Motion Picture Daily (Apr-Jun 1936)

MOTION PICUURL DAILY An V Wednesday, April I, 1936 MOTION PICTURE DAILY (Registered U. S. Patent Office) Vol. 39 April 1, 1936 No. 77 Martin Quigley Editor-in-Chief and Publisher MAURICE KANN, Editor J. M. JERAULD, Managing Editor JAMES A. CRON, Advertising Manager Published daily except Sunday and holidays by Quigley Publications, Inc., Martin Quigley, president; Colvin Brown, vice president and treasurer. Publication Office: 1270 Sixth Avenue, at Rockefeller Center, New York. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." All contents copyrighted 1936 by Quigley Publications, Inc. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Other Quigley publications, Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, The Motion Picture Almanac and The Box-Office Check-Up. Hollywood Bureau: Postal Union Life Building, Vine and Yucca Streets, Boone Mancall, Manager; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, C. B. O'Neill. Manager; London Bureau: Remo House, 310 Regent Street, London, W. 1, Bruce Allan, Representative. Cable address "Quigpubco, London"; Berlin Bureau: Stuelerstrasse 2, Berlin W 35; Joachim K. Rutenberg, Representative; Paris Bureau: 19, Rue de la Cour-des-Noues. Pierre Autre, Representative; Rome Bureau: Viale Gorizia, Vittorio Malpassuti, Representative; Sydney Bureau: 600 George Street, Cliff Holt, Representative; Mexico City Bureau: Apartado 269, James Lockhart, Representative; Glasgow Bureau: 86 Dundrennan Road, G. Holmes, Representative; Budapest Bureau: 3, Kaplar-u, Budapest, II, Endre Hevesi, Representative; Tokyo Bureau : 47 Higashi Gokencho UshigomeKu, H. Tominaga, Representative. Entered as second class matter, January 4, 1926, at the Post Office at New York City, N. Y., under Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year: $6 in tht Americas, and foreign $12. Single copies: 10 cents. Bernerd Is Pleased By G. B. Sales Here Chicago, March 31. — Jeffrey Bernerd is pleased with the way G.B. sales are going in this country, he indicated here today during a stopover on his trip east from the coast. "We're getting the deals we want," he said. "Exhibitors are • realizing the box-office value of G.B. pictures." Bernerd has just closed a percentage deal for G.B. product in Fox houses and has also secured an adjustment on this year's pictures, putting them on a percentage basis instead of at low rentals. Soundmen Now U nder IATSE Jurisdiction Hollywood, March 31. — Soundmen will henceforth be under the jurisdiction of Local 695, I.A.T.S.E. Soundmen's Union in accordance with the terms of the settlement of this jurisdictional problem today at Washington, D. C. The soundmen comprise the last of the labor groups to come under the I.A.T.S.E. closed shop arrangement. Negotiations have been in progress for several months. Zukor in Hollywood Hollywood, March 31. — Adolph Zukor arrived here today for conferences with John E. Otterson and other Paramount executives. Insiders' Outlook By RED KANN Hollywood, March 31. HP HE stages are on the way. In six months, the construction job will be completed. Then Sol Wurtzel moves from Twentieth Century-Fox's Western Avenue plant to Westwood Hills, there to concentrate all activity on the one lot while Wurtzel's old bailiwick will be utilized for standing sets and the like. Around this studio the word is that the anticipated savings from the joint housing plan will run $500,000 a year through elimination of overlapping department heads, reductions in wages by shrinking the labor index, transportation charges and more of the same ilk. . . . ▼ The two lot consolidation also will mark an end to the more or less autonomous regime maintained by Wurtzel where breadand-butter films on the Twentieth Century-Fox program have been turned out while Darryl F. Zanuck shaped his plans about furnishing caviar and roast. For, to all intents and purposes, Wurtzel has been traveling largely on his own. He meets Zanuck at six o'clock every evening to discuss developments and plans, it is true. The budget, of course, is set for him and Zanuck knows, in a general way, what W'estern Avenue is doing. However, he has been permitting Wurtzel to proceed on his way, meeting and solving his own problems once the production outline has been roughed out. . . . ▼ And a job has been delivered. Wurtzel is an old hand at making pictures. There may be romance in him, but it is difficult to find any manifestations in his technique of running his end of the Twentieth Century-Fox enterprise. He is an indefatigable worker, knows what his pictures cost — which is no trick — but also what they gross. He has been with the original Fox company from the days when. From Bill Fox to Winnie Sheehan to Mclntyre and Clarke, Tinker and Rowland, Rockett and Sheehan again and now Zanuck, Wurtzel has passed through many administrations in a land where the survival of one marks the survivor a veteran. . . . He is the official producer of the B product, the admittedly cheaper grade of film designed to even off the program's A content. But, let us remind you, there are apt to be surprises which nobody can dope out in advance, Zanuck or Wurtzel or anyone else. The fixed designations as to quality often fool those who designate them and, as this Hollywood series already has pointed out several times, A may emerge from the laboratory as B and in reverse as well. That's for time and film to determine, not this yarn or Wurtzel. . . . T And so, in keeping with his plotted course for these many years, Wurtzel's commitment for 1936-37 will run to a total of twenty in series of four each. The popular Charlie Chans, a staple of the lineup, will continue. In five years, Wurtzel has made eleven. Awaiting release is "Charlie Chan at the Circus." Planned are "Charlie Chan at the Racetrack," "Charlie Chan with the Navy," and "Charlie Chan at College." Some of these may be on the current schedule. Four Girl Comedies, about which final decision has been fluctuating, have been amply discussed. Claire Trevor, Dixie Dunbar and Arline Judge would appear in the group. . . . T "Every Saturday Night," first of the Jones Family quartet, slipped through as a surprise. Zanuck knew it was being made, but that was all. After he took a look, the series was set. Jane Withers is down for four, her current and immediate activity including "Public Nuisance No. 1" and "Salomy Jane." These constitute the admitted B product. The remaining four of the total twenty are being set up as A. One will be "The Mercy Killer," which George Marshall will direct ; another, "The Holv Lie." ... T One of the interesting tidbits about Wurtzel has to do with the youngster known as Shirley Temple. The adorable one had appeared in "Stand Up and Cheer." There was no realization of what was to come. Even Earle W. Hammons, who had Shirley in two-reelers for Educational, didn't know. Then came the loanout to Ben Schulberg for "Little Miss Marker" chiefly, as this reporter gets the facts, because Fox failed to wax excited and so had not bothered to hunt for Temple stories. Shirley burst upon Fox and the world in "Little Miss Marker" and action popped thereafter. . . . ▼ Winnie Sheehan ordered his producers to get Temple yarns. Whether by diligence or a stroke of good fortune, Wurtzel made (Continued on page 10) To Greet Jolson Al Jolson will be met at the Grand Central station tomorrow by a Scotch band from Yonkers and a group of girls dancing a la Bacchante— whatever that is. Warners' publicity department knows. After Jolson recovers from the shock he will be escorted along 42nd St. to Broadway and up to the Strand, where, by coincidence, "The Singing Kid" will open Friday night. The bagpipes are going to skirl songs like this: "You're the Cure for What Ails Me," "I Love to Sing -A," "Save Me Sister," and ruaybe "Mammy." 20thFox in Appeal Of S. & C. Decision Twentieth Century -Fox, through Louis Xizer, has filed an appeal from the recent decision of the N. Y. Supreme Court in favor of S, lger & Cocalis and Consolidated in an action brought by Twentieth CenturyFox. The decision, seen as having widespread distribution significance if it is upheld, would make the distributor's overage on a group of designated percentage pictures dependent on the earnings of the entire group, rather than on the earnings of each picture individually. Fox sued the circuit on a 1934-35 contract for 58 films at a flat rental of $2,750 per picture for 30 of the circuit's houses. A clause called for a 50 per cent overage on six pictures to be allocated by Fox. Fox asked $18,000. allegedly due under that clause. The circuit contended that it had made a profit on only two of the six, that the loss on the other four more than offset the profit, and claimed the right of the cumulative accounting. That claim was upheld bv the court. No Change in Sales Plan, Says Schaefer United Artists plans no change in sales policy at this time with respect to the assessment of score charges on exhibitors in the Philadelphia territory, it was indicated yesterday by George J. Schaefer, vice-president and general manager in charge of sales for U. A., in commenting on the protest resolution passed recently by the board of managers of the M. P. T. O. of Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware. Schaefer declared that the company's national sales policy on score charges has been in effect since last August. The board had urged all exhibitors in the territory to register a protest against the imposition of score charges. Sue 20th-Fox on Picture Morgan Wallace and L. S. Lawrence filed suit in Federal court yesterday against Twentieth CenturyFox, alleging plagiarism in the film "Thanks a Million." The plaintiffs charge that Wallace copyrighted a story, "Congratulations," sold it to Lawrence for stage production, and granted him 50 per cent of any film rights. They charge the Fox film is an infringement of the Wallace story.