The Film Daily (1948)

IK' DAILY Tuesday, September 21, 1948 Walbrook May Move Against Col., RKO (Continued from Page 1) giving first nabe runs privilege to the Windsor, across the street from the Walbrook. The Windsor is plaintiff in a $600,000 treble damage suit against the majors for giving the Walbrook preferred treatment. Only Columbia and RKO among the majors have given the Windsor preference, while just this Summer Fox completed a settlement agreement whereby it was released as a defendant in the suit upon its promise to give 50 per cent of its product to the Windsor on first nabe billing. No settlement has been reached with the other major distributors. When the Walbrook was turned down last week in its bid to block the Fox settlement on the ground that it violates the 1945 pact between Walbrook and Fox, Walbrook officials and attorneys immediately began to look into the advisability of suing Columbia and RKO as a protective measure. Walbrook has announced that it will proceed with its case to determine the legality of the contract entered into by 20th-Fox and Walbrook on July 3, 1945. Texas Ticket Tax Would Replace Government Levy (Continued from Page 1) is announced by Phil Hamburger, president of the League. Proposed measure is designed as a means for Texas cities to increase their revenues. No Hollywood Comment on Purchase of Yates Stock (Continued from Page 1) is reported that the group will not go through with its plan unl&ss C. J. Tevlin, now a member of the committee operating the RKO studio, agrees to head the studio. Tevlin would make no comment. SICK LIST WALTER "JAKE" JACOBSON, of Wagner Sign Service, Inc., Chicago, is recuperating in Chicago from an emergency appendectomy, performed in Sioux Loolcout, Ontario, where Jake had gone for fishing and vacation. MAURICE A. BERGMAN, U-1 Eastern adpublicity chief, is walking with a cane as a result of a torn ligament in the right leg. Mishap occurred on the tennis court over the week-end. J. PHILIP BAHN, son of FILM DAILY's editor, suffered a fracture of the right arm in Harvard varsity scrimmage Friday, and undergoes surgery tomorrow. Last year, in scrimmage, the Harvard senior broke a leg. j? ^^ jT^^-VKh^ «>a*f PHIL M. DALY The Marshall Dinner In Retrospect • • • YOU CAME AWAY Saturday night from the Humanitarian Award presentation dinner of Variety Clubs International, honoring Gen. George Caflett Marshall, the Secretary of State, in the Presidential room of Washington's Hotel Stotler with the conviction that seldom, if indeed ever before, had an industry affair — for such it was — been graced with a more distinguished assembly. . . . More than 600 of the nation's showmen, civic dignitaries, men high in the service of these United States and foreign dignitaries — the Netherlands Foreign Minister, ambassadors, ministers and other diplomatic representatives — literally jammed the huge Presidential room to overflowing. ... To even Washington's veterans of elite dinners Variety's was an EVENT. . . . And for the superb arrangements, the attention to niceties of detail, and the expert smoothness with which the dinner and accompanying program ran their course the Washington Tent generally and Carter T. Barron of Loew's and Nate Golden of the Department of Commerce specifically rate a full measure of credit and praise. T T T • • • THERE WAS MORE than a touch of drama in the occasion. . . . General Marshall to whom Bob O'Donnell, international chief barker, presented Variety's 1947 Humanitarian Award — a silver plaque, a scroll and an $1,000 honorarium — came to the dinner after a full day of State Department conferences of the most serious nature with the Netherlands Foreign Minister. . . . The presentation, too, came on the very eve of the General's departure by air for the momentous Pctris meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. ... It was a gravely serious Secretary of State who told a hushed audience that, as he conducted the country's foreign relations, he was constantly impressed with "how much good heart and good will there is in the American people." . . . "We are," he added thoughtfully, "often misunderstood in what we are trying to do because we ore so open and so generous." . . . .To Variety itself. General Marshall said he was "very, very gratified cmd very much impressed with this award for the honor and distinction involved in it." . . . Commenting upon Variety's philanthrophies, to which the component tents are committed, the General noted, "Your organization is distinguished for what you have done and in the manner you have done it." T T T • • • ALBERT KENNEDY ROWSWELL, of Pittsburgh, chairman of the Humanitarian Award Committee, earlier in the evening had reported that Variety had expended $2,000,000 to aid 250,000 youngsters. . . . In formally advising the international chief barker of the committee's choice of General Marshall for the crward because "as an author of the Marshall Plan, lie translated into generous and inspiring fulfillment the shining hope for liberty, honor and dignity of free men everywrhere," Rowswell sold that the membership of the crward committee had now risen to 70 eminent American ne'wspoper editors and radio notables. . . . For the press, B. M. McKelway, editor of the Washington Evening Star, and vice-president of the American Society of Newspapers Editors spoke, citing Variety as a "great organization of good will and good deeds." T T T • • • ROBERT H. JACKSON, associate justice of the Supreme Court, another speaker, told the assemblage that General Marshall was leaving for Paris "to make the United States the champion of the rule of law in the world" and that "one of the few things that will redeem this bloodiest century in all history in the eyes of the world is the effort of the United States to put despairing peoples back on their feet." . . . Variety's award to the Secretary of State was termed a sign of "past and present support throughout this country for the things he is trying to do." T T ▼ Wisconsin Checkers Must be Licensed II (Continued from Page 1) query forwarded to the Attorney General by Harold Berkholtz, exhibitor of West Bend, backed by *^e Independent Theater Owners Visconsin and Upper Michigan.' ^.ttter group has notified distributors of the opinion, and distributors have been requested to informing checking agencies with which they do business. ITO members also have been notified and advised to inspect the credentials of all checkers. Meet Today on Variety Take-Over of Hospital (Continued from Page 1) some of the directors of the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital to discuss Variety's forthcoming take-over of the hospital as its first national philanthropic project. Appointment of Variety's committee of eight, which will be charged with the completion of the take-over arrangements about Jan. 1, probably will not be made by O'Donnell for another week or 10 days. It is the present plan to have Variety's committeemen take places on the hospital board, to which also will be named some members of the Montague group. Representatives of the latter successfully pleaded the hospital's case to Variety's board at a Washington meeting Friday. lecE PCCITO Trustees Agree to Sever ASCAP Negotiations West Coast Bureau of THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — A recommendation of Robert W. Graham, PCCITO attorney, that organization sever all negotiations with ASCAP has been approved by the PCCITO board, Leroy Johnston, chairman of the group's ASCAP program, announced. PCCITO has instructed Graham to present further amicus curiae briefs in both New York and Minneapolis if ASCAP appeals decisions in those cities. DCflTHS LEIGH ALTFILLISCH, 43, prominent South Dakota exhibitor, at Clark, S. D. EUGENE JOSEFF, Hollywood manufacturer of costume jewelry for studios, and ERNEST H. HIX, 46, owner of "Strange As It Seems" cartoon feature, killed in the crash of Joseff's plane near Newhall, Calif. HENRY MAJOR, 59, New York caricaturist and artist, in Provincetown, >Mass. MARY ROBINSON GISH, mother of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, died Sunday at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center after a long illness.