Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1944)

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2 Motion Picture Daily Thursday, October 5, 1944 New 'Gift-Films' in Nazi Prison Camps American war prisoners in Germany are now seeing new American films in prison camps, it was disclosed here yesterday by Dr. Tracy Strong, general secretary of the World YMCA, who has just returned from Stockholm after a tour of European film distribution centers established by YMCA War Prisoners' Aid. Recent shipments, he revealed, include "Step Lively," "Casanova Brown," "Higher and Higher," "In Society," "Arsenic and Old Lace," plus three that have not yet been released in this country, "Saratoga Trunk," "Devotion" and "Crime by Night." The films, part of the industry's War Activities Committee world-wide gift film program to the Armed Forces, are turned over to the YMCA by the U. S. Army Pictorial Service. Prints travel via Red Cross boat to Marseilles, thence to Geneva, and from Geneva into Germany for distribution to the. camps. YMCA workers who visit the camps regularly report the reception of pictures by the American prisoners as "enthusiastic and grateful." Dr. Strong reported that pictures for U. S. war prisoners are subjected to heavy censorship by authorities in this country before they are allowed to leave here, and by the German censors before they are permitted to be shown in the camps. An average of 25 programs monthly, of features and short subjects, are now passing the required tests. Alperson Will Start First in 2 Months Edward . L. Alperson will start production in about two months on "Black Beauty," his first production, to be released" by 20th Century-Fox under a recently concluded six-film distribution deal covering a period of two years. Alperson will leave for California next Monday. The script for "Black Beauty" has been completed by Lillian Hayward, who did the screenplay of "My Friend Flicka." His second film will be based on Somerset Maugham's "Sheppy," the play. Para, Workers9 Bond Buy is 10 Millions Hollywood, Oct. 4. — Purchase of war bonds by employes of the Paramount studio total $10,000,000 to date, it has been reported by Ralph Green, manager of the Paramount Studio Employes Federal Union, issuing agency for the securities. Gail Russell, company player, purchased a $100 bond which made the total an even $10,000,000. 'It s Murder F to Talkers The War Activities Committee will screen a new OWT short, titled "It's Murder !", made to help cut down loose talk about troop movements, at RKO's home office tomorrow. It was produced by Columbia, released through the Office of War Information and distributed through the industry's War Activities Committee. Personal SPYROS SKOURAS, president of 20th Century-Fox, left by plane for the Coast yesterday. • Lieut, (j.g.) Robert L. Estill, USN. formerly Paramount head booker in Seattle, has returned after two years in the Aleutians and this week visited George A. Smith, Western division sales manager, and other home office executives. • H. Bob Engel, sales manager for the DeVry Corp. of Chicago, has returned to that city following a' threeweek's business trip on the West coast. • John R. Wood, Jr., March of Time sales manager, is visiting the Buffalo 20th Century-Fox exchange and will go to the Cleveland and Detroit offices before returning to New York. P/O Thomas Dowbiggin, RCAF, son of Tom Dowbiggin, veteran Paramount exchange manager in Toronto, is a prisoner after a raid over Germany. • Lieut. Jack Braunagel, formerly with Intermountain Theatres in Logan, Utah, and Mrs. Braunagel are vacationing in New York. • Henley Smith owner of the Imperial Theatre, Pocohontas, Ark., and Mrs. Smith are in New York on vacation. • Egon Klein, representative of Calderon Productions, Mexico City, will return there next week after visiting here for several months. • Wtilma Freeman, United Artists promotion manager, will leave for the Coast tomorrow. • Irving Rapper, Warner director, will leave here Monday for Hollywood. • Philip Keenan, general manager of Hillman Periodicals, has left for Toledo. • Budd Rogers and Mrs. Rogers will leave for Hollywood tomorrow. • Mary Pickford will leave for the Coast by train today. 20th Gets B. and K. House for 'Wilson' Chicago, Oct. 4. — "Wilson" will finally get a Chicago release through 20th Century-Fox's leasing of Balaban and Katz's Apollo in the Loop for 10 weeks, starting Oct. 18. "Wilson," "Since You Went Away" and other important current pictures have been held up in this area because of a lack of Loop first-run outlets due to holdovers and subsequent product jams, as reported yesterday in Motion Picture Daily. Spyros Skouras, 20th-Fox president, in town to address the Greek War Relief Association, is mapping promotion plans for "Wilson" with Jack Lorentz, district manager. Mention N ICHOLAS M. SCHENCK, president of M-G-M, will arrive from the Coast on Monday. • Florence Gordon of Warner district manager Charles Rich's staff at Cleveland, is resigning to marry 1st. Lieut. Philip Aster when he returns after two years in Alaska about Oct. 15. • J. B. Underwood, Southwestern division manager for Columbia with headquarters in Dallas, is meeting with Rube Jackter, assistant general sales manager, in Oklahoma City. • William Marchese of M-G-M's sales department, and Mrs. Marchese, former M-G-M employe, are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary. • Lt. Leonard Spinrad, now of the Army Overseas Motion Picture Service and formerly with Warners Eastern publicity department, will marry Thelma Zipkin in November. • Joseph Friedman, Columbia's managing director in England, is awaiting a transportation priority to permit his early return to London. • Ralph Stitt of 20th-Fox's home office publicity department is in Hartford from New York. • Jacob Segal, Columbia's assistant foreign sales manager will return Monday from a vacation. • Moe Sherman, Monogram salesman in Philadelphia, is resting at home following an illness. • Norman Elson, vice president of Trans Lux Theatres, will leave for Washington today. N • Roger Ferri, editor of Dynamo, 20th Century-Fox house organ, is en route to Hollywood. • Don Mili, Warner director, will arrive in New York tomorrow from the coast. • I. F. Dolid, supervisor of Warner exchanges, left yesterday for Boston. He will return at the weekend. Testimonial for Irving Wormser Exhibitors, distributors, press and representatives of allied fields paid tribute yesterday to Irving Wormser at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor here. Wormser has resigned as assistant to Nat Cohn, Columbia's district manager here, to become a sales executive of Film Classics. Some 300 were present at the testimonial, with the following on the dais : Louis Nizer, Fred Schwartz, Si Fabian, Harry Brandt, Sam Rinzler, Joseph Seider, Harold Mirish, Max Cohen, E. L. Goldhammer, Leo Brecher, William White, Louis Frisch, Louis Weinberg, Eugene Picker, Edward Alperson. Balaban Sees Marine Son in Para. News Barney Balaban, Paramount president, recognized his son, Sgt. Burt Balaban, with the Marines in the South Pacific, in the current Paramount newsreel. The films were among the last taken by Damien Parer, Paramount cameraman who was last week reported killed in the Peleliu Islands. Young Balaban is a combat photographer and has also written syndicated articles while photographing jungle battles from bombers. He has been with the Marine Corps for two years and has seen service on Truk, Wake, the Marianas and Guam. Klarsf eld Safe in Paris, Reports Hicks Henry Klarsfeld, Paramount's prewar general manager of distribution in Paris, has turned up there in good health and ready to rejoin the company, according to a cable received in New York yesterday by John W. Hicks, Jr., president of Paramount International. No word had been received from Klarsfeld for the past 27 months. Klarsfeld joined the company in January, 1921, as a salesman. MacMurray, Fenton Organize Mutual Hollwood, Oct. 4. — Fred MacMurray and Leslie Fenton have organized their own unit, to be known as Mutual Productions with one picture already set, "Pardon My Past," in which MacMurray will star and Fenton produce and direct. MacMurray's 20th Century-Fox contract allows him to appear in outside productions. No release channel for the picture has been set. Hal Chester Forms Production Unit Hal E. Chester, formerly associated with "The Little Tough Guys" and "The East Side Kids," will produce two films a year, through his own new independent unit. Chester, who has acquired film rights to Ham Fisher's cartoon character, "Joe Palooka," will base his first film on an original Fisher story, as yet untitled. Negotiations are now under way for a releasing channel and a director. 18th for Century Century Circuit, operating 17 theatres in Brooklyn, will open the Linden Theatre there on Oct. 12. Receipts of the opening day will go to the Red Cross. 'Woman' Tradeshow The New York trade-showing of International's "The Woman in the Window," distributed by RKO, previously set for the RKO exchange here, Monday, will be screened instead at the Normandie Theatre. 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." Martin Quigley, President; Colvin Brown, Vice-President; Red Kann, Vice-President; T. J. Sullivan, Secretary; Sherwin Kane, . Executive Editor; James P. Cunningham, News Editor Herbert V. Fecke, Advertising Manager; Chicago Bureau^ 624 South Michigan Ave.; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Bldg., William 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.