Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1940)

4 Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, January 23, 1940 Majors Have Trust Query Answers Ready by Feb. 15 TMAT Ballot Fight Before Labor Board State Labor Relations Board has set tomorrow at 3 P.M. as the time for a hearing on the bargaining agency election in the Endicott Circuit. The Motion Picture Division of the Theatrical Managers, Agents and Treasurers Union, which was defeated in the election, has challenged the vote. The T.M.A.T. disclosed yesterday that it had obtained a contract from the R. & M. Amusement Corp. covering the Bronx Opera House. Although the union claims to have 50 managers and assistants working under closed shop agreements in the city, the Bronx Opera contract was the first one to be disclosed. The contract provides for a scale of $40 weekly for the manager and $25 for the assistant, until Labor Day, when the scale is to be increased to $50 and $30 respectively. A closed shop is established for managers, assistants and student managers and publicity and exploitation men. New employes must be hired through the union. Hours of the manager must be "reasonable" while the hours of the others is limited to 54 hours weekly. 20th-Fox Executives See 'Wrath' Tonight (Continued from page 1) fice executives, circuit officials, exhibitors and newspapermen. Jane Darwell, who plays "Ma Joad" in the film, arrived yesterday and will be at the preview, as will Dorothy Lamour, who arrives today. In the audience of 600 are expected Mr. and Mrs. Sidney R. Kent, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Director Sidney Lanfield, Pascal Covici, Mr. and Mrs. Herman Wobber, Harold Ginsberg, Mr. and Mrs. William Kupper, Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Gehring, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Miller, Mr. and Mrs. William Paley, Mr. and Mrs. Irving Berlin, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. McEvoy, Mr. and Mrs. Ernst Lubitsch, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Bayard Swope, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Luce, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Warner, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Harriman, Mr. and Mrs. Max Gordon, Mr. and Mrs. Buddy DeSylva, Mr. and Mrs. C. V. Whitney. Margolies Returns, Hails UA Program Al Margolies, United Artists publicity manager, returned to the home office yesterday following a two weeks' Coast visit during which he conferred with the company's producers. Margolies said that United Artists will have a greater number of releases next season than it will during the current season. This year's releases will number about 26. Margolies added that James Roosevelt, Walter Wanger, Hal Roach and David Loew all have productions in preparation now. Sol Lesser, Ernst Lubitsch and Edward Small are engaged in planning their next productions and Charles Chaplin's "Production No. 6" is nearinp completion. Major company defendants in the Government's New York anti-trust suit estimated yesterday that they will be able to complete their answers to the Government's interrogatories without the need for a further extension of time beyond the present Feb. 15 deadline. Attorneys for the defendant companies reported that the work of preparing answers is progressing smoothly and that a great deal of progress has been made. A third extension of the time for the filing of objections by the Government to the company defendants interrogatories was granted yesterday. The Government was given until Jan. 30 to file its objections, which were due yesterday. Although scheduled to reply Feb. 1 to United Artists interrogatories, which were served separately, the Government has requested that company to permit its interrogatories to be answered at the same time that the G.N. Officials Tell Of Financial Deals Financial transactions between Grand National Pictures and Educational Pictures were described at a hearing yesterday by Harold Saxe, GN comptroller, and Norman C. Nicholson, general counsel. Both witnesses also touched upon a deal between GN and Arcadia Pictures in which GN obtained a $15,000 loan. Educational received 1,100,000 shares of $1.00 par common stock in return for the transfer of re-issue rights and trade names with a book value of $43,233, it was stated. These rights, however, were actually worth the stock received as "going concern" assets, both witnesses declared. Attempts were made by Joseph Dannenberg, attorney for the trustee, to prove a connection between Arcadia and GN. Testimony brought out the fact that a number of GN directors also served on the Arcadia board. At no time during 1939, Nicholson said, was GN in a position to meet debts as they matured. Examination of Earle Hammons, head of GN, will be held tomorrow before Referee Peter B. Olney, Jr. Kentucky Assembly Gets Anti-Ascap Bill Lexington, Ky., Jan. 22. — A bill to prevent Ascap from operating in Kentucky has been introduced in the state legislature by Rep. Carl Scheben. The measure has been referred to the committee on miscellaneous affairs, which will hold a hearing on the bill in the near future. House bill No. 4, the anti-Ascap measure, is said to be a duplicate of the Washington, Montana and Florida laws, the constitutionality of which is now being tested in Federal Court. King and Queen of Films Mickey Rooney and Bette Davis were elected King and Queen of the Movies for 1940 in the New York Daily Nczv/ annual poll conducted by readers. Government serves answers to interrogatories of other defendants. United Artists has made no objections and indications are that the Government's answers will be furnished late next month to seven major company defendants. Universal does not intend to serve interrogatories on the Government. The five company defendants having theatre affiliates yesterday rejected a contemplated move to oppose examination of their ranking executives by the Government next month. However, the probability that either Columbia or Universal, or both, will oppose the examinations during the next few days still exists. United Artists officials were examined by the Government last Fall. A conference of Government and defendants' counsel is scheduled for today in connection with the Government's preparations for answering defendants' interrogatories. English Sailors See Pictures Too Soon London, Jan. 5 (By Mail). — Exhibitors at Portsmouth, England's naval base, are complaining that sailors are seeing new films at the Royal Naval Barracks without charge before the local theatres are getting them. They claim sailors walk up to the box-offices, look at the posters and leave, having already seen the films. Warner Explains Elimination of 'B's' Explaining why Warners have eliminated "in-between" pictures, Jack L Warner, vice-president in charge of production, on his arrival from the Coast yesterday declared: "Exhibitors don't want them, and the public doesn't want them. The easiest thing in the world is to turn out 100 'B' pictures a year. At the Warner studio we are too serious to waste time on them." Warners' production policy, he said, is to increase expenditure and effort with the aim of obtaining maximum gross at the box-office. The studio, he said, is concentrating on action and comedy, "solid entertainment of a type that made the screen what it is today and what it is intended to be." Warner listed "Virginia City" and "The Sea Hawk" as films in this class, among others. Warner estimated that production costs have increased 300 to 400 per cent in the last four years. He plans to leave Friday for the Coast. 'Louise' at Carnegie The film production of the opera, "Louise," starring Grace Moore and made in France under the supervision of Gustav Charpentier, the composer, has been booked to open at the Little Carnegie Feb. 2, the 40th anniversary of the first performance of the opera. Film Salaries Bared by U.S.; Colbert First (Continued from page 1) explained by the Treasury, executives and players of Loew's, Inc., Uniy>-^"al and RKO were not listed. IiL j. ie 1937 returns, Louis B. Mayer, M-G^M production head, led all salaries with $1,161,753. A supplementary listing may include those companies. Helen Hays was the only stage player in the list, receiving a salary of $113,458 from Heron Productions. Film and radio salaries above $75,000 were reported by the Treasury as follows : Samuel Goldwyn, Inc., Ltd. — Gary Cooper, $140,129; Samuel Goldwyn, $156,000; Jascha Heifetz, $100,000; Archie Mayo, $167,812; Joel McCrea, $152,000; Merle Oberon, $139,285; William Wyler, $75,583; Robert Riskin, $180,125. Selznick International Pictures — David O. Selznick, $181,500; Leslie Howard, $141,250; George Cukor, $119,687. Myron Selznick & Co. — Myron Selznick, $130,000. Walter Wanger Pictures, Inc. — Charles Boyer, $161,000; Henry Fonda, $105,000. Walter Wanger Productions — Walter F. Wanger, $130,000; Fredric March, $136,311. Fox West Coast Agency Corp. — Charles P. Skouras, $78,000. National Theatres Amusement Co., Inc. — S. P. Skouras, $254,500; Charles P. Skouras, $175,000. Paramount Pictures — John Barrymore, $105,833; Joan Bennett, $94,333; Jack Benny, $250,000; Claude Howard Binyon, $100,000; Bob Burns, $155,952; Claudette Colbert, $301,944; Ronald Colman, $102,083; Harry L. Crosby, $260,000; Walter De Leon, $89,475; Marlene Dietrich, $130,000; Claude Fields, $93,166; Robert Florey, $76,500; Henry Hathaway, $115,541; Arthur Hornblow, Jr., $145,166; Lucien Hubbard, $121,000; Harold H. Hurley, $111,955; Talbot Jennings, $96,333; Fritz Lang, $85,543; William Le Baron, $182,467; James Mitchell Leisen, $115,000; Albert Parsons Lewin, $114,958; Frank Llovd, $150,750; Fred MacMurray, $183,333; Herbert Marshall, $93,750; George Raft, $186,964; Martha Raye, $81,958; Wesley Ruggles, $199,062; Alfred Santell, $122,000; Preston Sturges, $143,000; Harlan Thompson, $95,791; Raoul A. Walsh, $107,083; William A. Wellman, $136,805; Adolph Zukor, $170,400. Twentieth CenturyFox — S. R. Kent, $181,705: Joseph M. Schenck, $106,000; Darryl F. Zanuck, $265,000; William Goetz, $106,000; Don Ameche, $98,000; John L. Balderston, $88,500; Warner Baxter, $279,807; Harry Joe Brown, $122,041; David Butler, $133,000; Irving Cummings, $105,000; Roy Del Ruth, $216,741; Alice Faye, $87,000; John Ford, $169,791; Mack Gordon, $100,250; Raymond Griffith, $117,375; Jack Haley. $90,000; Sonja Henie, $113,000; Nunnallv Johnson, $119,166; Henry King. $133,500; Sidney Lanfield, $92,083; Walter Lang, $84,500; Sonya Levien, $77,066; Kenneth MacGowan, $104,333; Gene Markey, $87,166; Victor McLaglen, $125,475; Annabella Murat, $87,500; Tyrone Power, $140,750; Gregory Ratoff, $104,333; William A. Seiter, $117,583; George J. Sommerville, $80,000; Shirley Temple, $114,848; Sol Wurtzel. $182,583; Jack S. Yellen, $76,800; Loretta Young, $181,615. United Artists — Maurice Silverstone, $87,000. Columbia Broadcasting System — William S. Paley, $171,849; Edward Klauber, $78,304. Eastman Kodak Co. — Frank W. Lovejoy, $115,419. Radio Corp. of America — David Sarnoff. $100,220. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. — W. S. Gifford, $209,350; C. P. Cooper, $102.700. Repealing Sunday Ban Cohoes, N. Y., Jan. 22. — Fabian reopened the Regent Sunday after one Sunday of darkness due to the Common Council ordinance forbidding performances on that day. The ordinance is due to be repealed this week. Set Alliance Film A first run of "Dead Men Tell No Tales," Alliance Films picture, has been set for the Mercury, Buffalo.