Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1944)

Motion Picture Daily Wednesday, March 29, 19441 Personal Mention HAL HORNE, 20th Century-Fox advertising and publicity director, is scheduled to leave for the Coast on Friday. Howard LeSieur, sales promotion and production manager at the United Artists home office for 12 years, has passed his physical examination and is awaiting induction into the Armed Forces sometime next month. • Michael Daly, owner of the Daly circuit, Connecticut, left yesterday with his daughter, Peggy, to visit his son, Frank, at school in Gainesville, Ga., and his nephew, Pvt. Theodore Dilorenzo, at Camp McClellan, Ala. • Abe and Joe Feinberg, bookers of theatre acts, yesterday received the certificate of merit from USO-Camp Shows for services in behalf of the Armed Forces here and overseas. • Arthur Sachson, assistant sales manager for Warners, and Jules Lapidus, Eastern division sales manager, will be in Boston today. They will return to New York tomorrow. • Manny Reiner, formerly with Paramount's home office short subjects department, has returned to New York to enter the Armed Forces after 14 months with the OWI in Iceland. • Roy Haines, Southern and Western division sales manager for Warners, has returned from a tour of the Midwestern and Southern territories. • Sam. Forgoston, advertising production manager of M-G-M, and Mrs. Forgoston recently became the parents of an V/2 pound baby boy. • J. L. Etheridge, owner of the Majestic Theatre, Joliet, 111., and the Luxe, East Peoria, 111., was inducted into the Army this week. • Marjorie Morrow, Warner talent bureau head in New York, has returned from a three-week Southern trip. • Marcel Brazee, Warner assistant zone manager in the Milwaukee area, is on the West Coast. • Moe Silver, Pittsburgh zone manager for Warner Theatres, is in New York for a few days. • Jack Goldstein, 20th Century-Fox Eastern publicity manager has returned to the home office from Florida. • Leo J. McCarthy, PRC general sales manager, will leave for the Coast tomorrow. • Dave Epstein is here from the Coast Bernie Levy of Proven Pictures, Hartford, is in Boston. Rube Jackter has returned from Florida. Insider's Outlook By RED KANN Hollywood, March 28 THE De Havilland-Warner contract embroglio is an electric topic of discussion in this area. It represents a Hollywood situation in the strict sense, yet the ramifications may leap the outer boundaries to effect a landing in the business of distribution and exhibition. Last Fall Miss De Havilland brought suit against the producer, seeking court-approved confirmation of her stand that her seven-year contract had expired May 5, last, as per the calendar. Her legal approach was that she was hired for seven years and remained in Warner employ for the full length of time ; that most of the suspensions on which Warner bases the opposing view traced to her refusal to accept roles which she deemed unsuitable for her talents. ■ Cumulatively, and for whatever reason or reasons, the suspension period covered 26 weeks. Warner's legal attitude takes into account that half year, asserts the player did no work during those weeks, maintains she owes the studio the added time. Miss De Havilland says seven years are seven years on anyone's calendar and, while Warner does not deny the calendar, it insists, nevertheless, those seven years were designed to be working years, whereas Miss De H. worked only six and one-half. ■ A Superior court judge here, as already reported, has ruled for the actress. The judge determined the Warner interpretation might well result in the indefinite extension of a contract "even to the point of constituting life bondage for the employe." Warner is appealing and is also on record with official warning to competitive studios that the issue cannot be resolved finally until a higher court declares itself. There the matter stands while the legal joustings take position for attack and counter attack. ■ It is extremely interesting, however, to note that it is ■ no accident for unspecified producers to have lined up on the Warner side. This makes it quite apparent the issue reaches beyond the specifics of this single case and into the broader arena of producer player relationships. This, too, is understandable enough because rifts and tiffs between employer and employe are common here and because a situation involving Warners today may involve some other producer tomorrow. It is in the normal course of developments, similarly, that the Screen Actors Guild lines up on the side of Miss De Havilland. Its reasons are the same as those of the unspecified producers, in reverse order. ■ Those who look beyond, on the other hand, are quite intrigued by the outcome of this impasse in the light of those well-known players, directors and producers who are now in the armed services. If the De Havilland decision stands, the precedent it establishes is expected to have a general application. If Star A, therefore, fulfills his contractual obligation by the calendar, he would be a free agent when he returns from the wars. If his inactivity in production is piled on the calendar expiration of his contract, he won't be regardless of when he returns to Hollywood for peacetime work. ■ Out of this, there is understood to be in rapid formulation a reappraisal of many of the pacts now held by men in the various services. These reevaluations are predicated on pre-war box-office values and in an effort to judge post-war values. Where a studio convinces itself it wants to keep a contract in effect, the reputed policy-in-the making provides for an adjustment of existing agreements. All of this makes it apparent how distributors and exhibition, as the innocents, may get involved. If Miss De H. wins her case finally, some starring alignments in Hollywood probably will reflect change. A player now with one company conceivably would join another. His or her pictures, of course, would go off the old program and into a new one. Thus, distribution would feel the effects. Thus, exhibition would feel the effects because different theatres would be playing that performer's attractions. ' ■ ■ They are saying: If NBC has advanced television to the point where only a 16 x 20 inch image is possible, no wonder Niles Trammell declares his company has eyes fixed on the home field. Can you imagine that size image on the Music Hall stage? Coming Events 1 March 29 — Paramount theatre partners and home office executives start meetings in Hollywood. April 1 — New Federal ticket tax effective. April 3 — Universal board meeti and election of officers, Nj York. April 5 — Atlas Corp. annual stockholders' meeting, Wilmington,' Del. April 10 — RKO testimonial dinner for Charles Boasberg, Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland. April 14 — Episcopal Actors' Guild annual entertainment, Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, New York. April 17 — M-G-M lunch for Louis C. Ingram, new Memphis branch manager, Hotel Peabody, Memphis. April 30-May 10 — Motion picture division drive for Catholic Charities, New York. April 31 — Chicago Variety .Club "Pioneers' Night" dinner, Blackstone Hotel, Chicago. * Paramount Partners To See New Product Hollywood, March 28. — New Paramount product will be screened nightly at the meetings starting tomorrow at Arrowhead Springs Hotel for Paramount home office executives and theatre partners at which general exhibition policy will be discussed. Among those attending are Barney Balaban, Y. Frank Freeman, Sam Dembow, Leonard Goldenson, Karl Hoblitzelle, R. J. O'Donnell, John Balaban, A. H. Blank, Leon Netter and E. V. Richards. Wallace Worlsey, 65, Was Actor, Director Hollywood, March 28. — Funeral services for Wallace Worlsev, 65, former actor and director in the industry's early days, will be held at Forest Lawn Cemetery tomorrow. He directed many of the late Lon Chaney's films including "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Worlsey, who was a member of the Lambs and Players, is survived by his widow and a son, Wallace, Jr., an assistant director. Benny Singer, 73, WB Executive, Dies Hollywood, March 28. — Benny Singer, 73, industry pioneer and for the past 15 years an executive in Warners studio location department, died here today. Funeral services will be held at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Friday. He is survived by his sister, Mrs. Peggy Cokayne, Hollywood writer. WB to Show 'Glory' Warners' "Uncertain Glory" will be nationally tradeshown Monday, April 10. MOTION PICTURE DAILY, Martin Quigley, President and Editor-in-Chief; Colvin Brown, Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Executive Editor. Published daily except Saturday, Sunday and holidays by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York, 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address, "Quigpubco, New York." Editor; Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Ave., Leonard Gneier, Correspondent; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Bldg., William Martin Quigley, President; Colvin Brown, Vice-President; Red Kann, Vice-President; T. J. Sullivan, Secretary; Sherwin Kane, Executive Editor; James P. Cunningham, News R. Weaver, Editor; London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London Wl, Hope Burnup, Manager; Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address, "Quigpubco, London." All contents copyrighted 1944 by Quigley Publishing Co., Inc. Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, International Motion Picture Almanac, Fame. Entered as second class matter, Sept. 23, 1938, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; single copies, 10c.