publicity which are most harmful to exhibition of the picture in territories in which we are distributing and thus harmful to both you and us and may affect receipts of pic ture because you are creating false impression that picture has been mutilated." PC A Member Defends Deletion of 2 Words in "Serve" West Coast Bureau of THE FILM (DAILY Hollywood — In commenting on British Information Minister Brendan Bracken's statement that American censors are "too old maiden aunt-like" because they deleted certain words in "In Which We Serve," a member of the Production Code Authority said "if we permitted those words to get by in one film we would have to go a step farther next time. There are a lot of people in this country who do not like vulgarity, particularly on the screen. Morally, we are obligated to protect youngsters who attend our pictures. Seventy per cent of American audiences are between the ages of 16 and 24. Do we want to scandalize them ?" 40 Runs Set for Short "Colleges at War," first of three Government shorts to be distributed byy M-G-M, will have 50 day-anddate first-runs in the Metropolitan territory between Dec. 23 and Dec. 29. Would Tighten N. H. Fire Safety Laws Concord, N. H. — A movement has been started here to tighten this state's fire safety laws at the coming session of the Legislature, as a result of the Cocoanut Grove fire disaster in Boston.