Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1936)

MOTION PICTURE DAILY Saturday, October 17, 1936 4 PurelyPersonal ► SOL LESSER will be in New York for the Christmas holidays to be with his daughter, Marjorie, attending Wellesley, and his son, Bud, now taking a post graduate course at the Harvard business school. • Victor Herbert's operetta, "Algeria," and Paul Armont's novel, "Dora Algar," have been purchased by M-G-M. The late Glen MacConaugh collaborated with Herbert on the operetta. Dick Powell and Joan Blondell are leaving for the coast today, he for the title part in 'The Singing Marine" and his bride for a feature role in "The King and the Chorus Girl." • Slem Samuels plans to sail next week for London, en route to Batavia, either on the Queen Mary or the Statendam. • Anton Litvak now plans to leave for the coast Tuesday. He expects to direct "Tovarich," if and when Warners buy the play, after "Joan of Arc." • Miriam Hopkins will leave for the coast Monday to begin work on Samuel Goldwyn's "The Woman's Touch." • Franziska Gaal, Hungarian player, arrives in New York today from Budapest. • A. H. Schwartz left yesterday for Lake Placid for a weekend of hunting. The season officially opened yesterday. • Bert Stearn, U. A. district manager working out of Pittsburgh, returned to his headquarters yesterday. • Johnny Walker, the former actor, plans to produce "This Pretty World," by Converse Tyler on Broadway. • Jefferson Machamer has been signed by Educational to make another "Gags and Gals" comedy. • R. C. Sheriff, author of "Journey's End" and "Greengate," is due on the Queen Mary on Monday. • Viola Keats, English actress, has arrived from abroad to appear in a coming Broadway play. • M. Kearse, Charleston, W. Va., exhibitor, left for his home yesterday after a two-day visit. • Charles R. Rogers, Universal studio chief, is due here Oct. 24 on a vacation trip. # Gilbert Miller, the producer, sailed yesterday on the Europa and will return Nov. 9. # Charles Koerner, RKO district manager in Boston, was in town yesterday. # Louis Geller has a stiff neck these days, but he's keeping his chin up. Charles Berliner is back after a seven-week visit to Chicago. Television of Coronation Is British Plan (Continued from page 1) pleted, is being built at the Hayes, Middlesex, factory of Electrical Musical Industries. In operation, on the Marconi-E. M. I. system, the van will use Emitrone cameras both from the roof and from the ground. It is at present planned that a cable link will be used between the van and Broadcasting House, but experiments are being made with micro-wave transmission. The B. B. C. has transmitted successfully by direct (E.M.I.) methods, scenes at a Home Life exhibition in North London. Exhibitors are studying the possibility of showing the televised pictures of the Coronation in their theatres. Harry Pearl of Essandee Cinemas has schemed a full size television screen and made provisional arrangements for receiving apparatus in the plans of his new 2,500-seater, the Rex, Edgware Road, London, in the belief that the Scophony system will permit a film size picture at that time. Range Limitation a Problem Seen as an interesting possibility is the use of television by exhibitors unable to obtain the Technicolor film of the Coronation procession, supervised by Alexander Korda and released by United Artists. The drawback, effective picture size assumed, is that the effective range of television transmission is at present 25 miles and that the B. B. C. has only the single London station, at Alexander Palace. Provincial stations, with a similar range, are scheduled for key cities, but no opening dates have been fixed. The British Broadcasting Corp. began "trial transmissions" of television Oct. 1 with two daily sessions of one hour each, from 11 A. M. to 12 M. and 3 P. M. to 4 P. M. The Baird system operated until Oct 3, MarconiE.M.I. replacing it the following week, with alternations of the systems weekly throughout the trial period, which is expected to continue until November. Regular daily program transmissions are then schemed on a three one-hour session plan. Dixey Declares 200 Exhibitors Enrolled (Continued from paqe I) I.E.D.C. scheme was brought before the Moyne Committee on the Films Act, by Simon Rowson. The obligation to contract for product in advance is at present illegal, but the general trade belief is the Moyne Committee will recommend an amendment to the Act making it permissible in the case of such organizations as I.E.D.C. which aim to give independents something of the same security of product at present enjoyed only by the producer-circuits. Meighan Home Sold New Fort Richey, Fla., Oct. 16. — The palatial Thomas Meighan home here, once valued at nearly $250,000, has been purchased by I. R. Allen of Chicago. Plan to Write Off Weak Assets of "U" (Continued from page 1) next month," Cowdin said. "They will put Universal in a position to capitalize fully on the striking general gains throughout the industry. Current operations are on a very satisfactory basis. New budgets for the 1937-38 production season, which provide for an increase in the company's schedule to 46 features and six westerns, were approved by the board. The improvement in studio operations under the Charles R. Rogers and William Koenig regime will be evidenced in the release of 36 features during the current season, an increase of nearly a picture a month over the preceding year when only 25 features were completed, it was stated. Of the current season's schedule, 17 pictures have been completed, two are in work and four are set to start next week, as compared with 14 pictures completed during the same period of 1935. In addition, it was stated, a saving of more than $150,000 has been effected in the allowance for the unused time of players through the building up of the company's stock talent to 72 players from a former 15. The saving, it was said, represents an appreciable improvement in what has been a large item of studio expense in recent years. Suit Filed to Get William Fox Assets (Continued from page 1) Steelman. trustee in bankruptcy for Fox, and was not disclosed until Fox, his wife and daughters could be served with a temporary injunction restraining them from disposing of any assets. "The real object sought to be attained by William Fox," the petition says, "was to thwart his creditors and retain for himself and his family, in fraud of his creditors, the full and unmolested enjoyment of all his assets. William Fox's wife and daughters were in full knowledge at all times of the things being done." File Orpheum Schedule Schedules in bankruptcy were filed in Federal Court by the Orpheum Theatre Co. of Madison, Wis. The liabilities were listed as $439,902 and assets at $23,853. The liabilities consisted mostly of unsecured claims amounting to $353,452, the biggest one of which was the Stadium Theatre Corp., of 1,270 6th Ave., which amounted to S292.873. Affirm "Zombie" Award The Appellate Division of the N. Y. Supreme Court has affirmed the judgment for $10,000 obtained in Supreme Court by the Amusement Securities Corp. against Academy Pictures Dist. Co., et al. The suit originally arose over the alleged wrongful use of the word "Zombie" by the defendant in the title of a picture. Shift F. W. C. Prices San Francisco, Oct. 16. — All three Fox West Coast first run houses here, the Paramount, Warfield and Fox, are now charging 55 cents in the afternoon and 75 cents at night for loges. The St. Francis, subsequent, continues at the old scale of a 40-cent top. Form a Trade Group In French Industry (Continued from page 1) equipment company and a veteran of the French industry. Under the executive scheme devised, a managing committee has been named, including four representatives of each of the associations which have joined the major organization. The board of the Confederation includes the following members : Demaria, president and chairman; M. Chollat, technical ; Felix Gandera, production ; George Lourau, distribution; Raymond Lussiez, exhibition, vice-presidents ; Leopold Maurice, technician, treasurer. Each of the vice-presidents is the president of the association representative of his branch. Not included in the Confederation is the Chambre Syndicale, headed by Charles Delac, which was formed about a year ago. The majority of its members have gone over to the new organization. The basic principle of Delac's group is the "defence of the French film against foreign pictures." Now, however, with official recognition of the new organization as the only trade group of the industry, it is expected that the influence formerly exercised by the Delac organization will be at an end, and that the unit eventually will be dissolved. May Extend Federal Service to England (Continued from page 1) are so unsettled and the industry is so heavily taxed in those countries, that there is small likelihood of any need for a checking service, Ross said. In England, however, he found the industry definitely prospering. He expressed surprise at the size and number of theatres in England. American pictures are still by far the most popular there, he declared. Industrial conditions are booming in England, he said, and people are searching for investment opportunities. Wall Street Most Gain on Board Net High Low Close Change Columbia 40% 39 39% +1 Consolidated 5 454 5 + % Consolidated, pfd. 18% 18 18 Gen. T. Equip.... 28% 27% 28% +1% Loew's. Inc 57% 56% 57 + % Paramount 15% 14% 15% +1% Paramount 1 pfd.110% 104 110% +8% Paramount 2 pfd. 14% 13% 14% +1% Pathe Film 8% 8% 8% + % RKO 7% 7% 7% +H 20th CenturyFox. 32%. 32 32% + % 20th Century, pfd. 41% 40% 41% + % Warner Bros 14% 13% 14% +1 Warner, pfd 62% 62% 62% + % Little Curb Activity Net High Low Close Change Grand National . . 3% 3% 3% — % Technicolor 26% 25% 25% + % Trans-Lux 3% 3% 3% RKO Bonds Up 2Yt Points Net High Low Close Change Keith B. F. 6s '46 96% 96% 96% Loew's 3%s '46.... 99 99 99 + % Paramount B'wav 3s '55 .*. 64% 64 64% -f % Paramount Pict. 6s '55 99% 98% 99% +1% RKO 6s '41 pp. . . . 93 93 93 +2% Warner Bros. 6s '39 wd 97% 96% 97 + % (Quotations at close of Oct. 16)