The Film Daily (1948)

Ol\ DAJIY Tuesday, January 20, 194? 212 in Backlog; 359 Pix Set for '48 Gun (Continued from Page 1) Warners represented by 21 features; RKO, 21; Columbia, 24; Paramount, 24; M-G-M, 16; 20th-Fox, 13; Eagle Lion, 6; Republic, 17; Monogram, 20; Allied Artists, PRC, 15; Screen Guild, 3; Universal-International, 12; SRO, 3, and United Artists, 14. Indications are that Warners will produce 21 pictures this year; Universal-International, 25; M-G-M, 26; Columbia, 48; Paramount, 23; Eagle Lion, 22; Monogram, 27;, plus eight Westerns; Republic, 48; RKO, 30; Allied Artists, 6; United Artists producers, 15; 20th-Fox, 40; SRO, 6, and Film Classics, 14. No estimates were available from Screen Guild or PRC, latter releasing through E-L. Last year, M-G-M produced. 26 features; Warners, 21; U-I, 25; SRO, 3, United Artists producers, 10; RKO, 36; 20th-Fox, 23; Republic, 48; Paramount, 22; Eagle Lion, 12; Screen Guild, 17; PRC, 24 features and 14 Westerns; Allied Artists, 4; Columbia, 48, and Monogram, 32. THE RIALTO Seven New Features Get Gun; 31 Shooting West Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — Thirty-one pictures are before the cameras, with seven new ones rolling this week. Heading the' list with five shooting is Warners. Quintet include "The Fighting Terror" and the Transatlantic production, "Rope," which Alfred Hitchcock is directing. M-G-M has four pictures in production, including "A Southern Yankee." Twentieth-Century Fox wound up production on "Walls of Jericho" and "The Iron Curtain," leaving three pictures in work. Three are shooting also at Paramount and Republic, with two going at Columbia and Universal International, including "The Judge's Wife." Robert S. Golden Prods, has started work on "Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven" with Guy Madison and Diana Lynn costarred, for United Artists release; and Samuel Bischoff went into production on his Regal Film, "The Pitfall," starring Dick Powell, which is also for United Artists release. UPA, Eronel, Monogram, ARKO, Eagle Lion and Edward Small shooting one each, and Sig Neufeld started work on "The Easy Way" for Film Classics release. Fred Seeliger Dead Columbus, O.— Fred H. Seeliger, 66, pioneer newsreel cameraman, is dead. He retired four years ago as co-owner of Service Photographic Co. 8 Send (Birthday. $ | yreetingJ Uo — | J.t Jan. 20 i.t Hugo Mayer Leo Pillot ».t Lowell Gilmore ACLU Files Brief Asking Divorcement Tuesday's Tele-lines • • • LARGE SCREEN THEATRICAL TELE could be closer than you think And perhaps without the installation of costly and elaborate equipment What Rodney Pantages has accomplished on the Coast with a standard receiver, an electronic power back to increase picture brightness and a live-power lens to magnify the image to 8 x 10 screen size can be duplicated by any exhibitor with the same or similar equipment. ▼ ▼ v • • • CENTURY CIRCUIT'S FRED SCHWARTZ would seem to have something in his suggestion that the city impose an amusement license upon those cafes and bars which have installed television receivers As this pillar has remarked before, each tele set is a miniature motion picture theater And if you do not believe that television can keep 'em away from the established theater's box office, you might check with met. area exhibs. on what happened hereabouts during the 1947 World Series. ▼ ▼ ▼ • • • AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTED, the present status of Cinecolor, as a result of such developments as its 100 per cent acquisition of Film Classics and the organization of a service subsidiary, Cinecolor Finance Corp., presents some mighty interesting facets For one. here is a closely integrated organization whose potentialities are too obvious to require recital For another. Film Classics seems to be headed for its own non-competitive niche in the industry field Here again the advantages are on the obvious side Cinecolor, come next Spring, will have Hollywood lab. capacity sufficient to turn out 45 features plus numerous shorts In the aggregate, that's a matter of 170,000,000 feet And ahead are plans for foreign plants — in Britain, in Mexico This, too, should interest: Cinecolor has no bank loans — no indebtedness It's authorized capitalization is a million shares of SI par common Today, 740.000 shares are outstanding When present deals are finalized, there will be 875,000 outstanding The 44-week report to the stockholders, as of Aug. 2, showed a neat $661,000 profit Profit for the full year, ended Sept. 27, was $305,780 Note, however, that in the year Cinlecolor cut the price on release prints and additionally absorbed a 11.17 per cent cost of living wage boost T T T • • • MARY PICKFORD, who took Canada by storm on her trip for the United Children's Appeal, established a new Dominion record for free air-time to promote a motion picture Mary was heard on four CBC coast-to-coast broadcasts, each mentioning "Sleep, My Love," also two local programs in each of three cities, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal Then for good measure, two French broadcasts were thrown in to bring the total to 12 shows, all in a period of three days. ▼ ▼ ▼ • • • RKO RADIO has selected "Design for Death." the first feature-length documentary ever made by a major studio, as its entry this year in the documentary classification of the Academy Awards First announced under the title of "Hirohito's Children," 60 minute subject was made from hundreds of reels of historical dramas, newsreels and propaganda pictures captured by the U. S. armed forces from the Japanese during World War II With Sid Rogell as executive producer. 'Design for Death" was produced by Theron Warth and Richard O. Fleischer The commentary was written by Theodore S. and Helen Geisel and narrated by Kent Smith and Hans Conreid. ▼ TV iart nil the free m U ied iV Mee (Continued from Page 1) movies, like radio, are part country's press, and that free read, see or hear are impli dom to publish or produce. Brief was signed by Harold J Sherman and H. William Fitelson as counsel for ACLU, and by Wen-' dell Berge, former assistant attorney general, who initiated the anti-trust action against the film companies: James Lawrence Fly, former FCC i chairman; Prof. George H. Dession! of the Yale School of Law, f ormerh on the D of J anti-trust division legal staff, and C. Dickerman Williams attorney. ACLU brief supports the Government both in its appeal from the'j Statutory Court decision which refused to divest theaters, and ir fighting the defendants' appeal from block booking and other practices Ownership of theaters by defendants, ACLU claims, enables them tc restrict film fare chiefly to their owr* productions, and to discriminate against independent producers "Once the majors are divorced fron their theaters — and not until then — various independent producers will be encouraged to produce more film^ for what will be an assured fre<competitive market," brief claims. U. S. Newsreel Win Fight To Film Olympic Games (Continued from Page 1) panies, including the American whicl protested any exclusive Rank arrangement. It is said that the principal reasori* why Rank angled for special right? is a plan to shoot the Games in coloi apart from the newsreel coverage r% Rank recently shot the Royal Wed : : ding in Technicolor as a special. Bennin Rites in Milwaukee Milwaukee — Funeral services w held yesterday for Walter Bennin:; 43, M-G-M office manager who died of a heart attack. His brother, Herbert, is manager of the M-G-M St Louis branch. CHARTERED EXPERT PICTURES CORP., New York, to pro-f duce films; capital, 200 shares of no par.' stock; by Helen Kersavage, Irene H. Dlosser,'J: Gertrude Mendelson. CINEMEDIA, INC., New Rochelle, N. Y.; hffll produce visual forms of entertainment and in ~ struction; capital, 200 no par shares; by Frank-ftp lin E. Lowe, Myron Budd Mittleman, Alin B. Sisk. MOFS THEATER, INC., New York; capital, 200 t no par shares; to operate theaters; by Mildred Lebon, Theresa Powers, Flossie Wetreich. FOX REALTY OF MISSOURI, INC., Dover, Del., granted authority to operate in Missouri foreign corporation, to operate theaters, using I $126,000 of its SI, 000,000 capital stock in Missouri; officers, E. C. Rhoden, president; Richard P. Brous, secretary; Charles E. Shafer treasurer. c