The Independent Film Journal (1954)

HOLLYWOOD . . . on the wire RICHARD BERNSTEIN, Editor Hollywood Offices: 4225Vi Lockwood Ave., Hollywood 29. Tel.: Normandie 2-6494 British Field Marshall Montgomery visits the Warner set for "The Sea Chase" and John Wayne, star. Jack L. Warner, studio chief, was host. Toll TV Would Hit Exhihs: Henry King Subscription TV or any other development or combination of factors which might threaten the profitable operation of movie theatres, especially those in the neighbor¬ hoods and small towns, would also deprive the community of one of its business leaders ■and boosters, the American theatre show¬ man, Henry King warned as guest speaker at the Ventura Valley Chamber of Com¬ merce luncheon. The 20th Century-Fox director declared that most small town business men can sin¬ cerely and with good reason conclude that “what is good for the movie is good for the whole community.” “In his own quiet way,” King stated, “the ■average theatre man has become a small community kingpin. He is a combination of unofficial mayor, Chamber of Commerce president, Better Business Booster, civic ■leader, and a fine man to get on the Com¬ mittee for any undertaking for the better¬ ment of the town!” “He’s out in front in all charity and town improvement drives, he is always depended •on for a nice little cash contribution for any worthy cause. In any disaster or emergency his theatre becomes a hospital, a meeting hall, •or a distribution center. “He is a local business man and propertyowner and he’s buying his home and raising his family and he feels he has a great per¬ sonal stake in the future of his town.” “His is a ‘home town industry’ and the issue should not be clouded by the fact that the product in which he deals is actually made in Hollywood. The local furniture dealer’s goods are manufactured in Grand Rapids, too, and at least 95 per cent of the goods sold by even the corner grocer are manufactured elsewhere.” Carl Dudley, jmesident of Dudley Pic¬ tures Corp., announced a full scale expan¬ sion program including the production of six feature films a year over the next six years. The plans call for a program of top films with unusual backgrounds to take ad¬ vantage of the current shortage of product. All the films will be photographed in East¬ man color and will utilize the new improved Vistarama anamorphic lens. Charles Bruce Newbery, former distribution head of Re¬ public Pictures and for ten years prior to that time in charge of Republic’s foreign sales organizations, joins Dudley on Jan. 1st as executive vice-president. Richard Goldstone, vice-president in charge of production is working with writers Jerry Davis, Dan Mainwaring, Herman Boxer and Philip McDonald who are developing scripts on “Nine Billion Names of God,” “Mar¬ rakesh,” “King of Diamonds,” and “Royal Flush.” * * * Cornel Wilde has advanced production plans for his Theodora Productions’ “Curly,” which is scripted by Alan Marcus and has slotted the offbeat Western for the January cameras. Currently starring for M-G-M in “The Scarlet Coat,” Wilde is conferring with John Sturges, director of the latter film, on the possibility of his also directing “Curly.’’ Wilde is engaged in preliminary negotiations for Jane Wyman as co-star. Wilde’s co-production venture with Security Pictures, “The Big Combo,” is now in the cutting room, and will be re¬ leased by Allied Artists. No release deal has been closed on “Curly.” * * Allied Artists producer Walter Wanger announced that he will make a film version of “Adventure in Politics,” authored by Oregon’s senator-elect Richard L. Newberger and just released. Film rights to the book dealing with the lives of the senatorelect and his wife, Maurine, were obtained by Wanger during conferences with them in Portland. The film, which he plans to re¬ lease during the 1956 political campaigns, will be non-partisan, but, he said, one which will help the American people think about government. He has not yet set a title for the film. * * * Robert L. Lippert, Jr., has arrived in Mexico City to prepare his next production, “The Violent Land,” to be filmed on Duran¬ go locations from a screen play by Fred Freiberger, with a cast combining U.S. and Latin names. Before going to Mexico, Lippert Jr., flew to El Salvador to screen “The Black Pirates” for Col. Oscar Osorio, presi¬ dent of the Central American republic. Also attending the showing were officials of Salvador Films, co-producer with Lippert, Jr. of the Anscocolor Lippert Pictures re¬ lease starring Anthony Deter, Martha Roth and Lon Chaney. * * * Jack L. Warner announced that “I Died A Thousand Times,” drama with a prison background, has been placed on the early production schedule at Warners. Walter Doniger, author of the original screen play, has been assigned to direct the film and David Weisbart will produce the picture. Doniger last year directed “Duffy of San Quentin” for the studio. . . . Plans to re¬ make “The Birth of a Nation” were an¬ nounced by a Hollywood syndicate. Acquisi¬ tion of rights to the proj^erty were announced by a group headed by financier Ted Thai. These rights, which from time to time during the past 25 years have been sought by every studio in Hollywood, were acquired at a cost of more than $750,000 after eight months of negotiations with Harry E. Aitken, president of Epoch Film Corporation, which owned title rights, and the widow of novelist Thomas Dixon, who owned rights to Dixon’s historical novel, “The Clansman.” Thai is president of Thalco, an affiliate of the Owens-Corning Fiber Glass Corp., and an officer of the Tema Corp. Also in the syndicate is Michael Spack, president of Tema. # -* * Republic Studios will usher in the Christ¬ mas and New Year holidays with an un¬ precedented production surge for this time of the year with two productions starting before Christmas and three slated to roll in the first ten days of January, it was an¬ nounced by Herbert J. Yates, Republic president. Rolling this year are “I Cover The Underworld,” with William J. O’Sul¬ livan as associate producer and associate producer-director Joe Kane’s Trucolor fea¬ ture, “Man From Texas.” The first of the year will see filming launched on “Rebel Island,” which will be filmed in Trucolor in the Bahamas with Edward Ludwig as as¬ sociate producer-director. An untitled fea¬ ture will go before the cameras on Jan. 3rd, to be followed by “San Antonio De Bexar,” which will be shot in Texas. Associate pro¬ ducer-director Frank Lloyd is currently in the lone star state scouting locations. Pro¬ duction of the latter feature will start Jan. 10. * * * Formation of Mark Stevens Productions and plans to film two major theatrical fea¬ tures a year beginning in 1955 were an¬ nounced by Jack Gross, Philip Krasne and Mark Stevens. The initial film of the new production company will be “Twisted Street,” a drama of the numbers racket, in which Stevens will do triple duty as star, director and producer. He also au¬ thored the original story. The film will go before the cameras at California Studios on April 4. Associated in the new company On U-I s Kiss of Fire set are (1 to r): Y. Frank Freeman, AMPP board chairman; Barbara Rush; Prince Axel of Denmark; Martha Hyer; Alfred E. Daff, U-I executive veepee; and Jack Palance. 28 THE INDEPENDENT FILM JOURNAL— December 11. 1954