The Film Daily (1945)

Tuesday, September 25, 1945 mi DAILY McKenna Denies Any Threats by Griffiths Oklahoma City — B. J. McKenna, general manager of Griffith Amusement Co., yesterday countered testimony of Goverment witnesses concerning alleged threatening remarks ..during negotiations with other theaTjv owners and stated flatly that his •-«'m had never had an "expansion department." Judge Edgar S. Vaught, presiding in the Griffith anti-trust hearing in Western Oklahoma Federal Court, showed a growing interest in the extent of Griffith operations when he asked McKenna to furnish him with a list of towns where each of the Griflfth companies operated, the number of theaters in each town, and the number operated or owned by the circuits. Momand Not Called Much of McKenna's testimony referred to the Seminole and Wewoka theaters covered in the million-dollar Momand anti-trust suit only recently settled in this court. A. B. Momand, plaintiflF in that case, was not called as a witness for the Government in this case, much to the surprise of defense attorneys. However, other Government witnesses had testified about the towns. Jake Jones, owner of a theater leased to the Griffiths, had testified that the late R. E. Griffith told him in 1933 that, "we want you to cut the rent to $250, and if you don't cut it, we are going to build another house and take all of your second-run pictures away from you." McKenna denied that R. E. Griffith was even present when a conference was held with Jones and that it was held in 1934. Robert E. Wright began crossexamination late yesterday with a searching inquiry concerning pricechanging policies of the defendant companies. Coast Strike on Agenda At lATSE Board Parley (Continued from Page 1) opened at the Hotel Astor yesterday with Richard F. Walsh, Alliance head, presiding. The lA chief was unable to say yesterday just when the strike issue would be taken up. The conference will last as long as the order of business dictates. Commenting on the studio strike conference which he attended in Washington at the orders of William Green, AFL head, Walsh said that it was agreed that the question of jurisdiction must be settled first before anything else was done. Sorrell Sees End of Studio Jurisdictional Dispute West Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — Assurance that the jurisdictional differences between Hollywood unions will be solved by joint committees of members of the unions involved was given at a mass , meeting of studio workers by Herbert K. Sorrell, chairman of the strike policy committee. Under the procedure adopted at REViEUJS Of ncuj nims "Blithe Spirit" 'with Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings UA-Two Cities 94 Mins. SMART ENTERTAINMENT OUT OF THE ORDINARY IS OFFERED BY FINE BRITISHMADE PICTURE. In bringing his stage success, "Blithe Spirit," to the screen Noel Coward has done credit to the British film industry. That shining light of the English stage and films has functioned with distinction in his dual capacity of producer and scripter, contributing to the production all his extensive talents as a creator of smart fun and rapier wit. With the assistance of David Lean, a director who has realized all the possibilities of the material, and a cast that has captured the spirit of the original with little faltering. Coward has made of the offering delightful film-going — something that is cut to order for the jaded taste. Those craving entertainment a little different from the usual will revel in this Two Cities film from the British studios. The picture spoofs spiritualism most amusingly. The story makes most of the situation that is created when a spiritualist materializes the spirit of an author's first wife. A series of diverting misunderstandings result between the writer and his second wife, who has no sympathetic understanding of the new and strange experience in his life. When his second wife dies he has to contend with her spirit, too. The finale finds him joining the spirits of wives one and two when he is killed in an auto accident. The acting is a constant joy. Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings have the leading roles as the writer and wife number two. Kay Hammond makes the spirit of the first wife an entrancing and seductive figure. Good as all of these are, it is Margaret Rutherford as the spiritualist who is the biggest hit of the film. She steals the show every time she's in evidence. Technically the film is tops, with Technicolor photography that is a distinct accomplishment. CAST: Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford, Joyce Carey, Hugh Wakefield, Jacqueline Clarke. CREDITS: Producer, Noel Coward; Associate producer, A. Havelock Allan; Director, David Lean; Screenplay, Noel Coward; Cameraman, Ronald Neame; Musical Score. Richard Addinsell; Sound, John Cooke; Art Director, C. P. Norman; Musical Director, Muir Mathieson; Film Editor, Jack Harris. DIRECTION, Fine. PHOTOGRAPHY, Superb. Fourth Week for Karloff Pic "Isle of the Dead," the RKO Radio drama starring Boris Karloff, will start the fourth week of its Broadway run at the Rialto on Friday. the Washington conference of seven AF of L international brotherhoods, officers of each studio local would appoint a five-man committee to meet with a five-man committee of other locals involved and if differences could not be adjusted in five days the matter would be submitted to the international brotherhoods' presidents of respective locals. Appointment of committees can start i at once, it was declared. I At its annual meeting the Screen ' Actors Guild adopted a resolution : calling AF of L to take immediate I steps to settle the strike. "That Night With You" with Franchot Tone, Susanna Foster, David Bruce, Louise Alibritton Universal 84 Mins. SMARTLY TURNED OUT COMEDY AIMING AT SOPHISTICATION PROVIDES ADEQUATE ENTERTAINMENT. This handsome production, striving hard for sophistication, is a diverting comedy with an air of smartness. Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano have collaborated as producers and scripters in turning out a film that should have little trouble capturing the fancy of the ordinary film-goer. While the story does not attempt to be believable, it has been presented palatably and with a sharp eye for the box office worth of the material in the Arnold Belgard yarn from which Fessier and Pagano drew their screenplay. The story, crowded with romantic implicatons, is the familiar one of the girl with stage aspirations who resorts to trickery to win her goal. In this instance the girl, played by Susanna Foster, passes herself off as the daughter of Franchot Tone, a wolfish theatrical producer, by an early marriage that played a short engagement. The resultant complications are innumerable. Tone unsuccessfully tries to keep Miss Foster from being married to David Bruce, diner operator. Tone finishes by being in love with his secretary, Louise Alibritton. Most of the acting is on the right side. Miss Foster, who does better with her singing than her acting, lends her voice to five musical numbers, among them modernized versions of Brahms, 'Lullaby" and an aria from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville." CAST: Franchot Tone, Susanna Foster, David Eruce, Louise Alibritton, Jacqueline de Wit, Buster Keaton, Irene Ryan, Howard Freeman, Barbara Sears, Anthony Caruso, Julian Rivero, Belle Mitchell, Teddy Infuhr, Arthur Miles, Margaret Pert, Sandra Orans, Dulce Daye, Virginia Engels, Mary Benoit. CREDITS: Executive Producer, Howard Benedict; Producers, Michael Fessier, Ernest Pagano; Director, William A. Seiter; Screenplay, Michael Fessier, Ernest Pagano: Based on story by Arnold Belgard; Cameraman, Charles Van Enger; Film Editor, Fred R. Feitshans, Jr.; Art Directors, John B. Goodman, Martin Obzina; Sound Director, Bernard B. Brown; Set Decorators, Russell A. Causman, Charles Wyrick; Special Effects, John P. Fulton; Musical Director, H. J. Salter; Dance Directors, Lester Horton, George Moro, Louis DaPron. DIRECTION, Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. SAG to Seek Completely New Producer Contract West Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — At SAG's annual meeting George Murphy was installed for his second term as president. When the SAG-producers' contract expires in June, 1947, Murphy said the Guild will seek a completely new pact, not just a revision of the existing agreement, retroactive pay. Increase in the provision of the recently revised back pay contract will mean the payment of approximately $250 to free-lance and stock company players and singers. The Guild's surplus has passed the half million mark and now totals $529,290 of which $426,328 is invested in United States Bonds. Total Guild income during the year was $266,289 and operating expense $188,278. Planning to Extend Theater Picketing (Continued from Page 1) ducers listed as "unfair" will be affected. The goal of the strategy committee was made clear by Roger McDonald of the Screen Set Designer's Local 1421, emissary sent here by the Conference of Studio Unions to line up support for the strike called by the CSU some seven months ago in a jurisdictional dispute with the lATSE over set designers. McDonald said that the plan was to picket all theaters showing "unfair" pictures "from the time they open to the time they close every day." Saturday's picketing, which was confined to 13 first-runs in the Times Square area, was described as but "token picketing" devised to give the producers an idea of. what the forces backing the strikers here are capable of doing. The full force of the picketing drive will not be felt until later, it was said. The picketing on Saturday was restricted to bouses showing Columbia, M-G-M, Paramount, RKO Radio, Samuel Goldwyn, 20th-Fox, Universal, Warner Bros, and Republic product. The only Times Square firstruns exempt were the Victoria, which is showing "The True Glory," and the Mayfair, where the attraction is "Blood on the Sun," a United Artists release. "The True Glory," which Columbia is distributing, was exempt out of deference for General Eisenhower, it was asserted. The pickets Saturday came from the painters' and machinists' ranks, the former supplying the bulk of them. As the picketing spreads, a strategy committee spokesman said, pickets from more than 70 AFL and CIO labor groups will be used. "We will need a lot of pickets," he explained. NLRB Calls New Hearing On Coast Strike for Friday Washington Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Washington — Wires have gone out to all interested parties announcing a further hearing on the pix strike situation to be held at the National Labor Relations Board here next Friday, it was revealed yesterday. The hearing will be on the legal issues involved, which stumped the board when it prepared to write its opinion. No indication could be obtained as to just what the issues under consideration will be, but it was indicated that the board expects to arrive at a prompt and fair solution shortly after this hearing. The conference between William Green, AFL prexy, and other leaders were considered very encoui-aging. Appoint Allen Bramcamp Cincy Arbitration Clerk Allen L. Bramcamp has been named clerk of the arbitration tribunal in Cincinnati. He succeeds Don Burkholder who has resigned.